Quantum Humanism: The Reality of the Atom and the Mind through a Dooyeweerdian Lens

Quantum Humanism: The Reality of the Atom and the Mind through a Dooyeweerdian Lens

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Introduction

This paper advances the possibility that the apparent logical fissure emergent in reductionist thought coming from orthodox science of the twentieth century and the application of the scientific method is manifest in what we know and do not understand in quantum mechanics can be liaised to an intellectual percept though the perspective offered by Herman Dooyeweerd’s theory of Modal Aspects. In simple terms this means that while we do not know what complexity is in reality, most of us are ready to agree that we live in a complex world. This complex world of ours we do contend is the Universe. In this Universe at one point in time in the evolution of human thought it seemed intuitive and reasonable to think and believe that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Most of us have by now accepted that an Earth centred Universe was a fallacy of those archaic dark times. Why would we think that humans born of the earth, and returning to it upon death, are any different from the rest of Matter in the Universe?

When introducing a new theory, and in the particular case of bridging two disciplines, those of quantum theory and modal aspects, there are challenges caused by the fact that there is yet no terminology or translation tables available. However it would be helpful to think that when looking at phenomena, be it physical or behavioural, one needs to take particular account of the context. When dealing with physical phenomena, say an atom, part of the context is comprised of physical variables such as temperature or other surrounding Matter. In the particular case of atoms, these do not exhibit macroscopic wave nature at ordinary high temperatures such as room temperature, and do bounce around like billiard balls. Take the case of a sodium atom at room temperature a bit further, if this sodium atom is surrounded by normal atmosphere, it will not remain very long in that state as it will react with the water and oxygen in the atmosphere, and it is only within a vacuum chamber that one can isolate single sodium atoms at room temperature as a vapour. However when a sufficiently dilute sodium gas cloud is isolated in vacuum and cooled to less than a millionth of a degree of absolute zero these same atoms will exhibit observable wave nature, and can be manipulated to form an atom-laser, that is, a beam of coherent Matter analogous to the better known photon laser as demonstrated by Ketterle (2006). However the sodium atom in an atom-laser is indistinguishable from a sodium atom in table salt ionically (chemically) bound to a chlorine atom, they differ however in their physical and environmental contexts, and thus displays different interactions and behaviours. One can look at this atom in the two different contexts as expressing different Modal Aspects.

Quantum mechanics and quantum theories do not appear intuitive and have throughout their gradual evolution during the century of their formulation met with considerable resistance, opposition and disbelief from well-established and credible scientific and philosophical scholars. Nonetheless the success of the various elements of quantum mechanics theory in explaining observed and measurable phenomena have stood their own ground and advanced the cause that we refer to as knowledge. Those arguing against the validity of the various aspects of quantum theory have gone to either rationalize their own beliefs by various intellectual stratagems, or stood corrected, learned and went on towards continuing the exploration and expansion of human knowledge.

In this paper we aim to enrich this exploration and expansion by introducing a non-reductionist approach to understanding the atom and all reality, based on the work of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd. We start with a premise that seems contrary to past philosophical discourses, and that from an holographic perspective given by a quantum theoretical view of the Universe is however obvious, that is that humans, being part of the Universe, and an organised assembly of specific molecular forms of Matter, function in the same Aspects and are subject to their laws in the same manner as any other Matter including microscopic Matter.

Based on Dooyeweerdian thinking we postulate that all things, including atoms and their subatomic components function within a number of Aspects (Quantitative, Spatial, Physical, Kinematic, Lingual, Biotic, Sensitive, Analytical, Formative, Social, Economic, Aesthetic, Juridical, Ethical, Pistic). The Aspects provide us with a distinct meaning of the entities or events we encounter in life with the atom being one such thing. They also give us distinct conceptual frameworks from which we can understand, describe and discuss the world including the atom. Finally, they provide us with clarity which allows us to make distinctions between different things thus avoid overlap. This last potential is particularly useful to clarify the often confusing discussion surrounding the nature of the atom. Immediately, this approach recognises that things, like the atom, are not simple but can be quite complex and function in a reality that is multi aspectual.

The notion of Aspects is introduced in terms of these being ways of describing things or modes in which things like the atom function. A number of important features of Aspects are introduced including their equal importance, dependency on each other, order amongst aspects, and their irreducibility. At this point it is natural to say that atoms respond to all Aspects. However, we accept that entities respond, function or exhibit behaviour in these Aspects in varying ways. Some Aspects are more relevant than others when we try and account for the meaning of these entities. This proposition opens the way for introducing the notions of the “Qualifying” and “Founding” Aspects, which we will use to describe the nature of the atom. The “Qualifying Aspect”, is the one that captures, more intuitively, than the others the meaning of the atom. However, by itself this Aspect does not tell us anything unique about the atom to distinguish it from other things qualified by the same Aspect. This is where the notion of a “Founding Aspect” is brought in. However, these two types of Aspects are not to be seen as separate when discussing the atom. We argue that they bind together in an inseparable way and use the notions of “Enkapsis” or “Type Law” to elucidate a way of thinking of these. The notions of Qualifying, Founding Aspects and their Enkapsis form the basis from which we discuss and explain the dual nature of the atom.

According to this approach the atom – representing the basic unit of which molecules are assembled – functions in all Aspects as Humans do but with varying degrees of expression. This enables us to introduce the basis for arguing not only the role of Humans in the debate surrounding sub atomic matter but also to gain some insight in what the quantum limit represents. We will argue that even though all creation functions and is subject to the laws of all Aspects they do so in varying ways exhibiting various extents of expression for each particular Aspect. We borrow the terminologies of “Active” and “Passive” aspectual functioning to discuss and understand this issue. The interconnectedness of particles at the sub atomic level is treated under one of the fundamental notions of the whole of the Multi Aspectual philosophy. This notion states that Aspects are inseparable from each other and that within each Aspect there are echoes of all other Aspects. This inseparability opens up the debate for discussing how, why, when and what happens as one atom affects another.

It is expected that a Multi Aspectual framework for understanding atoms as prescribed above will put the atom in a more intuitive position in relation to our understanding of the rest of reality. The atom is no longer to be treated as an alien or paradoxical entity but rather as a thing subject to the same Aspects and Aspectual laws that enable the functioning of the rest of reality. This intuitiveness will hopefully advance Science in ways possibly not imagined before. Finally, this paper will be yet another small step for taking Dooyeweerdian way of thinking to go beyond social sciences into the world of Physics and maybe other fields of human enquiry.

The Scientific Method, Quantum Mechanics and Reality

The exact nature of reality has puzzled humanity for centuries, perhaps even millennia. Science and the scientific method approach claimed to have the right to lead the way to what became known as the quest towards discovering the Holy Grail of reality, a reality that was then assumed to be physical, exact, and measurable. The two major figures who influenced this endeavour were those of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Descartes (1596-1650). The two views were diametrically opposed to each other. Whilst Bacon advocated the dominance of humanity over nature and was proponent of an experimental, qualitative-inductive approach, Descartes on the other hand followed a mathematical-deductive approach driven by the assumption of a perfectly deterministic world. Modern science uses a combination of the two approaches with mixed degrees of success.

Most would regard quantum physics and its new insights as phenomena solely manifest in the microscopic scale and whose consequences need not concern us in the comparatively huge world of our daily life. Quantum physics poses a challenge to our perception but science seems unable to provide an adequate and convincing answer. It may at this point be appropriate to address the nature of the failure. Is the failure inherent in science methodology, or is it a perception failure?

Whatever the nature of the inadequacy we are left with some difficult and still unsettled philosophical dilemmas. They are the dual (corpuscular-wave) nature of matter, the role of the human at this subatomic level, and the subatomic interconnectedness. The first concerns the much debated and often publicised question that matter, all Matter, behaves like both a wave and as a particle. The second one suggests that what you do to one particle can affect a second, even if they are sufficiently separated in space. This suggests that particles are connected over large distances by “non-local” forces acting instantaneously. The third one carries an even greater challenge questioning if there is a role for humans functioning at the level of every day life at the microscopic level of the atom.

If observed phenomena can be explained by models that seems to not be intuitive, what is then in the nature of the so-called intuition that obscures the reality of the evidence? Does the difficulty reside within intuition, reality, or with the evidence itself? In our Universe, what are the characteristics of what we call Matter? How does Matter manifest itself and how do we perceive this Matter?

Dualism

A fundamental characteristic of atoms as described by quantum mechanics is that they are not simply particles or waves, but exhibit both wave and particle properties. While the interference of light quanta wave packets – photons – to yield dark and light regions can be imagined by thinking that when waves meet crest to trough they cancel each other, or add up in meeting crest to crest or trough to trough, the idea of doing the same with sodium atoms is not intuitive.

In the early twentieth century the very nature of the scholarly understanding of Matter was challenged when Max Planck (1858-1947) proposed that if energy were absorbed and radiated in discrete quanta, the black body radiation spectrum – the spectral distribution of electromagnetic radiation in thermodynamic equilibrium with matter – could be explained, while the equations derived from classical theory where in violent disagreement with the experiment; this was Planck’s contribution to our understanding of the Universe and for which he was awarded the Physics Nobel Prize in 1928. With this first assault on classical physical theory demonstrating its fallibility, Planck thus opened up the door to the elaboration and development of quantum mechanics, which in turn allowed for an adequate accounting of various physical phenomena for which the so-called classical physics comprising mechanics and electromagnetism could offer neither explanation, physical description or cognitive insight.

Max Born (1882-1970) proposed that the quantum mechanical wavefunction determine the probability of the measuring results thus taking the view that quantum mechanics gives only a statistical description. Adding the statistical description to the matrix mechanics of Dirac to the tools available to explore the then new quantum possibility opened up many avenues to both theorists and experimentalists.

Eric Cornel, Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl Wiemar, shared the Physics Nobel Prize in 2001 for experimentally enabling the demonstration of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute alkali metals trapped as a gas inside an ultra high vacuum chamber. The world’s first direct observation of a matter wave function equally capable of displaying interference phenomena like that observed of a photon or electron wave function was achieved with a dilute gas of alkali atoms. Intuitive or not, Matter, all Matter behaves both as a particle and as a wave.

While quantum mechanics provided some explanations to then classically unexplainable but observable physical phenomena, such as the photoelectric effect, which Einstein explained, it also created formidable philosophical challenges since it apparently violates what were considered basic ontological principles on which classical physics rested, most notably those with a deterministic character.

It is possible to rationalize away the lack of materialistic correspondence in the case of a photon wave packet due to the photon’s lack of mass, in the case of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate – a macroscopic population of millions of atoms in a single quantum state – exhibiting the same behaviour, most concepts of the material world break down and reductionism’s materialistic perspective fails the observed reality. The wave nature of Matter is represented by a wave function, that is, by a mathematical representation of the particle’s probability of being at a certain location. In plain terms this means that the interference pattern represents a way to comprehend or visualize that there are locations in the dimensions that we call space with zero probability of finding the particle there, and other locations where there is a maximal probability. In either circumstantial extreme and in between, this interference ripple pattern corresponds to the absolute square of the wave function in that volume.

Through our perception we sense the physical and non-physical world’s information through a series of perceptive screens – senses, sensors, instruments, filters, prejudices, beliefs – and have build according to these perceptions based on an incomplete set of information an almost exclusively materialistic story of reality. We do not sense all information being broadcast – isotropically or anisiotropically – at us simultaneously. We – humans – do not have enough sensory processing capacity to register – perceive – it all simultaneously, at least not at this point in our organic evolution. This may be seen as pointer to the limitations of the sensory aspect to accommodate and account for all reality. Hayek (1945) formulated this idea as what is often referred as the bounded rationality that has inspired many economists towards the formulation of rational economic order theories and materialism.

Human endeavour has not limited itself to either reductionism or materialism theories regardless of how popular these may have been in the last few centuries within Western culture. In abstracting our observations through the limited sensory and processing apparatus of both our technologies and cognitive abilities, through out the millennia of human existence we have constructed and explored theories of varying complexity driven by a compulsion to make sense of it, create meaning, predict the future and control it. Clément (2003) conjectures that in getting a good picture of the causal nature of the world allows for a wide range of accurate predictions that can favour various volitional goals.

It was only recently in the early years of the twentieth century that it was observed experimentally that light behaved as tiny particles now called photons. Wave-particle duality was first discovered to be a feature of light in the early part of this century by Albert Einstein when he demonstrated that the photoelectric effect could be understood if one postulated that radiation itself consists of a beam of corpuscles (particles), the photons. It was for this work that Einstein was awarded the Physics Nobel Prize in 1921. Subsequently, experiments by Clinton Davisson and George Thomson, who shared the Physics Nobel Prize in 1937, demonstrated that electrons, traditionally regarded as particles, also behave as waves in experiments where an electron beam is diffracted from a crystal lattice. In fact, diffraction experiments lend support to the interpretation of the wave-particle duality of microscopic objects and that there exists a statistical bond between their wave nature and their particle aspect. It is of interest to note that the Physics Nobel Prize in 1906 was awarded to the J. J. Thomson for discovering the electron, and to de Broglie in 1929 for discovering that the electron behaves as a wave.

Entangled Paradoxes

Time and space may have stood still during the last century while quantum mechanics was being formulated however the human quest for knowledge has continued to advanced. Those unencumbered by the plight of not intuiting the dual nature of matter have gone on to gather further evidence that quantum mechanics itself is a functional theoretical representation for some aspects of our Universe.

As pointed out by Baez (2001) in a nontechnical introduction to recent work in quantum gravity using higher dimensional algebras, our present physical worldview is deeply schizophrenic. The two fundamental theories of the physical universe – general relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics based on quantum field theory – ignore on either side fundamental components of the other model. That is, while general relativity takes into account gravity recognizing that spacetime is curved and ignores quantum mechanics disregarding Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the Standard Model takes into account quantum mechanics, but ignores gravity and pretends that spacetime is flat.

Bojowald (2007) asked if the Universe before the big bang was of a classical nature well described by a smooth spacetime or if it was in a highly fluctuating quantum state. Based on loop quantum gravity – thus accounting for both spacetime curvature and quantum mechanics – Bojowald applied an exactly solvable mathematical model to analyse the evolution of a cosmological quantum system and illustrated some limitations to our understanding of nature. While it is taken for granted that a bounce (volume bounded away from zero during evolution) in cosmology allows an extrapolation of all physical quantities to times before the big bang, this expectation is not realized in a solvable model of minimum computational complexity and the memory of certain aspects of the universe before the big bang is lost while transiting through it. This mathematical treatment reveals that while the system – the Universe going through the big bang – is not chaotic, any trace of some of its initial conditions is lost in time as could be expected of a quantum system. This model also offers an interesting possibility to the nature of our Universe, and that is that is one whose evolution never stops, that is, being cyclic where some traces of each cycle are irretrievably lost shortly after the transiting from collapse to expansion.

In 1935 Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen published an argument with quantum mechanics’ prediction that certain states described as quantum entangled states by Schrödinger, could have a strong correlation between distant measurements. This argument is known as the EPR paradox and can be viewed as argumentation against quantum mechanics because the impossibility of predicting the measurement other than in probabilistic terms was in their view theoretical evidence that quantum theory was incomplete and it omitted to take into account certain aspects of reality. The nature of the quantum mechanics description is however statistical, and thanks to the insight of Bell (1964) who translated the EPR paradox into an experimentally accessible inequality that has subsequently been verifiably violated experimentally, quantum mechanics received more reality evidence as pointed out by Alain Aspect (1999). One can think of an entangled photon pair as predicted by quantum mechanics to be a non-separable object that can be sent in two different directions and then each photon measured at distances of several hundred meters (or kilometers) from each other and still exhibit the same quantum state as though in some sense, both photons keep in contact through spacetime during flight.

Put within this perspective, it is almost ironic that it would be Einstein himself who argued with quantum mechanics’ prediction of entangled quantum states and somehow forgot that for which he is so well known for, spacetime. Not that any of this is easy to intuit, but those with limber minds in the field of higher-dimensional algebras, topological quantum field theories, and loop quantum gravity may soon demonstrate that there is a representation in which entangled states are just another aspect of the geometry of nature.

Statistics, Language, Cognition and Truth

The narrative of the universal quantum adventure was given a suspenseful and unexpected turn by Max Born’s statistical interpretation of Schrödinger’s wave function thus advancing our understanding of the Universe, in particular the nature of Matter. This insight was a strong hint that the Universe’s Matter is not only discrete, but exhibits collective behaviour that can be represented by the language of statistical mechanics. Statistics is the abstract representational language for collections of discreet things. A collection of silicon atoms can be made to crystallize or solidify in some less orderly state described as amorphous, and in either case it will exhibit distinct cohesive behaviour that the isolated individual atom will not. Given the quantum scale of the atom, cohesive properties themselves can be understood through quantum mechanics, as is the case for the electronic properties in silicon. In a way one could say that silicon’s semiconductor behaviour is social behaviour.

Archaeologists and linguists have gathered evidence for the emergence and evolution of symbolic culture and language and these point towards it being an example of emergent phenomena as prescribed by the nature of complex adaptive systems. It is however only recently that statistical physicists have applied their tools towards the theoretical study of language. Statistical mechanics was used to arrive at the conclusion that human-like communication systems can be captured in a clean formal calculus and did provide evidence that language emerges as social behaviour within artificial systems as done by Steels (2006). The evidence that artificial systems can handle the symbol grounding problem needed to arrive at the emergence of a human-like communication system like language does take many who have argued vehemently against this possibility by surprise. Social behaviour is not the monopoly of what we call life, much less of humans.

Language and symbolism is however the vehicle of our narrative and meaning creation. Through the use of language we can carry forward and communicate many abstract concepts and propagate what we call beliefs. According to Clouser a religious belief is any belief in something or other as divine, and divine is anything not depending on anything else. We observe, often even with much emotion, that humans have a propensity to believe almost anything against all logical or rational thought. What is certain is that belief systems create sense, and that we all believe in something or other regardless of the status of its divinity. What exactly that sense is that gets created is an issue that philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists and psychologist alike like to theorize about. Based on Gopnik’s observation of child development and subsequent postulation of a cognitive drive that puts explanation’s relationship to cognition at the level of an orgasm’s relationship to reproduction, Clément (2003) goes on to look into belief. In Clément’s words and citing Ullmann (1989) most cases of religious conversions occur against a background of emotional turmoil and instability while the converts are far more looking for peace and stability than truth. That is, from an evolutionary point of view the cognitive process aims at creating a viable solution – making sense and searching for causality – for whatever the circumstance at that moment in human spacetime is.

From this cognitive drive point of view, truth is either irrelevant or of inconsequence. Truth has however a claim to the absolute, that is, to that that does not depend on anything else. However for the organism’s fitness and survival, the pragmatic and relative is what primes over the idealistic divine truth. In short, humans will believe in anything that will give it/them a sense of immediate peace. We thus advance the possibility that to believe is the human theoretical action model or metric that sustains life. Thus religious belief is a subset of a larger set of human beliefs.

What distinguishes belief from theory is that theory never pretends to be truth; theory models observation and experience in an attempt to create an understanding of reality. Belief on the other hand often lays a claim to truth and it creates a space that can be called the breeding ground of morals. In the food chain of evolution, belief is the precursor to theory. One can say that belief is the archaic precursor to theory analogous to Newtonian mechanics being the precursor to general relativity.

The Universe or the so-called Matter is interdependent and there is no element of it that does not depend on anything else. What is not immediately obvious is that the strength of the coupling of the interdependency could be determined by a topological relationship that has yet to be illuminated. This may however pose a problem to Clouser’s definition that the divine is that which does not depend on anything else.

Like identity, belief and theory are virtual abstract constructs of the mind that exist without physical embodiment. This is, whatever permits humans to construct theory is something that is ineffable, thus not necessarily amenable to representation. Our quest is thus one for a representational reality while trying to make sense of the non-representational. In a world of information, we acquire knowledge through cognition. Knowledge is the cognitively processed information. Like theories are part of our knowledge, so is belief and evidently also all the other screens that filter our perception. Within this line of argument, perception is then both the filtered and unfiltered information that we receive.

The bridge – morphism – between belief and quantum mechanics may reside in cognition if one is to define cognition as the functional relationship between information and knowledge. Let’s consider that information and knowledge are related by a transformation of which cognition is the operator or morphism. Information is what matter and energy – Matter – contain. In other words one could consider the nature of information to be universally pervasive or ubiquitous. This is tantamount to saying that the Universe is closed system of information. Any observable or potentially observable phenomenon is emergent out of this complex adaptive system, which with some good fortune higher-dimensional algebras gives us some abstract access to. Within this ontology is it perhaps not too surprising that language itself is an emergent phenomenon in a dynamic adaptive complex system exhibiting local manifestation or expression.

Emergence, Ubification and Enkapsis

Of all things that we do question, change may be the only reality around which there is a broad consensus, change happens. If we take the view that the Universe is an information complex adaptive system containing all the aesthetics and abstractions of its self-expression, then we may easily transit to Dooyeweerd’s view of nature. In a heuristic theory of change there is besides the general adaptive cycle, also hierarchies that are formed by nested sets of such cycles at progressively larger scales. If the demonstration of the emergence of language in both human and artificial social systems is too tenuous to be considered evidence for the universality and interdependence of our Universe, it is at least a good hint that this may be an interesting approach to explore.

Reductionism and materialism, even if presently under criticism have also revealed considerable amounts of valuable information that could be archived and processed, and should not be regarded as wrong, but could benefit from being placed within an appropriate context. That appropriate context in our view is that of these being theories that have advanced our knowledge of our surroundings and Universe. The fragmentation into various disciplines was not only necessary but also valuable in order to transit to the next level of exploration. At that next level of exploration we bring it together heuristically in what we would like to call the process of ubification.

In ubification – process and thus a dynamic – that function between the various spaces relevant to whereness (spacetime) those things which during the past couple of centuries disconnected from one another with minute scholarly diligence driven by our reductionist zeal propelled by our cognitive drive to make sense, are again interconnected and find themselves to be a part of the Universe again. Through Dooyerwerd’s mind, enkapsis is the relationship that couples the combination of nested structures that are combined to create different structures of individuality.

The need for a new understanding

Calls for a rethink of our existing reductionist, referred to by Durr (2005) as materialistic-mechanistic worldview, of classical physics are progressively gathering momentum. New ways of thinking about reality and the nature of reality and the atom itself are gaining acceptance particularly as a result of the intriguing insights into the nature of reality and the atom being brought about by quantum physics. Often reductionist accounts of physics are driven by a single perspective often shaped by a physical understanding of reality. Hence the perceived difficulty amongst physicists and philosophers about the nature of the atom being either physical or wave but not both. Clouser (1991) writes so eloquently about the conflict and contradictions often found in the theories developed by the great minds of our time into the nature of reality. Table 1 summarizes the differing views of the nature of the atom propagated by such theories:

 

Theorist

Nature of reality

Mach

A system of fictitious entities

Einstein

Hypothesis which correspond to un experienced physical objects

Heisenberg

Physical properties but essentially mathematical in nature

Experimental work on the duality of the atom has given rise to incoherence’s, Sikkema (2005). The interaction between an entity and its observer determines which part of the duality manifests itself, i.e. when looking for wave features the atom looks like a wave and vice versa. The recognition of the reality of the wave nature of entities is a blow to the idea of composition being fundamental to understanding reality and the atom.

Such traditional reductionist frameworks of understanding reality are often engulfed in rigid structures that allow little room if any for any sort of flexibility which is so needed particularly when considering how to deal with the apparent paradox or dual nature of the atom. Furthermore, such approaches may even hinder progress into the field of enquiry itself. Sikkema (2005) argues that the more one knows about the wave nature of a specific entity, the less one knows about its particle nature, and vice versa. At the beginning of this century Lord Rutherford and the Danish physicist Niels Bohr designed a beguilingly simple model of the atom as a miniature solar system, in which negatively charged electrons circle like planets round a positively charged nucleus. But the model ran into one paradox after another: the electrons behaved quite unlike planets: they kept jumping from one orbit into a different orbit without passing through intervening space – as if the earth were suddenly transferred into the orbit of Mars without having to travel. The orbits themselves were not linear trajectories but wide, blurred tracks, and it was meaningless to ask for instance at what point of its orbit the electron of the hydrogen atom was at any given moment of time; it was equally everywhere. In fact Heisenberg himself wrote “The very attempt”, “to conjure up a picture “of elementary particles” and think of them in visual terms is wholly to misinterpret them”, Burt (1967). It seems Heisenberg implicitly suggests opposition to reductionism. Philosophically, the developments of quantum mechanics were far-reaching. Like relativity, they again showed that humans could not assume that the physical laws which seem to govern a 60-kg person moving at speeds up to several hundred kilometres per hour also applied to bodies far from this regime. They also brought into question the assumption of the perfectly deterministic world proposed by Laplace. Clearly it was impossible to predict the position and velocity of every body for all future times if you could not even know these coordinates accurately at a single instant in time. This conclusion has even been used as the basis of the claim that humans have free will, that all is not predetermined as would seem to be the case in a purely mechanistic, deterministic world governed by the laws of physics. These ideas are still heavily debated today, as in a recent article by Roger Penrose in the book Quantum Implications.

Answers or even clarifications of these issues seems to be moving more and more towards philosophical accounts rather than so called scientifically oriented methods. This becomes evident when considering the double slit experiment; our observation of what is going on at the slits causes an irreversible change in the behavior of the electrons. This is usually called the “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.” The conclusion of all this is that there is no experiment that can tell us what the electrons are doing at the slits that does not also destroy the interference pattern. Limitations of experimental work in accounting for the very nature of reality is also discussed in Clouser (1991). This is the conclusion come to by Bohr, in establishing his “principle of complementarity”: the wave and particle descriptions of matter (or electromagnetic radiation) are complementary, in the sense that our experiments can test for one or the other, but never for both properties at the same time.

This paper attempts to give an intuitive account of the apparent paradoxical nature of the atom. It does so by freeing itself from the rigidity of the reductionist viewpoint of the nature of reality and working out an account of the nature of the atom based on a non reductionist philosophy advocated by Herman Dooyeweerd.

Towards a Dooyeweerdian interpretation of the atom

When discussing the nature of the atom there seems to be two sets of issues to contend with: These are:

  1. Nature of the atom itself
  2. Nature of the atom when interacting with a human observer

Bridging these two issues will contribute to clarifying the mystery and some of the paradoxical characteristics of the atom. To do this we will be driven by the following factors that are central to Dooyweerdian thinking and understanding:

  1. Understanding reality within a Multi Aspectual framework. Here we introduce Doyyewered’s Law framework which transcends everything else including humans, atoms, etc.
  2. Irreducibility, distinctiveness, and importance of the physical and wave aspects of the atom. The two aspects, namely the Physical and the Kinematic, which seem to characterise the atom are discussed.
  3. The tight coupling between the two aspects as a basis for understanding the duality of the nature of the atom. Here we bring in Dooyeweerd’s notion of Enkapsis and argue that the dual nature of the atom is yet another type of Enkapsis.
  4. Human functioning in this Multi Aspectual framework. Here we will introduce the special place of humans in this Multi Aspectual framework and how the various functioning modes within it enable us to make sense of the atom in a non controversial way.

The Framework of Law Theory: What are Aspects?

Dooyeweerd proposed that there are a number of distinct aspects of reality which are centered on types of meaning and on modes of being. Aspects are often called ‘spheres’ or ‘modalities’. Each aspect has a distinct set of laws that guide and enable functioning. Our functioning is enabled and given meaning by these aspects, and is multi-aspectual in nature.

Table 1: Dooyeweerd aspects and their kernel meaning (Dooyeweerd pages)

Aspect

What it means

Numeric

How much of things

Spatial

Continuous extension

Kinematic

Motion or movement of things

Physical

Energy and matter

Biotic

Life and vitality

Sensitive

Perception: Seeing and feeling

Analytic

Distinction

Formative

Formative power

Lingual

Symbolic representation

Social

Social interaction and institutions

Economic

Frugality

Aesthetic

Harmony

Juridical

What is due

Ethical

Self-giving love, generosity

Pistic

Faith, vision, commitment

As well as the issue of aspects Dooyeweerd’s philosophy has other issues that can be used to guide our understanding of the atom, we list them as follows:

• Irreducibility of Aspects. The aspects are fundamentally irreducible to each other. This means that no aspect can be derived from another, and that each aspect must be given proper ‘respect’ in a situation.

• Sphere Universality. That these aspects, though irreducible, are nevertheless closely intertwined, such that in each there are echoes of each of the other.

• Dependency among aspects. The aspects form a sequence, in which the laws of an aspect depend on those of earlier aspects for their proper functioning, even though they may not be reduced to them. For example, ‘good’ social functioning depends on ‘good’ lingual functioning, which itself depends on ‘good’ formative, then analytical, sensitive, biotic and physical functioning. It is the earlier aspects that have the more determinative laws while the later aspects have more normative laws.

• The notion of a qualifying aspect. That (almost) all human activities, and (almost) all entities are qualified by one aspect, even though the functioning involved in the activity is in fact multi-aspectual. It is the qualifying aspect that gives an activity or entity its primary meaning, and also provides the most useful criteria for evaluating whether the activity or entity is ‘good’ or ‘impaired’.

• The notion of enkapsis. This helps us understand the nature of entities with more precision. What we experience as an ‘entity’ is often, in fact, an enkaptic intertwinement of several distinct ‘entities’, each of which is qualified by a different aspect. Dooyeweerd’s terms for these two types of ‘entity’ are, respectively ‘enkaptic structural whole’ and ‘individuality structure’. Dooyeweerd’s example is the statue of Praxiteles, which is both a physically qualified block of marble and an aesthetically qualified object of art. Enkapsis speaks of what individuality structures are necessary to the proper understanding of an enkaptic structural whole, rather than what individuality structures could be part of it in various circumstances. For example, the statue of Praxiteles is also an historical and an economic artifact, but these are secondary individuality structures.

The above is a general account of the framework of Aspects and their distinct meanings. The question is in what ways the above account relates to working out an analysis of the nature of the atom. This is what we will discuss in the remaining sections.

Aspects and the atom

A pivotal tenant of Dooyweerdian thinking is that all things including the atom function in all aspects, see Table 2.

Table 2: Aspectual functioning of atoms

Aspect

What it means

Atom’s functioning

Numeric

How much of things

Number of atoms

Spatial

Continuous extension

Atoms occupy space rather than void

Kinematic

Motion or movement of things

Atoms have energy and movement

Physical

Energy and matter

Atoms have mass

Biotic

Life and vitality

Atoms form living tissue

Sensitive

Perception: Seeing and feeling

Effect of atoms can be perceived through experiments

Analytic

Distinction

Atoms are distinguishable from other particles

Formative

Formative power

Not known

Lingual

Symbolic representation

Communicative acts are facilitated by atoms

Social

Social interaction and institutions

Not known

Economic

Frugality

Not known

Aesthetic

Harmony

Atoms

Juridical

What is due

Discoveries of atoms are protected by law

Ethical

Self-giving love, generosity

Not known

Pistic

Faith, vision, commitment

Not known

 

However, certain aspects play what can be considered a central role in defining the behaviour and nature of those things. In Dooyeweerdian terms such an aspect is known as the Qualifying aspect. It is the qualifying aspect that allows us to distinguish one type of entity from another. It is the aspect which best capture the “Atomeness” of the atom. Basden (The Dooyeweerd Pages, 2001) and Clouser (1991) discuss the notion of qualifying aspect at some length. Whilst we share Basden’s concerns that the notion of the qualifying aspect may tend to go down the route of reductionism especially when it is considered in relation to man made artifacts it nevertheless lends itself well to natural artifacts such as the atom. The body of the literature on the nature of the atom has consistently evolved around two aspects; namely the Physical (Particle) or Kinematic (Wave). The question is which of these aspects is the qualifying aspect of the atom? Dooyeweerd talks about the notion of “Individuality Structures” which we can adapt here to talk about the atom. Individuality Structures are to do with Dooyeweerd’s theory of entities which states that real-life “wholes” (or things) involve several distinct individuality structures. Citing Dooyeweerd’s own example of Praxiteles statue of Hermes (a whole) involves at least the following two individuality structures:

  • A block or marble
  • Work of art

Whilst the block of marble is physically qualified, the work of art on the other hand is aesthetically qualified. Both are necessary to the being of the statue. This type of analysis can be mapped to discussing the nature of the atom. We can argue, based on the consistency of what the scientific literature reports, that the atom has two individuality structures:

  • Mass
  • Energy

We can identify and distinguish the individuality structures through aspectual qualification. Mass is physically qualified and energy kinematcially qualified. Therefore, it is essential for discussing the nature of the atom to consider both aspects. This may not be a new insight for physicists themselves but it certainly is an enrichment of existing philosophical debate surrounding the nature of the atom. An alternate way of discussing the nature of the atom in a non reductionist way is to adopt Clouser’s (1991) notion of qualifying aspect and what he calls “Type Laws”. Clouser describes type laws as the laws that range across aspects regulating how properties of the various aspectual types can combine thus forming things of a particular type. In the case of the atom this refers to specific and distinct combinations of certain properties of both the physical and kinematic aspects combining together in some distinct ways to form an atom.

The physical and kinematic aspects are the highest, in terms of order on the list of aspects, in which the atom’s functioning is seen as “active”. This is a term used by Clouser (1991) to distinguish active and passive functioning. The atom’ active functioning in those two aspects means that the rest of reality will experience the atom in term of those properties of those aspects. The atom’s functioning in all the other aspects is known as “passive” functioning. This implies that the atom has a meaning in those aspects when they become part of the active functioning of other entities or beings. So, for example, the atom has passive functioning in the sensory aspect because it does not have senses or does perceive the world but precisely because of this passive functioning it becomes possible for humans who function actively in the sensory aspect to observe the atom experimentally.

The above analysis demonstrates the comprehensibility of underpinning discussion of the atom in Dooyweerdian thinking. The dual, often controversial, nature of the atom can now be seen against the richness of the Law framework such that both the physical and the kinematic aspects are essential for the meaning of the atom. This type of analysis sits comfortably with a Dooyweerdian non reductionist philosophy in contrast with the intense rivalry and contradictions that characterise reductionist approaches.

Clouser’s type laws leads us into our next element of accounting for the nature of the atom and that is the nature of the combination or mapping between the physical and kinematic aspects.

Inseparability of the two aspects: Enkapsis

To simply talk about the atom only in terms of the two aspects of the physical and the kinematic without the stating how properties of the two aspects combine or map onto each other would not form a sound basis for discussing the meaning of the atom. This is evident not only through experimental work but also because it would be very difficult to find something in reality that is of purely one single aspect.

We see the meaning of the atom comes from both aspects simultaneously and not one or the other separately. However, this does not prohibit us from discussing certain properties of the atom that pertain to one of its essential aspects. This happens when physicists conduct experiments to learn about the atom. Such experiments show that the interaction between the atom and its observer is such that its wave nature manifests itself when wave-like questions are asked, and its particle nature manifests itself when particle-like questions are asked. Sikkema (2005) discusses the dual nature of the atom and points out that the more one knows about the wave nature of a specific entity, the less one knows about its particle nature, and vice versa; hence, the “complementarity” of the wave-particle duality. According to our suggested approach, i.e. the two aspectual nature of the atom, this peculiar observation should no longer be seen as a mystery or a paradox. So, what is the nature of the combination between the two aspects ? Dooyeweerd makes use of the term Enkapsis to describe such relationships. Dooyewwerd argues that we experience entities as an enkaptic intertwinement of several distinct ‘entities’, each of which is qualified by a different aspect.

‘enkapsis takes place, when one structure of
individuality [i.e. an entity] restrictively binds a
second structure … without destroying the
peculiar character of the latter.’

Enkapsis speaks of what individuality structures are necessary to the proper understanding of an enkaptic structural whole, rather than what individuality structures could be part of it in various circumstances. Basden (1999) mentions five other different types of Enkapsis cited in Dooyeweerd (1955). These are listed in the table below:

Table 3: Types of Enkapsis (Dooyeweerd pages)

Type of enkapsis

Its meaning

Foundational

as that exhibited by the sculpture (work of art, marble it is made of)

Subject-Object

as between a snail and its shell

Symbiotic

as between clover and nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and also between a cow and its meadow

Correlative

as between an animal and its environment

Territorial

as between a state and its orchestras (direct version) or between a tax-payer and the schools (indirect version)

However, there is a peculiarity about the nature of the relationship or enkapsis between the two aspects we have suggested (physical and dynamic) that comprise the atom. We need to explain why the two aspects of the atom are not immediately available to an observer as with objects of experience at the macro level such as our Praxiteles statue discussed above. An observer of Praxiteles could “appreciate” both aspects of immediately and simultaneously. This unique feature of the micro-world of atoms points to at least three things. One is that we are dealing with a new type of enkapsis which we know little about and one which requires the active collaborations of philosophy and physics. Two, macro level entities, such as our statute of Praxiteles, their being is quite distinct and separate from other statutes and even other beings. This is not true of the atom. The atom as a basic building block of reality transcends all entities. As such attempts to account for the “whole” nature of the atom are really an interference with the fabric of all other entities and things. Now, we are not saying that experiments with atoms are useless but what we are saying is that whilst we may get some data about certain aspects of the atom through calculations we may never really be able to account for its whole meaning. Three, we have to be open minded about our philosophical dispositions and accept their limitations whenever the tare encountered. The duality of the atom and for that matter all other phenomenon at the sub atomic level could well point to limitations of Dooyweerdian thinking to provide intuitive explanations at this level. At this micro level entities may not be observable or perceptible with the same distinctiveness and intuitiveness as we find with macro level entities. Whilst this thesis may not be agreed by all but at least it points to the need for a more work and a better understanding of the notion of Aspects at the sub atomic level.

Conclusion

How are we to understand quantum humanism through the integrative philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd?

The topic of this paper is to underpin the dual nature of the atom in a non reductionist philosophical framework. However, more importantly, its underlying message is an invitation to those who seek truth and wish to understand reality to recognise and appreciate a richer reality than what they previously thought. If we view reality in its totality, material, spiritual or any other set of dimensions, then it is expected that for humans who are given the privilege or rather the burden of understanding it to need more than one system of knowledge or knowing. We have, based on scientific evidence, taken the view that the atom is an enkapsis of two such ways of knowing, known as Aspects. The paper is probably one of few attempts at taking Dooyeweerdian thinking out of its accustomed environment of social science into understanding the world of modern physics. As anticipated the paper revealed the need for more work in this area.

A first interaction with what seems to be the welding of two ends of a long strip of theories representing the evolution of human thought where on one end the ideas encapsulated within the formalism of higher-dimension algebra, topological quantum field theories and loop quantum mechanics that incorporate both the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and general relativity reside, and on the other end a narrative non reductionist philosophy of Modal Aspects stands awaiting critique, is a risky proposition as these two ends seem at first glance to have no common language in spite of their common goal. Both aim at making sense of our Universe.


References

The Dooyeweerd Pages http://www.dooy.salford.ac.uk/

Aspect Alain (1999) “Bell’s Inequality test: more ideal than ever” in Nature 398, 189-190.

Baez John C ( 2001) “Higher-Dimensional Algebra and Planck-Scale Physics” in Physics Meets Philosophy at the Planck Scale, eds. Craig Callender and Nick Huggett, Cambridge University Press, pp 172-195.
.
Basden A, (1999), “On the ontological status of virtual environments”, Paper for Dooyeweerdian Summer Course, Maarssen, Netherlands, Free University of Amsterdam.

Bell John “On The Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox” in Physics 1, 195.

Bojowald Martin (2007), “What happened before the big bang?” Nature Physics 3, 523 – 525, doi: 10.1038/nphys654.

Bronchelli Andrea, Felici Madalena, Loreto Vittorio, Caglioti Emanuele and Steels Luc (2006) “Sharp transition towards shared vocabularies in multi-agent systems” in J. Stat. Mech. P06014.

Clément Fabrice (2003) “The Pleasure of Believing. Toward a naturalist explanation of religious conversions” in Journal of Cognition and Culture, 3 (1), pp. 69-89.

Dooyeweerd H. (1955), A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. I-IV, Paideia Press (1975 edition), Ontario. Now published (1997) by Mellen Press.

Durr Hans-Peter (2005) We have to learn to think in a new way: Potsdam Denkschrift, ISBN-Nr.: 3-86581-012-8.

Einstein A, Rosen N and Podolsky B (1935) “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physcical Reality Be Considered Complete? “ in Phys. Rev. 47, 777-780.

Gopnik Alison (1999) “Explanations as orgasms” in Minds and Machines 8: 101-118.

Hayek Freidrich (1945) “The Use of Knowledge in Society” in American Economic Review, 4, September 1945, 99 519-30.

Ketterle Wolfgang (2006) “Bose-Einstein Condensation: Identity Crisis for Indistinguishable Particles” in Quantum Mechanics at the Crossroads, eds. James Evans and Alan S. Thorndike, Springer, Berlin , 2006, pp. 159-183 (2006)

Loretto Vittorio and Steels Luc (2007) “Emergence of Language” in Nature Physics 3, November 2007.

Steels Luc (2006) “Semiotic dynamics of embodied agents” IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(3):32-38 May/June 2006.

Ullmann Chana (1989) The Transformed Self: The Psychology of Religious Conversion, Springer, ISBN: 0306431343.

While physicist pursue the search for the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and the expedition to find the Higgs that ought to solidify the Standard Model, philosophers keep inquiring as to what the nature of matter and mind might be and propose various theories. At first sight, the high energy physicist or the philosopher, both human, and the elementary particle seem to have nothing in common, however we contend and argue in this paper that we are looking at different scales of what constitutes universal behaviour and use Herman Dooyeweerd’s theory of Modal Aspects to bridge the particle to the mind. To other than a physicist the dual nature of the atom or the so-called elementary particles may be difficult to comprehend and certainly appears unfathomable to intuit. This is due to the fact that the dual nature of matter finds its anchoring within the theoretical and mathematical frameworks provided by quantum mechanics, the latter tends to not be easily accessible to most individual’s intuition. What would the consequences be if human nature itself had a dual character? We all know that human nature is both egoistic and altruistic, however it is not often that one considers the fact that egoism is an individual behaviour, while altruism is a collective behaviour. Likewise a particle is an individual manifestation of what we call matter, while wave nature can be considered characteristic of collective behaviour of the same matter.

Recent advances in experimental physics—the queen of reductionist science—aimed at solving the mysteries of the quantum world has led to a deepening of the mystery rather than easing it, dispelling the EPR paradox and pointing out a conceptional error in this now famous gedanken experiment, while lending some authority and validation to quantum mechanics. The strange features of the quantum world are founded on what Bohr dubbed complementarity, or the way a sub-particle entity can behave either as a wave or as a particle; and on Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which says that a quantum entity such as an electron does not avail itself to a deterministic exact measurement of both position and momentum simultaneously. Such postulates seem to contradict deeply held assumptions by the deterministic and materialistically oriented world of experimental physics where everything, including the atom, can be reduced to a single aspect. There are mounting calls for newer ways of understanding reality that are capable of handling these apparently strange incomprehensible phenomena revealed through the classical observation of the microscopic quantum world. There is also fundamental progress made in bouncing cosmology theories that bridge general relativity to quantum mechanics and provide some insight into the nature of the universe and its transition and pre-history through the big bang.

The thrust of this paper evolves around two pillars. One, is that that the apparent logical fissure emergent in reductionist thought, coming from orthodox science and the application of the scientific method that is manifest in what we know and do not understand in quantum mechanics, can be liaised to our intellectual understanding through the perspective offered by Herman Dooyeweerd’s theory of Modal Aspects. The other, is the central and special role humans have in relation to the universe. Through this approach, we will argue that the dual nature of the atom or elementary particles is, rather than being a strange phenomenon, in fact an essential characteristic of what constitutes its nature.

5/22/2008 05/22/2008 10462 Ethical and Aesthetical Identity—An Approach to Paul Ricoeur’s Thought

Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy of identity aims to surpass two opposing perspectives that cross the last centuries of western thought. On the one hand, the cartesian subjectivity and its private conception of identity, independent of all social conditions and only knowable by introspection; on the other hand, Nietzsche’s view that, according to Ricoeur, undermines and humiliates the subject, conceiving it as a mere linguistic or a rhetorical tool, only as a figure of speech. We know how Descartes’ cogito will inspire future philosophers, like Kant and Husserl; but we also know that Nietzsche’s anti-cogito encouraged recent philosophers, like Jacques Derrida.

Is Ricoeur’s philosophy of subjectivity a successful overcoming of these two diametrical opposing perspectives that cross the last centuries of Western thought? Should we considerer it original, and in its innovation, able to solve the conflict of interpretations on subjectivity? These are the main questions that I’ll try to give an answer.

In my opinion, Ricoeur’s view of personal identity results from the permanent dialectic between Ipse (constancy, Ipseité) and Idem (sameness, mêmeté), that is, between subject’s power to relate continuously to itself during all his life and subject’s psychological and physical traits. If, for instance, identity and Ipse were the same thing, certainly we’d agree that Ricoeur’s philosophy is different from Descartes’ cogito, because ipseity implies temporality. Accordingly, it’s not a substance, an arquê that stands against everything else that is changeable and temporal; but it’d be difficult to separate it from the kantian ‘I think’, the transcendental subject that accompanies all my representations2

What can then be said about this situation when a subject confronts its proper nothing? Ricoeur answers that the assertion “I am not nothing” shows a subject deprived of the self-sameness security and stability, someone who isn’t able to identify himself with his traits and his own history; someone who recognizes himself as a nothing. But subject’s self-idem loss does not really mean that he is not ‘a nothing’. When he says “I am nothing», he still remains a time-existing subject, a subject able to tell something about himself, even when if it is simply the recognition of his proper nothing. Subjectivity doesn’t disappear, since the subject is still able to pose the question and answer it, even though his answer can only be the recognition of his own emptiness. When the subject lives these dramatic moments, he also deals with the dissolution of his descriptive marks, but at the same time still keeps the power to question himself and to provide answers. The reply can be empty, but always implies somebody that gives it.4 It is, in this way, that we become “writers and readers of our proper life”, reclaiming a Marcel Proust’s sentence in Le Temps Retrouvé.

In this way, when Ricoeur says that identity can only be established in a narrative way (which shouldn’t be understood as a simple addition of all plots built by us and told about us), he is rejecting the traditional approach to the personal identity problem – Idem – because this would mean thinking about it like a property, an ownership (steady, lasting) of a form of being. We know how the philosopher objects to this way of thinking. Behind self-idem, there is always a subjectivity that precedes all possible plots and it is their condition of possibility – a self-Ipse.

We can still ask: why subject’s plots about his proper life aren’t pure fiction, without relation to reality? Because plots are especially founded on the subject’s actions, and these, as we know, aren’t private, are public, in the sense that they are observed by others and open to their hermeneutics and narration. In this way, we can only understand who we really are, if we’ll be able to explain our actions and compare them inter subjectively. Like narratives told about others, also the narratives that we create about us are open to other people’s hermeneutics and correction. It’s this inter-subjective dialectic that can help us to distinguish between a true recognition of ourselves and an arbitrary and failed narrative. The Other shouldn’t be understood as excluded from identity, but as a vital part of it. According to his words: «the self implies the other in a so close way that one cannot be thought without the other.»6 we should recognize its importance for social well-being, the basic laws of sociability and mutual respect. On the other hand, we cannot forget the importance of morals to the subjectivity’s constitution. Who we are deeply depends on social customs and habits. It’s from social morality that we get our deeper beliefs on good, happiness, the value of our existence. Who we are is defined, in part, by our social morality.

It urges, then, to ask, are ethics and morals opposite? Let us remember what Ricoeur says: “It is, therefore, by convention, that I will keep the ethical term for the end of a fulfilled life, and morals term for the joint of this end with norms, distinguished at the same time for the pretension to universality and an effect of coercion […]”8

We see, thus, that a good life doesn’t refers to biological existence, but to the “unity of the complete man”, the man’s ability to launch a retrospective look on itself and to appear unified, accordingly with his life’s project. It is, in this context, that we should understand the Socratic precept, according to which, only an examined life deserves to be lived by a man. When the philosopher pronounces these words it is clearly to support, on one hand, that neither all lives have the same value or deserved to be lived and, on the other hand, only thought turns life into a good one. A life without reflection is a life where man gives up his condition, where he renounces to what best defines his own nature. In a similar way, Ricoeur also points out the importance of a reflexive and hermeneutical disposition during life, considering that only this basic exercise allows the accomplishment of a good life; only through thinking we can continually evaluate our existential project (ultimate good) and its connections to our particular actions (relative goods). Thus, the subject’s life is a text that, in order to be understood, is important a permanent reflection about its parts and its connection with the whole, like a hermeneutic circle. Therefore, to explain the ‘text of action ‘ is the same as to explain ourselves, in other words, the ethical subject can’t be disconnected from the narrative one. Now, we notice how Ricoeur’s conception of identity is enriched: in the ethical level, the hermeneutical self becomes ‘self-esteem’, an expression created by the philosopher to assign the personal experience of acting, causing changes in the world and, in this way, to accept (esteem) them as his, as part of his life’s project.

However, it’s this idea of a “true life”, proposed by Socrates, Aristotle and recovered by Ricoeur that allows the connexion between ethics and morals. As the philosopher shows, a good life always implies: 1) a personal satisfaction (ethical level) – because the subject is always the last judge (of the dignity and happiness degree) of his life; 2) moral merit – a life is good if it fits in the society’s moral standards, in those universal and objective models that evaluate the actions of each one, as well as the entire life, independently of the personal happiness. In short, a good life implies an individual’s (delicate) balance between living a rewarding (happy) life and fitting in a certain moral tradition. Ricoeur’s ethics is inseparable from morals: the “true life” results from the accomplishment of an ethical (subjective) existence in community.

But it will be with the concept of responsibility that Ricoeur fully justifies the ethical nature of identity. In fact, the word responsibility etymologically means the direction of an answer to give. But this reply appears, since soon, with a double sense: ‘to answer for’ and ‘to answer to’. Now, in my opinion, this double structure of responsibility will provide the true sense of identity; in other words, only the responsibility’s path makes us unique and irreplaceable. One meaning of responsibility – to answer for – points the relation of man with himself. In fact, to answer for is to answer not only for my acts and their effects, but especially for who I am. And when I already am nothing, I am still responsible for what I commit myself to do, because the binding to the given word is what remains in a subject totally deprived of sameness (Idem). By responsibility, I maintain myself as irreplaceable and, therefore, nobody can answer for me. Only I can do it (otherwise who will do it?), which leaves me with one of two choices: or I accept this responsibility or I resign the possibility to not only answer for my acts and effects, but overall for my life’s project. Being a subject is to be responsible, is to take upon oneself his existence and to answer for it, it is not to delegate this presence, this possibility of truly living in nobody.

Ricoeur understands identiy as a project developed with reference to the other, and if responsibility appears now as its condition of possibility, then this concept should be object of a new thinking. We just can’t identify with the traditional view of responsibility, because its reference is only the past. It is certain that we answer, we are equally responsible for what we did as for what we failed to do or even refused to do. But this retrospective view of responsibility isn’t enough if we want to link it with the conception of identity that we’ve came to sustain. If responsibility is, according to Ricoeur, the identity’s source, then we should take into account the man’s relation with his future.

What does it mean to be responsible then? It means to accept to be considered, in the present, as the same subject that acted in the past and that will act in the future. And it is this new conception of responsibility (which links the past, the present and the future) that defines identity. In fact, the stability of the self is only possible if the subject, being responsible, overall for itself, for his existence, is either able to accept, in the present, as much the past before which he feels indebted, as for the future he promises to carry through and to construct.10 The notion ‘to answer to’ shows law’s current trend in widening responsibility’s domain. Nowadays, responsibility is not limited to the relation between individuals and their effects in the world, but it also includes the relation between agent and patient, someone who causes effects and someone who suffers it. We live at a time when, according to Ricoeur, the victim is the nucleus of law’s responsibility, attending a displacement of the accent previously placed on the agent for the victim, the person who suffers the actual damage. This means that Man doesn’t already answer for itself and its acts, but also for the other. However, it is the fragility and vulnerability of the other that leads to a responsibility’s widening and renders him the source of morality.12 In Antigone the conflict is tragic, since inseparable from this theology, a deity that is, at the same time, too close and too far from man.14

Creon’s last words recognize that it was the same divine inspiration that moved him away from justice’s path, Creon’s hybris is directed by a divine voice that voluntarily leads him to wrong actions, delays his understanding of good and just and throws him in tragic action.16 Greek theology is tragic: deity’s action ends when men more need its aid. It leads subjects to a direct conflict, and because they are unable to solve it, tragic end could only be prevented with the deity’s aid. This help never comes: Antigone walks alone and helpless to death.18 Sophocles religious imaginary reflects the doubts that humanity will deal forever: god’s belief doesn’t imply that man feels, sometimes in life, especially in difficult moments, an agony, solitude and a theological helplessness. As Ricoeur argues, in these moments, man feels a “frustration theological” that, instead of becoming atheism, becomes a tragic faith with Greeks, a faith that keeps believing and invoking this demonic transcendence.20

Original and conciliator, thus we classify Ricoeur’s philosophy on identity. Original, because instead of accepting subject’s traditional boarding (searching an identification criterion of public recognition, whether mental or physical), the philosopher displaces the reflexion to subject’s inwardness and considers, in my opinion, ethics and aesthetics as two possible levels that, in its interconnection, offer answers (always temporary) to the question Who am I? Conciliator, because the dialectics between Ipse and Idem, self and character, already doesn’t allows us to think subjectivity as static and unchangeable, but dynamic, temporal and opened to otherness. On the other hand, although its eminently fragile and finite nature, at no moment the waste of character, leads to selfhood dissolution, what also weakens philosophies of anti-cogito. Placed between two traditional conflicting views, Ricoeur’s philosophy of subjectivity should be understood as an intermediary and mediating position between both.

 


References

Ricoeur’s Works

«Auto-compréension et Histoire», in AAVV, Paul Ricoeur. Los caminos de la Interpretación, Barcelona, Antropos, 1991

Le Juste, Paris, Éditions Esprit, 1995

Lectures 3 – Aux frontières de la philosophie, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1992

Philosophie de la volonté. Finitude et Culpabilité II.La Symbolique du Mal, Paris, Éditions Montaigne, 1960

Soi-même comme un autre, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1990

Secondary Sources

Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Trans. Manuela Pinto dos Santos and Alexandre Fradique Morujão, Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1989

Moore, Barrington, Privacy – Studies in Social and Cultural History, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1984

Sophocles, Antigone, Trans. Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira, Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2000


Endnotes

2 «En ces moments de dépouillement extrême, la réponse nulle à la question Qui suis-je? Renvoie, non point à la nullité, mais à la nudité de la question elle-même.
Paul Ricoeur, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1990, 197

4 Paul Ricoeur, «Auto-compréension et Histoire», in AAVV, Paul Ricoeur. Los caminos de la Interpretación, Barcelona, Antropos, 1991, 25

6 Paul Ricoeur, Soi-même comme un autre, 200

8 Paul Ricoeur, Op. Cit., 203

10 Paul Ricoeur, Op. Cit., 195

12 Paul Ricoeur, Lectures 3 – Aux Frontières de la philosophie,Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1992,188

14 Barrington Moore, Privacy – Studies in Social and Cultural History, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1984, 120-121

16 Paul Ricoeur, Op. Cit.,202, 207

18 Sophocles, Op. Cit., 1265-1340

20 Paul Ricoeur, Soi-même comme un autre, 11-14

In this article, I analyse Paul Ricoeur’s Oneself as another and try to answer these questions: Is Ricoeur’s philosophy of identity a successful overcoming of the two opposing perspectives that cross the last centuries of Western thought? Should we considerer it original and able to solve the conflict of interpretations on identity?

I also try to refute the reader’s common argument, according to which, personal identity and selfhood can be identified in Ricoeur’s thought. I sustain that: 1) identity results from a permanent dialectic between character (sameness, Idem) and selfhood (constancy, Ipse), that is, between subject’s power to relate continuously to himself during his life and subject’s psychological and physical traits; 2) ethics and aesthetics are the two domains where, in connection, personal identity can be built. Following Aristotle to Ricoeur, the ethical man is the one who continuously questions his way of living, the ultimate goods of his life. But the individual life’s project can only be fully understood in an aesthetical way. The Identity’s construction requires imagination and is supported by an artistic form—the narrative—with the last purpose of self-understanding and bringing up new worlds.

Thus it’s impossible to understand Ricoeur’s proposal if we don’t link ethics and arts (in the narrative way). Each man’s life should be understood as a work of art (aesthetical), which is being made from a constant re-evaluation of ultimate goods that configure his own existence, his actions and the person that he is (ethical). This self-reflection will be able to strengthen subject’s personal beliefs (ethical – idem) or to resist and maybe refuse values and principles previously accepted without examination. In this last case, nothing remains in the subject unless somebody who wishes to identify with a new character (self – idem). But in both situations, the subject should be considered as a self-creator (aesthetic ipse), because imagination is always required to create personal and social views of good life. The end of this work of art matches with the end of individual’s life.

Besides that, the creation of a personal and unique kind of life always requires, paradoxically, the Other’s mediation. This idea seems to be another distinguishing mark of Ricoeur’s philosophy: our identity is built from a space inhabited for a diversity of practical reasons, of hermeneutics in conflict; in this way, we are co-authors of our lives and not simply authors; identity is formed and uncovered not for introspection, but for a set of narratives that are told about us and by us.

Although I agree with Ricoeur about the importance of an ethical intersubjectivity, I don’t support his Sophocles’s Antigone hermeneutics in Oneself as another. I argue that the tragic conflict between Antigone and Creon isn’t only ethical, but religious. Only Greek Theology—the belief in a ‘cruel’ God—gives us the ‘tools’ to understand Sophocles’s tragedy. To sustain my thesis, I appeal to other works of Ricoeur and try to show that his philosophy is rich enough to be fair to Sophocles’ complex imaginary.

5/22/2008 05/22/2008 10463 The Human Soul: A Catholic Theological Response to Non-Reductive Physicalism

Introduction

In the book, Whatever Happened to the Soul, the authors argue in support of a view they call non-reductive physicalism. According to this view, Nancey Murphy says the human person “is a physical organism whose complex functioning, both in society and in relation to God, gives rise to ‘higher’ human capacities such as morality and spirituality.”2 In this paper, as a believing Christian and a Catholic theologian, I offer some responses to non-reductive physicalism. In brief, while I agree with a number of points made by authors supporting non-reductive physicalism, I disagree with their denying that we human beings have immaterial immortal souls.

Christian authors who support non-reductive physicalism generally support a number of tenets of traditional Christian faith such as that God loves us, that human beings are created in the image of God and have free will, and resurrection of the dead. They, however, disagree with the traditional Christian view that we human beings have immaterial immortal souls. This “traditional” view of the human soul has been articulated and defended, for example, by many mainstream patristic and scholastic authors, the Protestant Reformer John Calvin, and more recent authors such as neuroscientists John Eccles and Mario Beauregard, philosophers Karl Popper and Karol Wojtyla (who became Pope John Paul II), and theologians Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Benedict Ashley and Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI).4 They also consider this view to be in accord with empirical scientific data including the findings of neuroscience which demonstrate a tightening of mind-brain-behavior links.6

In my view the traditional Christian view of the human soul can better account for all of the related data from the Bible and human experience than can non-reductive physicalism. Discussion of this will be arranged in three main parts in this paper: 1) Some Related Biblical Data; 2) Some Related Christian Traditions; and 3) Some Related Data of Human Experience.

1.) Some Related Biblical Data

There are a number of biblical texts, according to some good biblical scholars and theologians, which support the view that the human soul continues to exist in an intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. This implies that the human soul transcends the physical body, that it is incorporeal or immaterial or spiritual. Without being exhaustive, we will consider here some of the most relevant biblical texts, as well as some related commentary by a number of biblical scholars.8]. The ghost of Samuel then enters into a conversation with King Saul. A related scholarly note in The New Jerusalem Bible says that, “The narrator seems to share the popular belief in ghosts (though he regards it unlawful to consult them)…. The incident is presented as a genuine recalling of Samuel’s spirit…” According to biblical scholar Antony Campbell, the time of composition of 1-2 Samuel “covers the centuries from the beginnings of the monarchy in Israel to the exile and the postexilic period.” He himself argues that “a late 9th-cent. Prophetic document” lies behind the present text.10

Jewish Apocryphal Literature / Deuterocanonical Books

Between the time that the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were written, there were some Jewish writings that are often referred to as intertestamental or Jewish apocryphal literature. Within this literature one sees some developments as well as diversity of views with regard to the afterlife. For example, some of these writings express the view that within Sheol there is a place of punishment for the wicked called “Gehenna,” whereas the righteous are taken to “Paradise.” One group within Judaism, the Sadducees, did not believe in bodily resurrection, whereas another group, the Pharisees, did.12 One of these books, 2 Maccabees 15:11-16, reports Judas Maccabeus’s vision of two deceased just men, the high priest Onias and the prophet Jeremiah interceding with God for the Jewish people and the Holy City. Biblical scholar Neil McEleney says that these two just men represent the law (embodied in the priesthood) and the prophets. “The vision … illustrates the author’s belief in the intercessory power of the saints.” 2 Maccabees 12:44-5 approves of praying for those who have died. Concerning this McEleney says that the author “sees Judas’s action as evidence that those who die piously can be delivered from unexpiated sins… This doctrine, thus vaguely formulated, contains the essence of what would become (with further precisions) the Christian theologian’s teaching on purgatory.”14

The Christian New Testament

Concerning everlasting life, the main focus in the New Testament is on bodily resurrection in the light of Jesus’ own resurrection from the dead. Nevertheless, a number of texts present Jesus, his disciples and the respective New Testament authors as also believing in an intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. Let us begin by considering the Gospel according to Luke 23:43 which reports Jesus on the cross saying to the dying thief, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” With regard to “today in Paradise,” biblical scholar Caroll Stuhlmueller says, “Jesus’ reply, his last words to any person on earth, puts the emphasis upon ‘today’—before the sun sets.” Concerning “With me,” He tells the thief that he will not be simply in Jesus’ retinue (syn emoi) but will also be sharing his royalty (meth’ emou).” She says, “paradise” is“A word derived from Old Persian … used … in the NT for the abode of the righteous (Ap 2:7; 2 Cor 12:2-4).” Catholic theologian Benedict Ashley, referring to a biblical commentary by G. B. Caird, says, “By the time of the Pharisees, the rabbis taught that at death there is judgment and the shades of the unrighteous go to a place of punishment in Sheol called Gehenna, and the just to a place of happiness called Paradise, like the garden of Eden. It is evidently to this that Jesus refers on the Cross .… to the good thief…”16

Luke 16:19-31 reports Jesus’ story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. When they die, the poor man goes to the “bosom of Abraham” but the rich man goes to Hades. They are forever separated. With regard to this parable, Stuhlmueller says that the image of “Abraham’s bosom … is expressive of either the eschatological banquet (5:34) or of an intimate fellowship with Abraham (both known in rabbinical literature… in Hades [refers to]Hell, Sheol, abode of the dead. Enoch [a pre-Christian Jewish apocryphal book] ch. 22 speaks of adjoining quarters for the evil and the good in this abode of the dead and seems to imply that they remain there till the judgment and general resurrection. This notion corresponds to the rabbinical teaching…”18 These parallel texts respectively say that when he was put to death Christ went “in the spirit” and “made a proclamation to the spirits in prison…”(1 Pet 3:18-20) and “For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.”(1 Pet 4:6; cf. Jn 5:25). With regard to these and some other related New Testament passages, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was composed by a number of outstanding theologians and promulgated by Pope John Paul II, says in part:

The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there… Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell”—Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek—because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer; which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”(Roman Catechism I, 6, 3) Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him…. The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.20

In 2 Cor 12:2-4, the Apostle Paul speaks of a man who fourteen years before had a vision, in which he was not sure whether he was in or outside his body, who was caught up to the third heaven, into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words. In humility Paul speaks of himself here in the third person.22

A number of the above biblical passages present human beings as being conscious and able to communicate after their death. And yet, according to the New Testament view the general resurrection of the dead had not yet taken place. With regard to this 2 Tim 2:17-18 reads: “…Hymenaeus and Philetus … have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place.” Anglican bishop and biblical scholar Tom Wright says, “In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet.” John Cooper, who analyzes various New Testament texts related to the time of the resurrection, concludes that although there are some variations in language, New Testament authors believed the general resurrection of the dead was in the historical future. For the Apostle Paul this will occur with the parousia, the Second Coming of Christ.24 The Bible also presents God as “Spirit” (see John 4:24), as invisible and transcending the visible created universe (see Rom 1:16-25). The biblical data concerning angels and God supports the view that there is more to reality than what is physical. Such a view is compatible with the traditional Christian view, which we will consider further below, that the human person is a profound union of an invisible spiritual soul and a visible physical body. With regard to the question of consciousness which we will also consider further below, we can note here that God and angels are presented in the Bible as personal conscious beings without bodies including brains. Although the second person of the Trinity took on a human body with the incarnation, God the Father and Holy Spirit did not. God the Son or Word was also conscious before the incarnation. Therefore, consciousness does not necessarily require having a physical body and a brain.

With regard to the early Christians and Jesus believing in spirits or ghosts see, for example, Luke 24:36-43, which reports the Risen Jesus appearing to the disciples and speaking to them. The passage reads in part: “They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’”(verses 37-39) Concerning this passage, biblical scholar Léopold Sabourin says in part that the Greek pneuma in verses 27 and 39 must mean a “ghost,” “the appearance of someone who has died…. To understand Lk 24:39 correctly it is necessary to presuppose that the disciples recognized Jesus but believed they were only seeing his ‘spirit’ and not his true resurrected humanity.” Commenting on this same passage in a biblical commentary, Michael Patella says in part, “Maintaining that the resurrected Jesus is a ghost is more comprehensible to the disciples than believing that he is risen. With this Jerusalem appearance, paralleled in John 19:19-29, Luke presents an apology for those who deny the reality of the resurrection…. This passage introduces the nature of the glorified body, a reality that goes to the heart of Christian belief. The resurrected life that Christ initiates goes beyond spiritual existence in eternity. It is a new life involving the glorified body…”26 With regard to such texts, as well as other biblical texts which we have considered above which support the view of human souls continuing to exist in an intermediate conscious state between bodily death and resurrection, it seems to me that we should appreciate a development of theology and teaching within the Bible itself concerning the afterlife. We certainly find this with regard to belief in bodily resurrection, which is not presented in earlier parts of the Bible, that is, in much of the Jewish scriptures, but is clearly affirmed in the New Testament. In a somewhat similar way we see signs within the Bible, which was composed over many centuries, of a developing understanding of Sheol, the abode of the dead, and the intermediate state. Within the Bible we see a number of other such developments in understanding and theology, for example, related to the law, God’s salvation, and the one God being a Trinity of three divine persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It seems to me that any good theory of biblical interpretation needs to take seriously not just some biblical texts which seem to support one’s position, but all related biblical texts. Related to developments of understanding and theology within the Bible, the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church speaks of God’s pedagogy and progressive revelation. God’s revelation was completed in Jesus Christ.28 These beliefs should not be surprising to us since they are in line with biblical teaching as we considered above.

Thomas Aquinas

With regard to Christian theological views during the Middle Ages, due to the limits of this paper, we will only consider here some of the related views of Thomas Aquinas (13 Cent. A.D.). His “Thomistic” philosophy and theology have had an enormous and lasting influence. Aquinas, with a good knowledge of the Bible, the Fathers of the Churchand philosophy, adapted Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory, the soul as the form or animating principle of the body, to Catholic faith (cf. Catholic Teaching, the Fourth Lateran Council, below). Like Aristotle he spoke not only of human souls but also of plant and animal principles of life or souls. Like Plato and many Fathers of the Church Aquinas understood the human soul as incorporeal or immaterial and immortal. Combining the best in these views, Aquinas understood the human soul to be profoundly united with the human body in this life. The whole soul is present in every part of the body in a way analogous to God’s being wholly present in every part of the physical universe. “Form” makes something what it is, such as the form of a material object. In the case of the human immaterial soul being the form or animating principle of the body, the word “form” is used analogously. The human soul is the ultimate principle by which we conduct every one of life’s activities. It is the source not only of our powers of intellect (understanding) and will, which do not take place in bodily organs, but also of our sense (external: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch; and internal: common sense, imagination, instinct and memory) and vegetative (generation, growth, nutrition) powers. Intellect and will remain in the soul after death, but the sense and vegetative powers, which have the body-soul compound as their subject, do not remain in actual existence (they survive in the soul in a virtual state only) between bodily death and resurrection. Since Aquinas saw the human person as a compound of body and soul, he considered the human soul in the intermediate state as incomplete and requiring bodily resurrection for completion. With his understanding of human nature, bodily resurrection is thus not a superfluous addition to eternal life but an important part of God’s plan of salvation. Aquinas also made contributions to understanding the traditional Christian belief in angels.30

Eastern Orthodox Churches

The Orthodox Churches of the East, like the Catholic Church, consider Scripture together with Tradition (cf. Catholic Teaching, first paragraph, below), with a focus on the Greek Fathers of the Church and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church up to the schism with the Roman Catholic Church in 1055 A.D. In their theologies and liturgies one can see an anthropological dichotomy while stressing the unity of the human person, “who is an image and likeness of God in body and soul.” While understand the human soul to be spiritual and immortal, they consider the teaching “concerning the separated souls after death” to be “an impenetrable mystery.”32 This is in line with Catholic teaching.

Today Protestant theologians are divided. Some defend the traditional dichotomy and understand the human person to be a unity of body and spiritual immortal soul (e.g., John Cooper34 “O. Cullman has revived the idea of death as a state of sleep or unconsciousness until the resurrection.” Immortality of the whole human being is understood only in terms of resurrection of the body in Christ. Others who criticize this view and who believe the soul is conscious after death interpret the Apostle Paul referring to death as “sleep” as “a natural metaphor”.36

A few significant examples of Catholic teaching related to our topic follow.

In 1215 A.D. the Fourth Lateran Council taught that: “God [Father, Son and Holy Spirit] …. Creator of all things visible and invisible … by his almighty power, from the very beginning of time has created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing, the spiritual or angelic world and the corporeal or visible universe. And afterwards he formed the creature man, who in a way belongs to both orders, as he is composed of spirit and body….”38

The Fifth Lateran Council, which took place from 1512-17 A.D., in response to Averroistic monopsychism, taught that: “…the soul is not only truly, of its own nature, and essentially the form of the human body…, but also it is immortal…” An article on the human soul by Bilaniuk notes that these teachings do not make the Thomistic doctrine official but “in the language most convenient at the time, only tried to defend the mystery of man in the plurality of his dimensions and the unity of his being.” Thomistic theses concerning the human soul have been favorably received by the Magisterium as “one of the best illustrations of the mystery of man.”40

In 1996 Pope John Paul II, while speaking of a significant argument in favor of the theory of evolution, also speaks of Revelation telling us that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. With regard to this he says:

It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such great dignity even in his body. Pius XII [Humani Generis, 1950] stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existing living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God…. With man, then, we find ourselves in the presence of an ontological difference, an ontological leap, one could say. However, does not the posing of such ontological discontinuity run counter to that physical continuity which seems to be the main thread of research into evolution in the field of physics and chemistry? Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual is not the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again, of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator’s plans.42

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which presents a recent summary of Catholic teaching, includes a section called, “Body and Soul but Truly One.”(nn. 362-8) Among other things, it says, “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.”(n. 365) Here again we see a number of the main Thomistic theses on the human soul. The Catechism also has sections on the communion of saints including the communion of the Church of heaven and earth and the intercession of the saints in heaven for us (nn. 946-62); resurrection of the body (nn. 988-1004); life everlasting including the particular judgment, heaven, purgatory, praying for the dead, hell, the last judgment, and the new heaven and earth (nn. 1020-60).44 Of interest, we can also note here that Nancey Murphy, a strong supporter of non-reductive physicalism, acknowledges that it is not possible to disprove dualism with scientific evidence.46 Some other contemporary philosophers and/or theologians have argued either in favor of some form of dualism (e.g., Keith Yandell) or in favor of a composite view of the human person involving a profound union of physical body and spiritual or immaterial and immortal soul, along the lines of Thomas Aquinas’ influential view (e.g., Benedict Ashley; Hans Urs von Balthasar; Joseph Ratzinger; and John Crosby).48

Near Death Experiences

There have been many reports of near-death experiences with varying degrees of credibility. Such experiences are commonly reduced to mere by-products of certain physical brain states by neuroscientists who support materialism or physicalism.50 Consider, for example, the case of singer and songwriter Pam Reynolds who in 1991 had surgery to repair a grossly swollen blood vessel in her brain stem. During the procedure she was brought to a point of “clinical death”–her heart was stopped, her EEG brain waves flattened completely, her brain stem and cerebral hemispheres became unresponsive, and her body was cooled to 60 degrees Fahrenheit (well below the normal of 98.6 degrees). When she recovered she later reported having had an out-of-body experience and hovering above the operating table during the surgery. For someone knowing nothing of surgical practice she accurately described the Midas Rex bone saw used to cut open her skull and what happened during the operation including what the nurses had said. And this happened at a time when she was “clinically dead” and fully monitored by medical instruments. Cases such as that of Pam Reynolds strongly support the view that the mind or soul and consciousness can continue when the brain is no longer functional.52

The Continuing Identity of the Person

While supporters of non-reductive physicalism deny that humans have immaterial immortal souls and an intermediate state, it seems to me that this view presents a serious problem with regard to the continuing identity of human persons between bodily death, which destroys the person according to this view, and their later “reconstitution” with bodily resurrection. Consider an analogy or “thought experiment.” Suppose God were to create a clone of you now, while you are still living, with a body, memory and sense of identity identical to yours. From that point on you and your clone would not have exactly the same experiences since you and your clone would not be in exactly the same place and may indeed travel to different places, meet different people, have different experiences, and so forth. Would this “clone” be you? I think not and that this is the only logical conclusion.54 This conclusion is supported by our experience of living things such as a tree or a person. Although they can grow and change in many ways over time, as long as there is a real continuity of being and existence without interruption, the tree or the person remains the very same tree or person.

Conclusion

In this paper I have presented some data from the Bible and human experience that supports the traditional Christian view that the human soul continues to exist in an intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection, that it is immaterial and immortal. The position of non-reductive physicalism which holds that a human person is ontologically only physical can not be reconciled with this. The ways of God, who is a mystery of infinite love, are also in line with the criterion of maximum love. This has been shown to us, for example, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God incarnate.56 including the disabled, than non-reductive physicalism can. That our being includes not only a physical dimension but also a transcendent spiritual dimension also means that we have a greater affinity with God who is “Spirit.” This too would allow a more profound union of the human person with God in a way somewhat analogous to the Incarnation. It seems to me that if one who dies loving God can experience heaven before the resurrection and continue to play an active role in the communion of saints with Jesus, then this truly is “good news” compatible with the Christian view that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God (see Rom. 8:38-9).


Endnotes

 

2 See, e.g., Joel B. Green and Ray S. Anderson in Brown et al. (see note 1), pp. 169-73 and 190-4, respectively.

4 See, e.g., Joel Green in Brown et al. (see note 1), Ch. 7, and in From Cells to Souls—and Beyond: Changing Portraits of Human Nature, ed. by Malcolm Jeeves (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), 179-98.

6 See, e.g., related sections on the soul in “Phaedrus,” “Phaedo,” and “Timaeus,” in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. By Benjamin Joweth (London: Encyclopedia Britanica, Inc., 1952; and P. J. Aspell, “Plato,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition [NCE 2nd ed.] (Detroit: Thomson Gale with Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 2003), Vol. 11, pp. 407-11; and Jurgens (see note 3).

8 James C. Turro, 9:40, in The Jerome Biblical Commentary [JBC], ed. by Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., and Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968).

10 The quotes are from Cooper (see note 7), pp. 55-59. See ibid., Chs. 2 and 3, for a fuller treatment of Old Testment anthropology. Cf., e.g., also John L. McKenzie, S.J., Dictionary of the Bible (New York: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1965), “Sheol” and “Resurrection.”

12 McKenzie (see note 10), “Canon.”

14 Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical “On Christian Hope” Spe Salvi (30 Nov. 2007), n. 48; retrieved 22 Feb. 2008 from: <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/ encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html>. Cf. also his (as Joseph Ratzinger) Eschatology (see note 3) in which he defends both the intermediate state and the future resurrection of the dead.

16 N. T. Wright, Interview (7 Feb. 2008): “Christians Wrong About Heaven Says Bishop,” by David Van Biema; retrieved 5 Mar. 2008 from: <http://www.time.com/ time/world/article/0,8599,1710844,00.html>. The interview is related to Wright’s new book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2008). Wright, as Bishop of Durham, is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England. He is also a theologian and biblical scholar who has taught at Cambridge. See, e.g., also Cooper (see note 7), pp. 127-9, and his references.

18 Joseph A. Grassi, JBC (see note 8), 56:30.

20 The citations are respectively from Joseph Fitzmyer in JBC (see note 8), 50:13; Brendan Byne in NJBC (see note 9), 48:15; and John J. O’Rourke in JBC (see note 8), 52:19.

22 Jean-Louis D’Aragon, JBC (see note 8), 64:39. Cf. Heb 12:23.

24 Ashley (see note 3), pp. 652-59. For some scholarly biblical commentary on Acts 22:30-23:11 see, e.g., Richard J. Dillon, NJBC (see note 9), 44:115.

26 Green, in Brown et al. (see note 1), p. 162.

28 See the indexes and related writings in Jurgens (see note 3).

30 Related to our topic and the limits of human understanding and language, also with regard to using such terms as “incorporeal” or “immaterial” to describe a real property of the human soul, it seems to me appropriate to consider something that Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) said. In God and the World (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), p. 48, he speaks of our limited human understanding not only of God and human nature, but also of “matter.” Concerning this consider the Apostle Paul who speaks of our partial knowledge in this life (1 Cor. 13:9-12), as well as the state of contemporary science including physics.

32 See Calvin (note 3); and Belden C. Lane, “Recovering the Intercession of the Saints in the Reformed Tradition,” The Way: Review of Contemporary Spirituality (Oct. 1996), 36:4, 294-303.

34 Bilaniuk (see note 31).

36 See Vat. II (see note 27), Dei Verbum, Chs. 2 and 3 (the quote is from n. 10), pp. 753-8, and related biblical references. Cf. also Vat. II, “The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” Lumen Gentium, Ch. III “The Church is Hierarchical,” pp. 369-87, and related biblical references. For a fuller theological treatment of Tradition and traditions see Yves Congar, Tradition and traditions: an historical and a theological essay (New York: Macmillan, 1966).

38 Ibid., p. 147.

40 GS, n. 14, in Vat. II (see note 27), pp. 914-15. Cf. also LG, nn. 50-1, in Vat. II, pp. 410-13, which speaks of the Church in heaven and on earth.

42 For a fuller treatment of this see, e.g., Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason (1998); retrieved 8 Mar. 2008 from: <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jpii_enc_151 01998_fides-et-ratio_en.html >.

44 Eccles (see note 3), pp. 10-11.

46 See Charles Probst, “The Brain and the Soul: Experiments in Brain Surgery and the Results of Research,” Dolentium Hominum (1999), 41:2:29-34; and Beauregard and O’Leary (see note 3), pp. 33-4, 150-3 and 292-3. Beauregard’s hypothesis also involves quantum theory. He sees mental activity and brain activity to be complementary. In one analogy he compares the brain “with a television receiver that translates electromagnetic waves (which exist apart from the TV receiver) into picture and sound” (p. 292). Of interest, in a recent issue of Scientific American (Oct. 2007) two neuroscientists present their views with regard to consciousness and related brain states. It seems to me that Christopher Koch’s view, that “For each conscious experience, a unique set of neurons in particular brain regions fires in a specific manner” (p. 76), is more along the lines of Eccles’ view, while Susan Greenfield’s view that “For each conscious experience, neurons across the brain synchronize into coordinated assemblies, then disband” (p. 77), is more along the lines of Beauregard’s view.

48 Wojtyla (see note 3), p. 186. With regard to the soul he also says: “In this perspective it is evident that there can be no such thing as a direct experience of the soul. Man has only the experience of the effects which he seeks to relate with an adequate cause in his being. …. the content of what is meant as the ‘experience of the soul’ consists of everything that in our previous analyses was attributed to the person’s transcendence in the action, namely, obligation, responsibility, truthfulness, self-determination, and consciousness. It is the innerness of all these moments … [which] make the vital fabric of the inner man, they inhere in his inner life, as thus experienced they are identified with the experience of the soul. But the possible knowledge of the soul is not limited solely to these moments and their specific role; it encompasses in and through them man’s entire, as it were, spiritual ego. ….”(p. 186) “…. while the body itself is the source of the reactive dynamism, specific for the human soma, and indirectly also for the emotive dynamism of the human psyche, the integration of these two dynamisms has to have a common origin with the person’s transcendence. Can we infer that it is the soul that is the ultimate source or, to put it differently, the transcending principle and also the principle of the integration of the person in the action? At any rate, it seems that this line of reasoning has brought us much closer to approaching the soul…. Our analyses indicate something like a boundary in man, which sets a limit to the scope of the dynamism and thus also of the reach of the body… They also reveal a capacity of a spiritual nature that seems to lie at the root of the person’s transcendence, but also indirectly of the integration of the person in action. …. Integration … tells us that the soul-body relation cuts across all the boundaries we find in experience and that it goes deeper and is more fundamental than they are. We thus have confirmed, even if indirectly, our earlier assertion that the complete reality of the soul itself and the soul’s relation to the body needs a more comprehensive metaphysical expression.”(p. 258) Of interest, Dutch Reform philosophical theologian Cooper (see note 7), pp. 222-6, appreciates very much Wojtyla’s Thomism.

50 P. van Lommel; R van Wees; V. Meyers; and I. Elfferich, “Near-death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands,” The Lancet (2001), Vol. 358, pp. 2039-2045.

52 See also P. Molinari; and G. B. O’Donnell, “Canonization of Saints (History and Procedure), NCE 2nd ed. (see note 6), Vol. 3, pp. 61-6; and Lane (see note 27). Re: theology and miracles see, e.g., T. G. Pater, “Miracles (Theology Of),” NCE 2nd ed. (see note 6), Vol. 9, pp. 664-70; and John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology: An Introduction. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), pp. 92-3. For accounts of miracles related to the intercession of saints see, for example, a few related to the intercession of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who was canonized by Pope John Paul II on April 30, 2000: http://thedivinemercy.org/message/stfaustina/graces.php (retrieved March 30, 2008). Two of these miracles, which are described on the website in more detail, the healings of Maureen Digan of incurable lymphedima in 1981 and the healing of Fr. Ron Pytel’s severely and permanently damaged heart in 1995, were accepted for her causes of beatification and canonization

54 Cooper (see note 7), p. 170. He provides a fuller discussion of “Monism, Re-creation, and the Problem of Personal Identity” on pp. 169-77.

56 Cf., e.g., Pope John Paul II (see note 41) and the related quote in the body of this paper.

Non-reductive physicalism, the view that ontologically we humans are not only physical but that we have real freedom, consciousness and so forth, is supported by a number of Christian authors of different specializations today. These authors generally believe that we human persons cease to exist when our bodies die but that we will be reconstituted by God in a future bodily resurrection. As a Catholic theologian, I agree with a number of points made by authors supporting non-reductive physicalism, but I disagree with their denying that we human beings have immaterial immortal souls. Non-reductive physicalism does not adequately account for all of the related data from the Bible and human experience. There are a number of biblical texts (e.g., 1 Sam. 28:3-19; Luke 23:43 and Phil. 1:23-24), according to some good biblical scholars and theologians, which support the view that the human soul continues to exist in an intermediate state between bodily death and resurrection. Jesus and his disciples also considered God to be “Spirit” and angels to be real created personal spiritual beings. The traditional Christian view that the human person is normally a profound unity of a physical body and a spiritual soul, which transcends the body, is in line with this view. Non-reductive physicalism is also not able to explain adequately some data of human experience which supports the view that a dimension of the human being (i.e., the human soul) is immaterial and immortal. These include qualia, subjective experiences such as consciousness and free will, some near-death experiences, miracles experienced related to requests for intercessory prayer by deceased saints, and human experience related to the continuing identity of persons. It seems to me that the Thomist view that the human person is a unified being, a compound of a body and an immaterial immortal soul, is more in line with biblical data and is better able to explain all of human experience than is non-reductive physicalism. It also is more in accord with all of God’s ways being expressions of maximum love. Having an immaterial immortal soul does not mean that we need to value less our bodies and ecosystem. It, however, provides a more solid foundation for defending the great intrinsic dignity of all human beings. It would mean that we have a greater affinity with God who is “Spirit” and would allow a more profound union of the human person with God in a way somewhat analogous to the Incarnation. It seems to me that, if one who dies loving God can experience heaven before the resurrection and continue to play an active role in the communion of saints, then this is truly “good news” compatible with the Christian view that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God.(Rom. 8:38-9)

5/22/2008 05/22/2008 10464 The Historic Person as the Ultimate Knower

0. El debate actual sobre la interdisciplinariedad o transdisciplinariedad pone el acento sobre el conocimiento en cuanto producto objetivo, atenuando la dimensión del conocimiento como algo diferente de sus sujetos productores. Se hace necesario no olvidar la perspectiva subjetiva del conocimiento –puesta de relieve por las corrientes hermenéuticas. El último destinatario de las disciplinas científicas, filosóficas y artísticas y de las instituciones religiosas es el hombre concreto. En efecto, el individuo es el que en última instancia procesa y sintetiza la pluralidad asombrosa de experiencias, imágenes y teorías, incluidas aquellas que le llegan a través de las dimensiones objetivas de la cultura (ciencias, filosofía, arte, teología, etc.).

1. Una buena parte de la filosofía moderna occidental centró su pensamiento en el sujeto cognoscente en estado puro (Descartes: ego cogitans; Kant: el sujeto trascendental, etc.). El pensamiento científico y -más recientemente- la filosofía hermenéutica han contribuido a disolver la idea de que exista un hombre aislado, una tabula rasa, que aborde el conocimiento con una ingenuidad absoluta.

1.1. Por una parte, las ciencias nos han mostrado que somos partes de un proceso evolutivo y que portamos en nuestro cuerpo y en nuestros genes la acumulación de dicho proceso. En cierto sentido, somos ese proceso y observamos el universo a través de las características que nuestra estructura genética nos brinda: si no tuviésemos este tipo de ojos o la habilidad con nuestras manos de dedos oponibles, por ejemplo, no podríamos observar el cosmos como lo hacemos, en especial mediante los lentes ni mucho menos mediante satélites. Utilizando la expresión kantiana, se puede afirmar que hay una estructura “trascendental” de percepción radicada en nuestro interior y que supone una muy lenta y compleja evolución de la materia y de la corporeidad viviente. En otras palabras, percibimos el universo puesto que –en cierta forma- lo tenemos integrado en nuestra estructura química, física y biológica2.

1.2. Por otra parte, las ciencias del lenguaje y la filosofía hermenéutica nos han mostrado que siempre conocemos desde un lenguaje determinado. Nuestro debate hoy no sería el mismo, por ejemplo, que si viviéramos en el siglo x y nos expresáramos en latín o si habitáramos entre los mapuches del cono sur americano en siglo v de nuestra era. Obviamente, el lenguaje también es fruto de la actividad intelectual y se modifica mediante la adquisición de nuevos conocimientos y nuevas técnicas4. Un autor más cercano en el tiempo, Hans Georg Gadamer, también sostiene que el conocimiento dirigido a la cosa misma debe ser, para ser auténtico, aprehendido personalmente6. Sin embargo, incluso desde la misma perspectiva biológica, es una especie originada en otras e, hipotéticamente capaz de variar hacia otra especie distinta. Asimismo, desde el ángulo individual es un ser situado históricamente y nunca absolutamente terminado, alguien que va definiendo su originalidad personal en y a lo largo de una historia. Esta historicidad justifica que se pueda hablar de una estructura biográfica de cada ser humano8

4.3. Con argumentos extraídos fundamentalmente del estudio de las religiones comparadas y de la literatura y arte comparados10

Por otra parte, la imagen del viaje ofrece varias ventajas para la integración de los conocimientos, entre otras razones, porque localiza el conocimiento humano como histórico; éste es temporal, tanto para el sujeto como para las culturas y la humanidad. Pero es también provisorio, no terminado completamente por ninguna conquista o teoría. Por otra parte, la imagen da pie para integrar factores extra racionales, tales como la imaginación, en el proceso cognitivo. Un ejemplo tomado de la empresa de la conquista del espacio: ¿Hasta dónde influyeron los dibujos de Leonardo Da Vinci en la construcción de aviones y naves espaciales? ¿Cuál ha sido el impacto de la literatura de ciencia ficción como la de Julio Verne o Ray Bradbury para interesar y promover la investigación en el sistema solar y en el espacio en general?12. El hombre es alguien que puede ser interceptado por otro. Su historia se configura con una multiplicidad de encuentros, los que pueden ser superficiales o, en algunos casos, capaces de modificar su rumbo.

4.4.La metáfora del viaje ha de ser actualizada con la nueva visión evolutiva del cosmos: el universo y la vida están en proceso desde hace miles de millones de años. Esta esencial duración o “historicidad” del cosmos y de la vida enmarcan la fugaz historia de cada ser humano como la de un punto infinitesimal en la vasta duración del todo. Se trata de un viaje impresionantemente efímero, pero un viaje “conciente”, lo que aporta una nota inédita de luminosidad inteligible, un segmento de autoconciencia del propio cosmos. Es más, cada individuo-caminante integra en sí un impresionante mapa genético que sintetiza lo experimentado y acumulado biológica y psíquicamente por sus antepasados. Asimismo, a través de la cultura, es heredero también de los descubrimientos, creaciones y logros de la humanidad entera. Todo esto hace de él un caminante no totalmente ingenuo, sino habilitado por múltiples condicionantes de conocimiento

4.5. Cada historia es original y, por eso, el tránsito humano es sumamente heterogéneo: hay niños que viven pocos días, hay ancianos que deambulan casi cien años, hay quienes jamás conocerán el hambre y otros a los que esa pulsión vital acompañará desde su nacimiento; están los que accederán a una educación completa hasta llegar a complejas especializaciones y quienes conocerán del lenguaje sólo su expresión oral; hay hombres y mujeres para quienes el escenario habitual será el de la naturaleza y otros cuyo paisaje cotidiano será el constituido por el gris de los muros y las luces artificiales de la urbe.

4.6. Las ideas de camino y viaje, tanto en su sentido literal como en el metafórico, sugieren numerosas interrelaciones entre disciplinas diversas. La combinación entre ciencia y viaje, por ejemplo, ha sido frecuente en la historia del pensamiento. Charles Darwin elaboró y confirmó su particular visión sobre la transformación de las especies vivientes después de su viaje por el hemisferio sur14. Por otra parte, el tópico del viaje en la literatura es clásico16. También algunos pensadores místicos emplearon la metáfora del viaje, como San Juan de la Cruz es un notable representante de ello. Asimismo, hay un recurso de las metáforas cercanas al viaje en el pensamiento estrictamente teológico18. Aunque el concepto ha sufrido una enorme transformación durante la edad moderna y contemporánea, su sustrato semántico permanece válido. Hay un último sujeto reflexivamente cognoscente y libremente operante en el cosmos. A pesar de todos los intentos de reduccionismos que acentúen la homogeneidad del ser humano con el resto del mundo animal, permanece la enigmática condición de un ser que puede interrogarse sobre el sentido del cosmos y de su propia existencia.

La reelaboración de este concepto parece imprescindible en el horizonte cultural de nuestro tiempo. Algo más, un alguien, emerge en el contexto de percepciones y lenguajes: se trata precisamente de quien puede descifrar el laberinto icónico y hermenéutico del mundo natural y humano. Tampoco satisface plenamente el discurso originado en las ciencias biológicas que restringen los elementos más sorprendentes del fenómeno humano a originalidades genéticas, conexiones neurológicas o simplemente casualidades físico-químicas. Subsiste un plus en el hombre que permanece como una incógnita incluso delante de las tecnologías investigativas más sofisticadas.

5.2. Las religiones ofrecen al hombre un horizonte de comprensión caracterizada por la tonalidad de lo absoluto: hay alguien o algo –denominado “dios” o “dioses”- que trasciende las dimensiones relativas del paisaje en el que el hombre transita. Hay algo definitivo en el paisaje, algo que le confiere su última tonalidad y consistencia. Sin él, el resto de los parciales horizontes comprensivos pierden su significativad. En efecto, la experiencia religiosa tiende a proporcionar una perspectiva centrada en la alteridad absoluta (el totalmente otro) de alguien o algo que confiere un sentido definitivo al mismo sujeto y su entorno. Lo religioso actúa como estructura última de configuración de la percepción del sujeto-caminante.

El horizonte religioso se manifiesta como oculto entre los otros marcos fenoménicos. Es un horizonte simultáneamente lejano, puesto que no está al alcance de la experiencia fáctica ni de lo comprensión meramente racional, y cercano, ya que es visto como “marco de los marcos”, es decir, como necesaria condición para la existencia del paisaje, como íntima consistencia de los contornos y sentidos que enfrentan sus sentidos y su inteligencia.

Para aquellas religiones que sostienen una idea personalista de la divinidad, el horizonte toma la figura de lo personal. De este modo, el todo de la geografía queda abrazada por un “alguien”, por una entidad a quien se puede tratar de “tú”. El paisaje global adquiere la tonalidad de lo personal; no significa esto que se desdibujen las explicaciones racionales y empíricas del cosmos, sino más bien que el último referente del todo no es ni una teoría, ni una fórmula matemática, ni siquiera un motor inmóvil o un arquitecto sin rostro, sino un sujeto personal, con fisonomía y con expresión. Para las religiones reveladas, además, el horizonte toma la iniciativa y sale él mismo al encuentro. En efecto, para estas religiones lo divino personal ingresa en la topografía mundana y en el escenario humano20 está configurando una imagen del hombre muy gravitada por las estructuras físicas, químicas, genéticas, sociales, lingüísticas, culturales, psicológicas, etc. Dentro de ese plexo fenoménico mantiene la afirmación acerca de la distintividad personal del ser humano en el conjunto de los seres del universo conocido22.


Endnotes

2 “El puesto del cosmos en el hombre” (La Nación, Bs. As., 2-12-01, suplemento de Cultura, 1 y 8.). Massuh hace notar cómo, a partir de los datos de la genética, se están comprendiendo los componentes evolutivos, físicos y químicos presentes en la originalidad de cada persona humana.

4 De unitate intellectus contra averroistas c.3.

6 Naturalmente, no es ésta la posición de varias corrientes filosóficas del siglo XX y XXI que consideran que la esencia humana se define al final (existencialismos) o simplemente no existe (nihilismos) o nos es inaccesible (positivismos).

8 Muerte e inmortalidad, Barcelona 1970, pp. 132-134.

10 Tal como es utilizado en la exégesis de los salmos en Alonso Schokel, Luis, Treinta salmos. Poesía y oración. Madrid 1986: “Llamo arquetípico a este símbolo (el camino), porque arranca de una experiencia radical del espacio y en un segundo momento genera símbolos”; se caracteriza por ser “básico y universal” (nota 6, p. 46), no condicionado por la cultura (cf. p.114). El tema del camino y del viaje es recurrente en el pensamiento bíblico (cfr. voz “camino” en AAVV. Concordancia de la Biblia. Nuevo Testamento. Bilbao: Desclée de Brouwer y Mensajero, 1975, pp. 72-74). Se prosigue el uso metafórico del viaje en el pensamiento cristiano; como ejemplo: El cristiano emprende “una larga travesía con pequeñas barcas” (SAN GREGORIO NACIANCENO, Poemas teológicos, 1).

12 Cf. las interesantes consecuencias teológicas extraídas por Yves Congar en: “Del encuentro humano como misterio”, en Llamados a la vida, Herder, Barcelona,1988, pp.71-81.

14 Cfr. GALLENI, LUDOVICO, ”Lettres d´un Paléontologue. Neuf lettres inédites de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin á Marcellin Boule”, en Revue des questions scientifiques, Tome CLXXII-1001, con nueve cartas de viaje encontradas sorpresivamente hace pocos años que reflejan también una atención al panorama humano, social y político de la China de entonces)

16 ORTEGA Y GASSET, JOSÈ, Obras completas II, Alianza-Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1987, p. 247

18 Cfr. MILANO, ANDREA, Persona in teologia, Dehoniane, Napoli, 1984.

20 Entre la copiosa bibliografía, se puede mencionar: PEACOCKE, ARTHUR, Theology for a Scientific Age. Being and Becoming-Natural, Divine, and Human, Fortress Press, Minneapolis 1993; POLKINGHORNE, JOHN, Belief in God in an Age of Science, Yale University Press, New Haven 1998: IBIDEM, El Dios de la Esperanza y el fin del mundo, Epifanía, Buenos Aires 2005; GALLENI, LUDOVICO, Ciencia y teología. Propuestas para una síntesis fecunda, Epifanía, Buenos Aires, 2007; TANZELLA-NITTI, GIUSEPPE y STRUMIA, ALBERTO, Dizionario Interdisciplinare di Scienza e Fede, Urbaniana University Press y Citta Nuova, Roma 2002. Para ver el tema tal como se lo está pensando en Latinoamérica, cfr: URRUTIA ALBISUA, E.- BLÁZQUEZ ORTEGA, J. J. (editores). Ciencia y religión hoy. Diálogos en torno a la naturaleza, 2003. FLORIO, LUCIO (editor). Ciencias, Filosofía y Teología. En búsqueda de una cosmovisión, Dirección de Escuelas, La Plata 2004; FLORIO, LUCIO (compilador), Evolución y Cristianismo. Un diálogo posible, Dunken, Buenos Aires 2007.

22 Estas afirmaciones necesitan de una fundamentación pos-crítica, después de que buena parte de la filosofía moderna y contemporánea ha puesto la entidad última del conocimiento en otras realidades: la estructura trascendental, el Espíritu Absoluto, el psiquismo inconsciente, las estructuras de poder, el gen, etc.

The debate on the nature of knowledge today stresses knowledge itself as an objective product. Nevertheless, it would be necessary to add to it a personal perspective of knowledge. In fact, the person is the ultimate “addressee” of the scientific, philosophical and artistic disciplines and religious institutions. The concrete human being is the one who knows. Modern Western philosophy based its thinking on the knowing subject—Descartes grounds it on the ego cogitans, Kant on the transcendental subject. Scientific thinking and hermeneutical philosophy have more recently contributed to the dissolution of the idea of an isolated man, a tabula rasa, a blank sheet, which can receive knowledge with an absolute naivety.

On the one hand, science has shown us that we are part of an evolutionary process and that we carry in our bodies and genes the accumulation of such process. Somehow we are this process, and we watch the universe by means of the features given by our genetic structure. There is a ‘transcendental’ structure of perception which is in our inner self and that implies a very slow and complex evolution of matter and living corporality.

Moreover, the sciences of language and hermeneutic philosophy have shown us that we always learn from a given language. Obviously, language is also a result of intellectual activity, and it is modified by the acquisition of new knowledge and new techniques.

It is necessary to remember a word considered a difficult expression today: worldview. This expression, which comes from the translation of the German word Weltanschaaung, indicates the global view of the reality shaped by a man or a society. The worldview involves a certain philosophy and/or theology which organizes the perception of reality. It is often distinguished from “image of the world” (Weltbild), which is the picture of nature, conformed by current time science. There is obviously a close relationship between them. Some authors say that, as a consequence of the present situation—generically called postmodernism—it is very difficult to achieve a worldview. Fragmentariness seems to be included as an essential part of present time mentality. In some way, there is not a real human knowledge but within a worldview elaborated by the individual.

But this man is a historic being. In fact, a human being is permanent in nature but never absolutely fulfilled. He keeps defining his personal originality in and through his story. This historicity is collective and individual.

The Western and Eastern medieval tradition developed the concept of “person” which validity perpetuates, at least as a semantic substrate, in our times. It is important to consider the originality of a person as a subject of knowledge. This person is unique and dynamic. It implies that every reflection on interdisciplinary or transdisciplinarity should include the existential and historic way of comprehension. It is finally this person in this context and this moment who does the comprehension and integration of knowledge.

5/22/2008 05/22/2008 10465 Causality, Personal Causality, and the Science/Religion Dialogue

Introduction

The apparent conflict between science and religion is often viewed and argued with respect to the existence of God. In particular, demonstrations of God’s existence feature prominently in these discussions. The idea, presumably, is to show that God must exist, therefore science cannot dispense with God or theology, for that matter. Typically these demonstrations utilize causality in some form, require a certain philosophical framework, and purport to show the existence of an unmoved mover or similar entity. To be sure, this is a useful contribution to the science/religion dialogue. If God’s existence can be demonstrated in an unequivocable manner, science could not ever be regarded as the sole or perhaps even the most important source of knowledge. The question, therefore, turns on the efficacy of the proofs offered. Because they generally rely on the notion of causality in the physical world, which has been very controversial at least since the time of Hume, their value is likewise controversial. Nonetheless, causality should not be ruled out altogether, since it may be incontrovertible under some circumstances, and therefore useful. If one could identify these circumstances, and show that they are intimately associated with the idea of personhood, then the significance of the proofs as well as the whole nature of the science/religion dialogue would change.

I. Causality and Knowledge

Causality has been a fundamental concept in the history of philosophy, theology, and of science since the time of the ancient Greeks. This is due to the role (or presumed role) of causality with respect to nature, knowledge, and morality. Especially important has been the notion of real production of effects associated with causes. The importance of causality for the science/religion dialogue can scarcely be overstated. To understand it, we begin with a brief review of development and role of the notion of causality. This may conveniently be divided into five major phases, shown in Figure 1.

Phase 1. Metaphysical: causality as a principle of nature

The first phase, from the Pre-Socratics (c. 600 BC-400 BC) to William of Ockham (c. 1288-c. 1347), saw the origin and elaboration of the “classical” or “traditional” notion of causality, which was principally the work of Aristotle. During this epoch, causality was viewed as a principle of nature, valid for all things, and therefore the base of much of our knowledge. It became the fundamental explanatory paradigm for the sciences: all true or real knowledge is of causes in the strict, deterministic sense.

Aristotle distinguished four types of cause: material, formal, efficient, and final. Of these, efficient causality, that dealing with production of effects, became the most controversial. Real production of effects means that the cause actually produces the effects that we observe; it is not simply coincident with them (constant conjunction). Aristotle went beyond this, however, and made the four causes the key to all change, i.e., all that happens in the world. Correlatively, knowledge of the four causes became the source of all knowledge about the world, and philosophy itself, defined as “knowledge


Figure 1. The Five Phases of the Development of Causality

through causes”. The knowledge Aristotle envisioned was not just any kind of knowledge. It could have no admixture of uncertainty: we know in the true sense only when we know why things are the way that they are, and why they cannot be otherwise than they are. In other words, we are looking at a strict determinism both in the world and in our knowledge of it. Likewise implied is the idea that everything which happens must have a cause—the universality of causal explanation. Causality was thus elevated to the status of a metaphysical principle with universal applicability; hence it was used to make inferences about things that cannot be directly experienced.

On this basis, causality was employed in natural theology, forming the basis for many proofs of the existence of God. As it was understood, a cause really produces its effects, not merely in a phenomenological sense such as constant conjunction, but in a metaphysical sense. During this epoch, nearly all proofs of the existence of God, with the exception of the ontological argument, utilized causality as a principle of nature, and assumed that it was a universally valid principle that could be employed to reason from things of direct experience to realms far removed from that experience. The best-known type of such proofs is the cosmological argument, appropriately named because it utilizes causal reasoning about facts (deemed incontrovertible) of the cosmos to infer the existence of some type of being, such as a prime mover.2

In the West, Scholasticism began with St. Anselm (1033-1109), who is best known in philosophy for his proofs of the existence of God, especially what has become known as the “Ontological Argument.” Anselm was solidly in the Augustinian tradition, and was unfamiliar with the works of Aristotle, which were to become known in the West in the next century. In the Monologium, he gave proofs of the “standard” sort, based on causal arguments. In the Proslogium, he gave the “Ontological argument”, which is non-causal. Briefly, the argument runs as follows: if we say that God is an entity that is the greatest possible, then no greater entity can exist. But if God existed only in the mind, then we could imagine Him existing in reality, which is greater. Therefore we can imagine something greater than God, if he does not exist. But this is a contradiction to our premise. Therefore God must exist. Though always controversial, this argument later found use in phase two, when causal proofs could not be employed.

St. Thomas accepted the idea of real production, and believed that causes are “out there”, that we can perceive them, and that, indeed, everything that happens is caused by something. Causality, for him as for Aristotle, becomes the basis of change in the world and at the same time our knowledge of it. St. Thomas’ principal contribution to the theory of causality has to do with creation ex nihilo, which is a fact of Revelation that Aristotle never considered. Aristotle’s definition of efficient causality requires that one thing act on another, already existing thing, to bring it from potency to act. St. Thomas basically generalizes the notion of efficient causality to mean contributing being to, or contributing to the being or becoming of something else. Or in other words, efficient causality in the sense of creation does not refer to motion and applies to the entire being of the effect, whereas ordinary efficient causality has to do with motion and applies to only part of the being of the effect.4

For Ockham, philosophy and theology are completely separate, and the idea that things, such as they are in the world, could have any influence on the Divine Will, or in any way circumscribe Divine action, is summarily rejected. This is diametrically opposite, of course, to the position of Averoës, and represents a significant downgrading of the idea that causality is about things in the world in some real sense. Ockham’s main contribution to the theory of causality is his rejection of the idea of necessity in causes, that is, his rejection of the idea that there is a necessary connection between cause and effect. He also rejects the idea that we can somehow perceive causes with the mind, falling back on the idea of constant conjunction, together with the idea that if A causes B, and A is taken away, then B also goes away, implies that A is a cause of B. Ockham rejects the “first mover” proof of the existence of God, because it cannot be shown that everything which is moved must be moved by something else. Moreover, he rejects the idea that an infinite regress of causes is possible. And he rejects the proof from finality.

Phase 2. Epistemological: causality as a principle of understanding

This second phase receives the idea of causality more or less unchanged from the first phase. But in light of the endless controversies from that phase—about nature, universals, and proofs for the existence of God, together with the manifest failure to achieve the objectives proposed, namely secure knowledge of the world—the second phase sought to construct a secure foundation for knowing, and for this it preferentially employed causality as a principle of knowing rather than a principle of nature. As a result, causality, rather than being a tool for understanding what is happening in the world, became more important with respect to the link from the world to our ideas about it. There was less interest in what is happening in the world, with respect to cause and effect, and more with respect to the problem of what causes our ideas and how we can be sure that they are adequate and convey truth to us. To guarantee this link, it becomes necessary to invoke God himself. Thus in this phase, the focus of causality shifts from investigation of things and change in the world, to justification of our knowledge about the world. This is a very significant change, though not a re-thinking of causality. Philosophers still accepted the notion of causality as developed in the classical tradition (few bought into Ockham’s critique), but they used it differently. Not surprisingly, the philosophers of this period relied heavily on the ontological argument, since it is not based on reasoning from causes in the world, and more importantly, it established the existence of God, who can then be invoked for the above-mentioned guarantee of non-deception.

This phase begins with René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes inherited classical philosophy in almost all of its aspects, and also its fundamental horizon of nihility. But he had a different agenda. He felt that much of the certainty about life, about knowledge, about faith, and about things, which characterized the Middle Ages, had disappeared. So he was concerned with reestablishing certainty, with building a firm foundation for knowledge and belief—in things, in the world, in God. Descartes’ procedure, as is well-known, is to begin by doubting everything that can possibly be doubted, and then gradually rebuilding knowledge on the basis of the things he believes cannot be doubted. This led him to his famous first non-doubtable principle, the Cogito, ergo sum. But Descartes needed causality to complete his task. With respect to causality, he did not dispute any of its principle characteristics. For him, as for Aristotle and most of the philosophical tradition since, a cause has power to make things happen; and he relies upon this, as unquestionably true, to help him in out of his self-imposed doubts. Specifically, he restored his confidence in his ability to know things about the world by calling upon God to guarantee the causal link from the outside world to the ideas in his mind about it:

But since God is no deceiver, it is evident that He does not of Himself, and immediately, communicate those ideas [about bodies] to me. Nor does he do so by means of some creature…For he has given me…a very strong inclination to believe that those ideas are conveyed to me by corporeal things, I do not see how He could be defended against the charge of deception, were the ideas produced [caused] otherwise than by corporeal things. We have, therefore, no option save to conclude that corporeal things do indeed exist. [Med. VI, p. 72.]

So now causality, rather than primarily being a tool for understanding what is happening in the world, is needed to guarantee the link from the world to our ideas about it.

This phase includes the continental rationalists (Spinoza, Leibnitz), and the English empiricists Locke and Berkeley. Spinoza says, “The idea of an individual thing actually existing is caused by God…” (Ethics, Prop. IX). For Leibnitz, since God created the monads, and established the harmonious working of the universe, He caused the harmony, and in particular, He caused us—human monads—to have ideas about the world which appear precisely in the order and at the time that actual changes occur there.6 For Berkeley, more than just their guarantor, God directly causes our ideas of the world; this extends to observed regularities in the world, which Berkeley calls the Laws of Nature.8 For Hume, there is no perception of any link or connection between a cause and an effect:

Should anyone…pretend to define a cause, by saying it is something productive of another, it is evident he would say nothing. For what does he mean by production? Can he give any definition of it, that will not be the same with that of causation? If he can, I desire that it be produced. If he cannot, he here runs in a circle, and gives a synonymous term instead of a definition.10

This, presumably, also applies to the Ontological Argument. But Hume still has a use for causality. Hume explicitly accepts three of the classical characteristics of causality: temporal priority,12 and uniformity (which he terms “necessity”). It may seem surprising at first sight that he would retain this latter; but for him, it is related to the idea of causes as constant conjunction. And, he wished to extend the idea to the moral arena, so that morality becomes nothing more than a tendency to always associate certain activities with certain “pleasing sentiments of approbation”. Hume wants to make all causes necessary—i.e., deterministic or uniform—to avoid any possibility of something “occult” —some unknown power or agency—coming into the picture.14[Italics added]

This law, of course, points to a law giver. If one accepts the general Kantian approach that moral knowledge is more secure than knowledge of the external world, or equivalently, if one believes for another reason that certain moral imperatives (or facts) are absolute, there would be reasons to question the any philosophical position (such as the omnicompetence of science) that denies this absolute character. Zubiri observes,

Speculative reason had seen, in causality, temporal determination; here we find ourselves with something different: a determination in the intelligible world—a strict causality which is only in the intelligible order. Hence, what was simply a possibility for speculative reason, is an objective reality for practical reason. Why? Because practical reason has a datum which theoretical reason absolutely lacks, the absolute datum of morality, of the will.16

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), attempted to modify Hume’s theory of causality as constant conjunction so that it could serve as the basis for empirical science. For Mill, the various uniformities found in nature we term the “laws of Nature”. He was especially interested in what he terms the process of induction, which is how scientific laws are created from observation, experiment, and other sources. He is also interested in the reasoning processes by which conclusions are deduced from those laws, and other aspects of the reasoning that takes place in the conduct of science. For this, he believes that uniformity of nature and the law of cause and effect are both requisite. He explicitly tells us that he has no interest in metaphysical questions and inferences based on causality. Mill’s remarks make clear the shift in emphasis from pure philosophical speculation about causality, to an understanding of it based on the process and outcome of science:

I make no research into the ultimate or ontological cause of anything….the causes with which I concern myself are not efficient, but physical causes. They are causes in that sense alone, in which one physical fact is said to be the cause of another. Of the efficient causes of phenomena, or whether any such causes exist at all, I am not called upon to give an opinion.18

This notion Mill attributes to “that invariability of succession…found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it.”20

So for Mill, the last major thinker on causality prior to the upheavals of the 20th century, most of the major pillars of causality were still intact: determinism, universality, contiguity, and temporal priority. The focus is still on causality as the basis for our knowledge of the world, though Mill is ambivalent about his “facts” and whether they are about things in the world.

However, since causality is no longer considered to be a metaphysical principle universally valid for things, it cannot be used in the “old” way (the cosmological argument) to prove the existence of God. Hume and Mill, therefore, rejected proofs of God’s existence. Kant recognized that we have other sources of knowledge, and while rejecting the cosmological proofs, argued that we can infer God’s existence based on our knowledge of ourselves, and specifically, of our knowledge that we can cause things to happen in the traditional sense of production of reality. This, of course, represented another but lesser-known “Copernican revolution” in Kant’s philosophy.

Phase 4. The Scientific Crisis of Causality in the 20th Century

In the fourth phase, the very development of science compelled abandonment of key elements of the traditional notion of causality—the same elements that were considered indispensable in all the previous phases—thus revealing that notion as inadequate. The revolution in science also had profound implications for philosophy, which had always believed that it alone dominated the discussion of the bases of knowing. While epistemology is still within the realm of philosophy, philosophy now recognizes that science can tell us enough about the world that we cannot necessarily rely upon truths considered self-evident from our ordinary range of experience. Of course, theologians have recognized this for centuries.

The principal developments in science were:

    • Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, which dethroned Newton’s absolute space and time, together with simultaneity and the notion of fixed time throughout the universe.

    • Quantum mechanics, which introduced pervasive and inescapable indeterminism in our knowledge of nature (and nature itself), effectively demolishing the idea of infinitely precise physical quantities for things, such as momentum, position, time, and energy, and thus destroying the possibility of Laplace’s Demon.

  • Chaos theory, and the recognition that even deterministic laws, such as those of Newton, were insufficient to guarantee ordered behavior. 22 As we shall see, the power of the real finds its most important application in natural theology. The components of the traditional notion of causality can be visualized as shown in Figure 2.


Figure 2. Distinct Notions Conflated in Traditional Understanding of Causality. Note that traditional causality is a subset of functionality.

II. New Understanding of Causality

To appreciate the clarity that Zubiri’s new vision provides, and the ways in which it resolves problems with traditional views while maintaining the important insights in them, we shall examine the three notions in some detail. Then we shall examine one key consequence, namely Zubiri’s theory of personal causality and its place in demonstrations related to the existence of God.

What is Functionality?

In classical philosophy, causality expressed a particular type of relationship between two things (or events, or processes). Such relationships, with the characteristics described above (determinism, uniformity, real production, etc.), were assumed to be the only ones possible, at least in the sense that all others ultimately reduce to them. As such, they formed the basis for knowledge in classical philosophy, and did so even through the time of Kant. For some schools of thought, such as the Scholastic and neo-Scholastic, they still do.24

To clarify the distinction between functionality and causality, especially causality in the classical sense, Zubiri points out that functionality does not require the notion of the real influence of cause on effect:

From my point of view, causality is the functionality of the real qua real. Taken in its fullness, this concept of functionality is liberated from the idea of “influence”, and most importantly, leaves open the type of causality which may intervene in each case. The reality itself of the real, as its own physical moment, is founded on the absolutely absolute reality; therefore, a functionality of reality itself with respect to God exists.26 There is no inferential process required at that level (though this is not the case at the level of logos and reason). How is it given? Zubiri’s radical rethinking of intellection supplies the answer:

…functionality is formally sensed, i.e., not only is it something accessible, it is something for which access is already physically given in sentient intellection, in the transcendental “toward”.28

Or to paraphrase Zubiri’s discussion, the ringing of the bell is apprehended as real in a primordial apprehension, the same one in which the pulling of the cord is apprehended as real. This is functionality at the level of primordial apprehension, not at the level of logos or reason, where Hume was looking. Thus the ringing of the bell is apprehended as a real function of the pulling of the cord, whether or not the pulling of the cord actually operates the bell by itself. Moreover, it would still express a relationship even if pulling the cord only made the bell sound 60% of the time, though it could not be Hume’s causality:

Functionality is functionality of the real inasmuch as it is real. In this sense it is a concept which encompasses many possible types. This formality, this “by” as such, is given in the impression of reality. Hume’s whole critique is based upon the content of sensing, but he erred on the matter of formality.30

Real Production

We discussed the notion of real production of effects above, and noted that it is an idea developed over the course of the first phase of the history of causality. The key idea is that the cause really produces the effect, and does so through the interaction of two real things—that which acts as cause, and that which receives the action of the cause. The metaphysical connection between the two is often expressed by means of a counterfactual conditional. For example, take the causal statement, “John killed Bob.” Then consider the counterfactual conditional statement, “If John had not been here, Bob would not have been killed.” The modal implications of such statements is what reveals the metaphysical connection, which is absent in the case of constant conjunction causality. For example, consider the statement, “All the metal in Smith’s car is rusty.” Clearly this will not support the counterfactual, “If this piece of metal were in Smith’s car, it would be rusty.” The metaphysical connection between cause and effect, something that goes beyond what science utilizes or needs, or even what we use or need in everyday life, is what gives causality in the sense of real production its great impact. But it is also what limits its applicability, because we can only rarely determine if such a connection exists, and what its nature is. That was the mistake of philosophers in phases one and two—the failure to realize the true scope of causality, and the inapplicability of extrapolations of real production to all relationships where we perceive a connection.

What is Power of the Real?

The notion of power derives from a primordial experience of reality: it resists us (as in the force of nature), but at the same time captivates us (as in the beauty of nature), dominates us, and we must yield to it. Reality is “more” than individual characteristics, more than real things, but “more” in them:

And to dominate is just this: to be “more” but in the thing itself; the reality as reality is dominating in this thing, in each real thing. It is not the case that being dominant consists in being more important than being green, but that the moment of reality physically determines, without being a cause, that the green is a form of reality…. Consequently, this dominion is what we may call power. To dominate is “more”, it is to have power. Here “power” does not mean to be a cause.32

Zubiri refers to the capacity which real things have to be given meaning in our life, as in the case of the door, as condition. Using this notion he refines his distinction between causality and power:

If causality strictly speaking is the functionality of the real qua real, condition is the capacity of the real to have meaning, and consequently belongs to the real thing. Power is the dominating condition of the real qua real, in contradistinction to causality which is the functionality of the real qua real. And precisely because it pertains and belongs to reality in itself qua real, it is something which affects not only the attitude of man, but the very structure of things qua real.34 Power, on the other hand, is the dominance of the real qua real.36

Causality (as functionality of the real) and power (as dominance of the real) are thus two separate notions, corresponding to different problems and different areas of applicability.

III. Analysis of Causality as applied to Proofs of God’s Existence

In his discussion of Hume, in his main work, Sentient Intelligence, Zubiri distinguishes and relates causality and functionality, emphasizing that, in most instances, we do not perceive the real influence, i.e., the power, of cause upon effect. Therefore causes in the classical sense are not given in ordinary experience, and so cannot be used as the basis for extrapolation beyond such experience, and thus the cosmological argument fails.

Nonetheless it is useful to examine in more detail the traditional approach to causality-based proofs of the existence of God, to learn about the deep and perhaps hidden assumptions in them. St. Thomas utilizes the vocabulary and concepts of Aristotle’s metaphysics, including the notion of change as reduction from potency to act (first proof), the notion of efficient causality (second proof), certain ideas about possibility and necessity (third proof), distinct degrees of being and notion that higher cannot come from lower (fourth proof), and convergence of cosmos toward an end (fifth proof). In every case, the soundness of the proof depends on the truth of Aristotle’s metaphysics. As an example, consider the second proof:

In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.38

For Zubiri, all human life is, in some respect, an experience of the power of the real. Each person is, in his very constitution, turned toward a reality which is more than he is, and on which he is based. This reality is that from which emerge the resources he needs to make his personality, and which supplies him with the force necessary to carry out this process of realizing himself. This turning of a person to reality is what Zubiri terms religation (from the Latin, re-ligere, “re-tied”). It is a turning toward some ground not found among things immediately given, something which must be sought beyond what is given:

…Zubiri shows that the power of the real that is manifested in religation cannot be grounded in any particular real thing, but only in a reality that is absolutely absolute…for Zubiri, the way of religation leads to an absolutely absolute reality, which will be the ground of the world, understood as the unity of real things, not by virtue of their properties, but their character of reality.40 Religation, clearly, is not a cosmic phenomenon, but neither is it something subjective:42

The power of the real, through religation, reveals to us something very important and very fundamental about our experience in its totality, and it does so in a way that does not require any philosophical system, such as that of classical philosophy. Moreover, Zubiri was keenly aware of the fact that what we call “God” is not just the ground of human life, but of the world as well. For that reason, he sought a way to integrate them, and that is why power of the real is expressed in terms of the absolutely absolute and the relatively absolute.

In each person’s life there is the experience of the power of the real, and the experience of personal causality, both of which cause us to turn to something beyond what is given at the superficial level of ordinary life. Refer to Figure 3 for a schematic representation. This is not an airtight demonstration, nor is it intended to be; it is an analysis of human experience that reveals something not explicable or even expressible in scientific terms. One can still reject the conclusion that the reality ground refers to God; the atheist does so by arguing that he or she needs no grounding—life is self-sufficient. The agnostic does so by claiming that any such ground is unknowable. A discussion of these views is beyond the scope of this article, however.


Figure 3. Existence of God Through Personal Causality and Power of the Real

The object of reasoning, “demonstrations” if one wishes, as we noted is not to develop an irrefutable “proof” of God’s existence. Such proofs as have been proposed have never convinced everyone, and actually had little to do with the faith of most people. Rather, it was their experience of life—personal causality and the power of the real—that was their real contact with the reality ground that Zubiri terms “God”. Our understanding of God consequently changes in some ways from the traditional understanding, in the sense that the way of religation and personal causality leads to what we normally understand by God—an ultimate reality, source of our possibilities, to whom we petition for help. The traditional ways led rather to metaphysical constructions.44

In Zubiri’s view, this comes about because one of the two persons involved, namely the divine, is in fact interior to the human person. Thus,

…the help that God provides stems from the very depths of the human person. To help, to console, to listen, etc., are not mere psychic phenomena, but are the metaphysical forms through which God is constituting me in my being. Because of this, each human being, whether he or she knows it or not, has the experience of God. This is not the empirical experience of an object, but a metaphysical experience of the ground of his or her personal being. This experience is in itself the experience of God. God is something experienced.1 These “facts” were often metaphysical in nature; for example, the belief that all motion is reduction of potency to act, which required a contiguous efficient cause. Such arguments are perforce weaker than those based directly on the fact of change in the universe.

3 F. Meehan, Efficient Causality in Aristotle and St. Thomas, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1940,Meehan, p. 187.

5 Gottfried Leibnitz, Discourse on Metaphysics, p. 277.

7 George Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, part I, para. 30.

9 Ibid., Bk I, part III., sec. 2.

11 Treatise, Bk I, sec. 2.

13 Ezra Talmor, Descartes and Hume, Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980, p. 127,

15 Xavier Zubiri, Problemas fundamentales de la metafísica occidental, p. 229 (Hereafter, PFM).

17 John Stuart Mill, System of Logic, Bk III, ch. V, 2, p. 377.

19 Ibid.

21 The nature of chaos is sometimes misunderstood. Technically, if initial conditions were able to be specified with sufficient precision – which might mean dozens of decimal places – the chaotic systems could be made predictable for any desired time into the future, though their behavior would remain extremely erratic by normal standards. In fact, however, the necessary degree of precision is chimerical because of quantum mechanical limitations, random noise, and limitations imposed by the atomic structure of the measuring instruments. Philosophically, one could go on maintaining that any arbitrary degree of precision in measurements has meaning; scientifically, in terms of what can physically be measured, it does not.

23 Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy, tr. by E. I. Watkin, New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962, p. 64.

25 Xavier Zubiri, El hombre y Dios, p. 152. (translation of Mr. Joaquin Redondo; hereafter, HD).

27 IL, p. 40.

29 IL, p. 41.

31 HD, p. 87, translation of Mr. Joaquin Redondo.

33 PFHR, 42-43, translation of Mr. Joaquin Redondo.

35 ED, p. 320; PFHR, p. 43, 61.

37 St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 1 q.2 a.3.

39 González, op. cit., p. 101, author’s translation.

41 Cf. X. Zubiri, HD, p. 128.

43 González, op. cit., p. 104, author’s translation.

45 Ibid.

Causality has been a key concept throughout the history of philosophy. One of its main uses has been in securing proofs of the existence of God. A review of the history of causality discloses five distinct phases, with major changes to the uses and understanding of causality. The first phase saw the development of the traditional notion of causality, on which rests the best-known proofs of God’s existence. In this phase, causality was considered to be a principle of nature. Later phases rejected proofs based on causality understood in this fashion but still relied upon the same basic idea of causality for other purposes. The whole notion of causality became very confused, especially after developments in physics during the 20th century. Zubiri pointed out that there are really three elements conflated in our idea of causality: real production of effects, functionality, and power of the real. By sorting these out and recognizing that causality in the majority of cases is merely a type of functional relation between “cause” and “effect”, many problems are greatly clarified. The type of functionality involved varies greatly and can involve notions unknown to Aristotle, Hume, or Kant. But especially important is the case of causality involving human beings, since knowledge of direct production of effects is available there that is absent elsewhere. Combined with understanding of the power of the real, Zubiri shows that we have knowledge of what he terms a “reality ground,” which theists call “God”. Causality once again becomes a key element of natural theology, though in a different and more rigorous way than in traditional proofs of God’s existence.

5/22/2008 05/22/2008 10466 Introduction to the Philosophy Xavier Zubiri

Introduction

The creation of a new philosophical system is a staggeringly difficult task, fraught with myriad dangers, pitfalls, and problems.  Only one of supreme genius can undertake this enterprise with any expectation of success, and then only when old ways of thought have shown themselves inadequate to cope with the march of human knowledge.  It is fortunate that these conditions have been fulfilled in our day and in the person of Xavier Zubiri (1898-1983).  No one can say now if this or any future philosophical system will be the definitive one; but Zubiri’s effort is surely the grandest, most boldly and most radically conceived effort to integrate the Western (and to a considerable extent, Eastern) philosophical tradition, the explosive growth of scientific knowledge, and the rich artistic, literary, and cultural traditions of European and world civilization. 

Of course the history of philosophy is littered with corpses of failed systems.  Many are the philosophers who, contemplating this situation, saw in it nothing but an inconvenient fact arising from some fault in the assumptions, reasoning, or scope of their predecessors’ work.  Each expected to put paid to this situation once and for all with his own new and improved philosophy, only to see it fall to the same fate.2   The object and process of knowing are completely intertwined, and any comprehensive philosophy must address and encompass both together in its vision.  At the outset, this requires an analysis of intelligence—something which must logically precede any type of rigorous epistemology or Kantian critique.  As Robert Caponigri, translator of Sobre la esencia put it,

The theory of “sentient intelligence” must be distinguished from the “epistemological question” or the theory of knowledge.  The theory of intelligence is logically antecedent to the epistemological question and every epistemological theory eventually reveals that it presupposes a theory of the intelligence in its account of what and how man can know.4
 

  • Scientific knowledge, and especially the insight science has given us into the structure of the natural world and our ability to know that world.  Zubiri evinces a particularly keen interest in quantum mechanics and the revolution in physics which occurred in the early decades of this century.  His interest extends to all the sciences, and he believes that the cracking of the genetic code has provided insights into the biological realm which are in some ways analogous to those achieved in physics.
     
  • Modern logic and mathematics, especially Gˆdel’s theorem, and the new insights about mathematical truths and mathematical realities these developments have yielded.
     
  • Nonscientific knowledge, specifically, the need to establish a foundation for it in a comprehensive philosophical system, and recognize its great and continuing contribution to the totality of knowledge. In what sense is a novel, a poem, or a painting about reality?  Why do we say that an artist has “perceived essential truths”?   Why does an artist create his works rather than just discourse about his subject?
     
  • The relation of God to the physical world and to science and scientific knowledge, especially physics; dealt with at length in earlier works,6
     
  • The Christian theological tradition, with equal emphasis on Eastern (Greek) and Western Fathers and theologians.  Zubiri wrote extensively on this subject and related topics, including a trilogy published posthumously.8

For Zubiri, this is not merely a roundabout way, but something worse:

…it is a roundabout way which rests on an enormously problematic presupposition, namely, that the essential element of every thing is necessarily definable; and this is more than problematical.10This also becomes the basis for Zubiri’s understanding of the relationship of science and philosophy.

Secondly, he accepts that philosophy must start with its own territory, that of “mere immediate description of the act of thinking”.   But for him, the radical philosophical problem is not that proclaimed by the phenomenologists: not Husserl’s “phenomenological consciousness”, not Heidegger’s “comprehension of being”, not Ortega’s “life”, but rather the “apprehension of reality”.  He believes that philosophy must start from the fundamental fact of experience, that we are installed in reality, however modestly, and that our most basic experiences, what we perceive of the world (colors, sounds, people, etc.) are real.  Without this basis—and despite the fact that knowledge built upon it can at times be in error—there would be no other knowledge either, including science.   However, at the most fundamental level, that of direct apprehension of reality, there is no possibility of error; only knowledge built upon this foundation, involving as it does logos and reason, can be in error.  Zubiri points out that it makes sense to speak of error only because we can—and do—achieve truth.12

This conception of reality is, so to speak, a radical “paradigm shift”, because it means that there are multiple types of reality and that many of the old problems associated with reality are in fact pseudo-problems.  Zubiri notes that

The reality of a material thing is not identical with the reality of a person, the reality of society, the reality of the moral, etc.; nor is the reality of my own inner life identical to that of other realities.  But on the other hand, however different these modes of reality may be, they are always reity, i.e., formality de suyo.

Much of the work is devoted to analyzing the process of intelligence, and explaining how its three stages (primordial apprehension, logos, and reason) unfold and yield knowledge, including scientific knowledge.

Sentient Intellection not Sensible Intellection

Zubiri seeks to reestablish in a radical fashion the basis for human knowledge, as the principal step in his restructuring of philosophy.  This task goes far beyond any type of Kantian critique—something that Zubiri believes can only come after we have analyzed what human knowledge is, and how we apprehend.  For Zubiri, perception of reality begins with the sensing process, but he rejects the paradigm of classical philosophy, which starts from opposition between sensing and intelligence.  According to this paradigm, the senses deliver confused content to the intelligence, which then figures out or reconstructs reality.  The Scholastics said, nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu nisi ipse intellectus.  This is sensible intelligence, and according to Zubiri, the entire paradigm is radically false.

Zubiri’s point of departure for his rethinking of this problem is the immediacy and sense of direct contact with reality that we experience in our perception of the world; the things we perceive: colors, sounds, sights, are real in some extremely fundamental sense that cannot be overridden by subsequent reasoning or analysis.  That is, there is associated with perception an overwhelming impression of its veracity, a type of “guarantee” which accompanies it, that says to us, “What you apprehend is reality, not a cinema, not a dream.”  Implied here are two separate aspects of perception: first, what the apprehension is of, e.g. a tree or a piece of green paper, and second, its self-guaranteeing characteristic of reality.  This link to reality must be the cornerstone of any theory of the intelligence:

By virtue of its formal nature, intellection is apprehension of reality in and by itself.  This intellection…is in a radical sense an apprehension of the real which has its own characteristics….Intellection is formally direct apprehension of the real—not via representations nor images.  It is an immediate apprehension of the real, not founded in inferences, reasoning processes, or anything of that nature.  It is a unitary apprehension.  The unity of these three moments is what makes what is apprehended to be apprehended in and by itself.14  There are three moments of this actualization:

  • affection of the sentient being by what is sensed (the noetic).
     
  • otherness which is presentation of something other, a “note”, nota (from Latin nosco, related to Greek gignosco, “to know”, and noein, “to think”; hence the noematic)
     
  • force of imposition of the note upon the sentient being (the noergic).

Otherness consists of two moments, only the first of which has received any attention heretofore: content (what the apprehension is of) and formality (how it is delivered to us).  Formality may be either formality of stimulation, in the case of animals, or formality of reality, in the case of man.

The union of content and formality of reality gives rise to the process of knowing which unfolds logically if not chronologically in three modes or phases:

  • Primordial apprehension of reality (or basic, direct installation in reality, giving us pure and simple reality)
     
  • Logos (explanation of what something is vis ‡ vis other things, or what the real of primordial apprehension is in reality)
     
  • Reason (or ratio, methodological explanation of what things are and why they are, as in done in science, for example)

This process, shown schematically in Figure 1, is mediated by what Zubiri calls the ‘field’ of reality.  The reality field concept is loosely based on the field concept from physics, such as the gravitational field, where a body exists “by itself”, so to speak; but also by virtue of its existence, creates a field around itself through which it interacts with other bodies.  Thus in the field of reality, a thing has an individual moment and a field moment. The individual moment Zubiri refers to as the thing existing “by itself” or “of itself”; de suyo is the technical term he employs. The “field moment” is called as such and implies that things cannot be fully understood in isolation.  This is in stark contrast to the notion of essence in classical philosophy.

Roughly speaking, primordial apprehension installs us in reality and delivers things to us in their individual and field moments; logos deals with things in the field, how they relate to each other; and reason tells us what they are in the sense of methodological explanation. A simple example may serve to illustrate the basic ideas. A piece of green paper is perceived.  It is apprehended as something real in primordial apprehension; both the paper and the greenness are apprehended as real, in accordance with our normal beliefs about what we apprehend. (This point about the reality of the color green is extremely important, because Zubiri believes that the implicit denial of the reality of, say, colors, and the systematic ignoring of them by modern science is a great scandal.) 

 src=/sites/default/files/old_site/images/10466_Fig-1.gif><br>Figure 1<br>Sentient Intelligence in Zubiri’s Philosophy</p><p>As yet, however, we may not know how to name the color, for example, or what the material is, or what to call its shape.  That task is the function of the logos, which relates what has been apprehended to other things known and named from previous experience; for example, other colors or shades of colors associated with greenness.  Likewise, with respect to the material in which the green inheres, we would associate it with paper, wood, or other things known from previous experience.  In turn, reason via science explains the green as electromagnetic energy of a certain wavelength, or photons of a certain energy in accordance with Einstein’s relation <em>E=h</em><em>n</em>.   That is, the color green <em>is the photons as sensed</em>; there are not two realities.  The characteristics of the three phases may be explained as follows:</p><ul><li>Primordial apprehension of reality is the basic, direct installation in reality, giving us pure and simple reality.  This is what one gets first, and is the basis on which all subsequent understanding is based.  Perhaps it can most be easily understood if one thinks of a baby, which has <em>only</em> this apprehension: the baby perceives the real world around it, but as a congeries of sounds, colors, etc., which are <em>real</em>, but as yet undifferentiated into chairs, walls, spoken words, etc. It is richest with respect to the real, poorest with respect to specific determination (ulterior modes augment determination, but diminish richness).  In it, reality is not exhausted with respect to its content, but given in an unspecific ambient transcending the content.  This transcendence is strictly sensed, not inferred, even for the baby.  Primordial apprehension is the basis for the ulterior or logically subsequent modes. <br> </li><li>Logos (explanation of what something is <em>vis ‡ vis</em> other things, or as Zubiri expresses it, what the real of primordial apprehension is <em>in reality</em>).  This is the second step: differentiate things, give them names, and understand them in relation to each other.  As a baby gets older, this is what he does: he learns to make out things in his environment, and he learns what their names are, eventually learning to speak and communicate with others verbally.  This stage involves a “stepping back” from direct contact with reality in primordial apprehension in order to organize it.  The logos is what enables us to know what a thing, apprehended as real in sentient intellection, is <em>in reality </em>(a technical term, meaning what something is in relation to one’s other knowledge).  It utilizes the notion of the “field of reality”.  The reality field is a concept loosely based on field concept of physics: a body exists “by itself” but by virtue of its existence, creates field around itself through which it interacts with other bodies.<br> </li><li>Reason (or <em>ratio</em>, methodological explanation of what things are and why they are, as is done in science, for example).  This is the highest level of understanding; it encompasses <em>all</em> of our ways of understanding our environment.  One naturally thinks of science, of course; but long before science as we know it existed, people sought explanations of things.  And they found them in myths, legends, plays, poetry, art, and music—which are indeed examples of reason in the most general sense: they all seek to tell us something about reality.  Later, of course, came philosophy and science; but no single way of access to reality, in this sense, is exhaustive: all have a role.  Reason, for Zubiri, does not consist in going to reality, but in going from field reality toward worldly reality, toward field reality in depth.  If one likes, the field is the system of the sensed real, and the world, the object of reason, is the system of the real as a form of reality.  That is, the whole world of the rationally intellectively known is the unique and true explanation of field reality.</li></ul><p>In Zubiri’s word’s, reason is “measuring intellection of the real in depth”.<sup class=ftn><a title=15  There are two moments of reason to be distinguished (1) intellection in depth, e.g., electromagnetic theory is intellection in depth of color;
Figure 2.  Three levels of sentient intelligence

This means that Zubiri has, in an even more radical way than Kant, made his own “Copernican Revolution”, because in Zubiri’s thought, the traditional grounding of knowing has been turned upside down.  Our fundamental source of knowledge about the world is our direct contact with it, not the highest level of our intelligence.  This is illustrated in Figure 3.

 src=/sites/default/files/old_site/images/10466_Fig-3.gif><br>Figure 3.  Zubiri’s “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy</p><p><strong>Reality</strong></p><p>Given Zubiri’s radically new approach to philosophy, and his analysis of intelligence as sentient, it is not surprising that his concept of reality is quite different from that of previous philosophy as well.  As mentioned above, he rejects the idea of reality as a “zone of things”, usually conceived as “out there” beyond the mind, and replaces it with a more general notion, that of formality.  “Reality is formality”, he says over and over, and by this he means that reality is the <em>de suyo</em>, the “in its own right”; it is not the content of some impression.  Anything which is “in its own right” is real.  This <em>de suyo</em>, the formality of reality, is how the content is delivered to us.  Our brains—Zubiri refers to them as organs of formalization—are wired to perceive reality, to perceive directly the “in its own right” character.  It does <em>not</em> emerge as the result of some reasoning process working on the <em>content</em>; it is delivered <em>together with the content</em> in primordial apprehension.  </p><p>This includes reality in apprehension, as well as reality beyond apprehension.  But always, the character of reality is the same: <em>de suyo</em>.  It is therefore something <em>physical</em> as opposed to something conceptual.  And this is true whether one is speaking of things perceived at the level of primordial apprehension, such as colors, or things perceived in ulterior modes of apprehension such as reason, where examples might be historical realities such as the Ottoman Empire, or mathematical objects such as circles and lines: both are <em>real</em> in the same sense, though they differ in other respects (mathematical objects are real by postulation, whereas historical entities are not).  Moreover, reality is independent of the subject, not a subjective projection, but something <em>imposed </em>upon the subject, something which is <em>here-and-now</em> before the subject.  Logos and reason do not have to go to reality or create it; they are born in it and remain in it. </p><p>When a thing is known sentiently, at the same time it is known to be a reality. The impression of reality puts us in contact with reality, but not with <em>all</em> reality.  Rather, it leaves us open to all reality.  This is <em>openness</em> to the world.  All things have a unity with respect to each other which is what constitutes the <em>world.</em>  Zubiri believes that reality is fundamentally open, and therefore not capturable in any human formula.  This openness is intimately related to transcendentality:</p><blockquote>...reality as reality is constitutively open, is transcendentally open.  By virtue of this openness, reality is a formality in accordance with which nothing is real except as open to other realities and even to the reality of itself.  That is, every reality is constitutively respective <em>qua</em> reality. <sup class=ftn><a title=17

Reality must not be considered as some transcendental concept, or even as a concept which is somehow realized in all real things:

…rather, it is a real and physical moment, i.e., transcendentality is just the openness of the real qua real….The world is open not only because we do not know what things there are or can be in it; it is open above all because no thing, however precise and detailed its constitution, is reality itself as such.
Figure 4.  Reality in impression and reality beyond impression

That was the measure of reality: progress beyond the field was brought about by thinking that reality as measuring is “thing”.  An intellection much more difficult than that of quantum physics was needed in order to understand that the real can be real and still not be a thing.  Such, for example, is the case of person.  Then not only was the field of real things broadened, but that which we might term ‘the modes of reality’ were also broadened.  Being a thing is only one of those modes; being a person is another.20

The two aspects of truth for Zubiri are shown in Figure 5.

Now truth and reality are not identical in Zubiri’s philosophy, because there are many realities which are not actualized in sentient intellection, nor do they have any reason to be so.  Thus not every reality is true in this sense.  Though it does not add any notes, actualization does add truth to the real.  Hence truth and reality are different; nor are they mere correlates, because reality is not simply the correlate of truth but its foundation on account of the fact that “all actualization is actualization of reality.”
Figure 5.  Real truth and dual truth in Zubiri’s philosophy

Knowledge and Understanding

Zubiri believes that one of the principal errors of past philosophers was their excessively static view of knowledge—a conquer it “once and for all” approach.  Typical of this mentality are the repeated attempts to devise a definitive list of “categories”, such as those of Aristotle and Kant, and Kant’s integration of Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry into the fabric of his philosophy.  Rather, knowledge as a human enterprise is both dynamic and limited.  It is limited because the canon of reality, like reality itself, can never be completely fathomed.  It is limited because as human beings we are limited and must constantly search for knowledge.  The phrase “exhaustive knowledge” is an oxymoron:

The limitation of knowledge is certainly real, but this limitation is something derived from the intrinsic and formal nature of rational intellection, from knowing as such, since it is inquiring intellection.  Only because rational intellection is formally inquiring, only because of this must one always seek more and, finding what was sought, have it become the principle of the next search. Knowledge is limited by being knowledge.  An exhaustive knowledge of the real would not be knowledge; it would be intellection of the real without necessity of knowledge.  Knowledge is only intellection in search.  Not having recognized the intrinsic and formal character of rational intellection as inquiry is what led to…subsuming all truth under the truth of affirmation.23

Understanding, then, requires sentient intellection and cannot exist, even for subjects such as mathematics, without it.  This insight reveals clearly Zubiri’s radical departure from all previous thought.

Zubiri and Science

The scientific and the metaphysical are closely connected, because both are forms of knowledge emerging from the reason or third mode of human intellection.  Articulating the relationship between them has been a difficult problem for at least three centuries of Western philosophy.  For Zubiri, the relationship is as follows: reality unfolds in events observed by the sciences, which indeed allow us to observe aspects of it which would otherwise remain hidden.  But this unfolding of reality is no different from its unfolding through personal experience, poetry, music, or religious experience.  All human knowing is of the real, because reality is the formality under which man apprehends anything. In man’s quest for understanding, the utilization of scientific concepts, amplified and interpreted, only supposes that the sciences are an appropriate way of access to reality.  Philosophy, in turn, reflects on the data offered by the sciences as “data of reality”.  But philosophy is not looking to duplicate the efforts of science.  Both philosophy and science examine the “world”, that to which the field of reality directs us.  But science is concerned with what Zubiri terms the “talitative” order, the “such-and-suchness” of the world, how such-and-such thing behaves; whereas philosophy is concerned with the respective unity of the real qua real, with its transcendental character, what makes it real.25

For Zubiri, there are three serious problems with any positivistic approach such as this: (1) The meaning of statements cannot be identified with their method of verification, because this represents a hopeless confusion of the three levels of human intelligence.  Verification methods involve concepts of reason, whereas the meaning of statements arises at the level of logos, coupled of course with primordial apprehension of reality.27

So the idea of being able to capture it in a complete way, or to say all that can be said about it utilizing rational knowledge such as science, is doomed from the start.  There will always be knowledge about the world which cannot be subsumed under science (or any other form of rational knowledge), or captured in any human formula.  Zubiri notes that art, literature, and music are other examples of rational knowledge that tell us about the world—tell us different things about it than science does.  Hence, the fundamental or constitutive openness of reality means that the search for it is a never-ending quest; he believes that the development of quantum mechanics in the twentieth century has been an example of how our concept of reality has broadened. 

God and Theology

Theology in the Western tradition is generally regarded as a rational enterprise, much like science, and as such often starts with demonstrations of the existence of God, such as the so-called “cosmological proof.”  For Zubiri, this approach is wrong for reasons that are analogous to those he adduces with respect to knowledge in general.  Zubiri believes that any attempt to base theology on complex rational arguments, such as the proofs of the existence of God by Aquinas or Scotus, fails because it makes too many controversial philosophical assumptions at the outset, as do attempts to ground human knowledge in general on theories at the level of reason.  Rather, one must start from something much more modest, namely something in our personal experience.  For Zubiri, this is our experience of the power of the real. Reality imposes itself on us in an especially forceful tripartite way, as ultimate, possibility-making, and impelling. Our experience of this imposition, our experience of the power of the real, is our experience of the ground of reality.29

For Zubiri this first step, somewhat analogous to primordial apprehension, is thus the recognition that each person is, in his very constitution, turned toward a reality which is more than he is, and on which he is based.  This reality is that from which emerge the resources he needs to make his personality, and which supplies him with the force necessary to carry out this process of realizing himself.  Such turning of a person to reality is religation.  It is a turning toward some ground not found among things immediately given, something which must be sought beyond what is given.  This gives rise in the first place to the notion of “Deity”.  Later, the theist will call this ground ‘God’.  With respect to religions, nearly all offer a vision or explanation of this ground, and therefore there is some truth in all.

It is only when this fundamental ground of religious faith and knowledge has been recognized that construction of any sort of “rational” theology makes sense.  While scientific and theological knowledge are both knowledge at the level of reason, for Zubiri, they are different in their object, structure, and method of verification.  Both seek to tell us about reality, though not necessarily the same reality.  By analyzing these difference, we can gain some insight into the reasons for potential conflicts, and how to resolve them.

Scientific knowledge is based on postulation, and is subject to verification using methods appropriate to postulation.31

In Zubiri’s view, we are religated to reality, because reality imposes itself on us in an especially forceful tripartite way, as ultimate, possibility-making, and impelling:

The experience of this imposition, of this power of the real which is a fact, is…the experience of the ground of reality, the fundamental experience which each man possesses as a theist, an agnostic or an atheist. The divergences begin at the time of intellectual discernment and volition when confronting this fundament. For the theist, the experience of the fundament is an experience of God, a God which is not transcendent “to” things, but transcendent “in” things. To reach God it is not necessary to leave the world, but to enter more into it, reaching its foundation or ground. God is at the bottom of things as their ground; and in his experience of things man has the fundamental experience of God. The life of man is woven into his experience with and of things; and as this experience is in itself an experience of God, it turns out that the life of each man is in some way a continuous experience of God. This means that the real God of each person is not a concept or the result of reasoning, but the very life of man.
Figure 6.  Comparison of Theology and Noology in Zubiri’s Philosophy

In theology, we utilize this direct experience, and also reported direct experience, as in sacred texts such as the Bible.  So for example, key theological information comes from reports of experiences such as those of Moses on Mt. Sinai.  On the basis of direct and reported experiences, inferences are drawn, and large-scale theological structures erected.  Such inferences often—indeed usually—go beyond direct experience, and refer to things in the world, what Zubiri terms “reality beyond apprehension”.  These inferences will inevitably be influenced by the general state of knowledge at the time, and by the world in which the theologian lives and with which he is familiar.  Often the inferences are directed at explanation of “origins”—how the world came to be, how man came to be, and why he is as he is.  Thus the geocentric theory of the universe, based on a set of observations, was used in conjunction with certain Biblical verses to construct a vision of the heavens.  Conflict can therefore arise when new knowledge of the world is inconsistent with earlier knowledge, rendering the inferences and vision untenable.  The problem, therefore, is to keep the core beliefs and exercise great care with inferences.  Inferences easily turn into extrapolations, and extrapolations lead to problems because they are often unverifiable and far removed from the original source of the knowledge.  As mentioned previously, science and theology both seek knowledge of reality beyond apprehension, but not necessarily the same reality.  For example, science does not look for God to appear in some experiment; by the same token, theology does not seek to discover new subatomic particles.  But extrapolation can lead to much blurring and overlap.

This focuses attention directly on a key difference between theological and scientific knowledge, their respective methods of verification.  Verification is “clearly encountering or finding something which one is already seeking.”34

The originality and vigor of Zubiri’s approach can be gauged by comparing it to “classical” theology, as shown in Table 1. 

 src=/sites/default/files/old_site/images/10466_Fig-7.gif><br>Table 1. Comparison of Systematic Theology based on St. Thomas and on Zubiri</p><p><strong>Human Reality</strong></p><p>For centuries it was believed that what is real “beyond” impression comprises “material bodies”, envisaged as made up of some sort of billiard-ball type particles.  The development of quantum mechanics forced a change in this picture, though not without considerable controversy.  A much more difficult effort was required to recognize that something can be real and yet not be a thing, viz. the human person.  The human person is a fundamentally different <em>kind</em> of reality, one whose essence is <em>open</em>, as opposed to the closed essences of animals and other living things.  An open essence is defined not by the notes that it naturally has, but by its system of possibilities; and hence it makes itself, so to speak, with the possibilities.  “Its-own-ness” is what makes an essence to be open.  This open essence of man is the ground of his freedom, in turn the ground of his moral nature.  Zubiri terms the set of notes defining the essence of what it means to be a person <em>personeity</em>, and <em>personality </em>the realization of these notes by means of actions.  A person, for Zubiri, is a <em>relative absolute</em>: “relative” because his actions are not entirely unconstrained, but are what make him the kind of person that he is; “absolute” because he enjoys the ability to make himself, i.e., he has freedom and is not an automaton, fully deterministic.</p><p>As a consequence, man’s role in the universe is different; and between persons (and only between them) there is a strict causality, which in turn implies a moral obligation.  This causality is not a simple application of classical notions of causality to persons, but something irreducible to the causality of classical metaphysics, and still less reducible to the concept of a scientific law.  This is what Zubiri refers to as <em>personal causality</em>:  “And however repugnant it may be to natural science, there is...a causality between persons which is not given in the realm of nature.”  The key characteristic of this type of causality is that we can know it in ways that we cannot know about other aspects of reality.  Indeed, personal causality—and our knowledge of it—is the ultimate basis for morality.</p><p><strong>Concluding remarks</strong></p><p>Zubiri’s philosophy is a boldly conceived and superbly executed rethinking and recasting of the great philosophical questions, unique in many extremely significant respects.  It represents a new conception of philosophy as well as a new way of viewing and absorbing the history of philosophy.  At the same time, it presents satisfying answers to the great philosophical questions, and reveals how many of the problems of the past were in fact pseudo-problems arising from deep-seated misunderstandings, especially of the nature of human intellection as sentient.</p><br><hr><p align=center><strong>Endnotes</strong></p><div><div id=edn1><p><a title=1  A. Pintor Ramos, Zubiri, Madrid: Ediciones del Orto, 1996, p. 18.

3  Xavier Zubiri, On Essence, translated by A. R. Caponigri, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1980, p. 1.

5  Naturaleza, Historia, Dios, Madrid: Alianza Editorial/Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, ninth edition, 1987; English edition, 1981.

7First volumen: Xavier Zubiri, El hombre y Dios, Madrid: Alianza Editorial/Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1984.  English translation to be published in 2008 by University Press of America.  Second volume: Xavier Zubiri, El problema filosÛfico de la historia de las religiones, Madrid: Alianza Editorial/FundaciÛn Xavier Zubiri, 1993.  Third volume: Xavier Zubiri, El problema teologal del hombre: Cristianismo, 1997.

9  Ibid.

11 Xavier Zubiri, Sentient Intelligence, tr. by Thomas Fowler, Washington, DC: Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America, 1999, p. 83ff (hereafter, SI).

13 SI, p. 94.

15 SI, p. 257.

17 SI, p. 248.

19 SI, p. 261.

21 SI, p. 193.

23 SI, p. 363.

25 Zubiri, Naturaleza, Historia, Dios, op. cit., p. 17.

27Xavier Zubiri, Inteligencia y razÛn, Madrid: Alianza Editorial/Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1980, p. 20; English translation, Sentient Intelligence, tr. by Thomas B. Fowler, Washington: Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America, 1999, p. 248.

29 From the Translator’s Introduction to Man and God, translated by Joaquin Redondo, Thomas Fowler, and Nelson Orringer, forthcoming by University Press of America.

31 Xavier Zubiri, Man and God, back cover summary

33 SI, p. 336.

1

Spinoza’s metaphysics is thus constituted by a tension between multiplicity and unity. On the one hand the infinite diversity of modes is defined essentially through their particular ways of “striving to be,” or conatus. On the other hand the unity of substance, that is, God or Nature, implies a single universal cosmos ultimately indivisible into dualist terms such as God and world, subject and object, or mind and matter. The tension between modal diversity and substantial unity is resolved through the essential relationality of the modes themselves. All finite beings are, for Spinoza, inherently beings-in-relation, and the causal and affective interactions among them constitute a systematic unity, a single ordo & connexio (“order and connection”) of things and ideas.3 One element shared by these various interdisciplinary studies is an emphasis on the relational and affective character of Spinoza’s metaphysics. Spinoza’s philosophy shows how relationality and in particular the human capacity for language provides a model of human personhood in which subjectivity and identity exist only through mutually affective relations with the world and with others. As we rethink the conceptions of personhood bequeathed to us by modern philosophy in light of issues that have arisen and returned in multiple disciplines calling the sense of modernity itself into question, Spinoza’s Ethics offers a powerful way to conceive of the need for and the establishment of interdisciplinary projects.

After first developing in more detail the ideas of personhood and language implied by Spinoza’s naturalism, we will turn to two specific cases in which the Spinozist model enables constructive interdisciplinary possibilities: first, linking philosophy with evolutionary biology; and second, engaging cooperation between contemporary philosophical and religious traditions.

Spinoza’s affective-relational model of personhood and language

What is the status of persons in the world described by Spinoza’s Ethics? We have seen that Spinoza’s philosophy understands human beings as integral parts of an all-encompassing nature. For Spinoza persons, like all finite modes, are relational parts of nature which are individuated and understandable only in terms of the ways they affect and are affected by other beings. This doctrine of the affects is one of the most characteristic features of Spinoza’s thought.5

This affective-relational model of language is not merely a theoretical element of the Ethics; it is equally a function of the textual-linguistic performance that the Ethics itself is. It is important to note that Spinoza’s Ethics is unique not only in what it says but equally in how its ideas are expressed and communicated. The “geometrical method,” or order of presentation in Spinoza’s text – based on the axiomatic-deductive structure of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry – provides a model of thinking that combines formal and logical relationships with a unique interplay of meaning and program. The “argument” of the Ethics proceeds not by strategies of persuasion but through the construction of new relations among already established results according to the rules given by initial definitions and axioms. It is not the terms of the Ethics that matter, but the ways they relate in ordered structures. Patterns of conceptual interrelation are more essential than any particular, isolated ideas. Entailed by the geometrical method is a distinct philosophical practice with respect to language. Meaning becomes subordinated to use, as semantic terms are replaced by systematic and practical relations. Because of the very form of Spinoza’s argument, the representational function of language is de-emphasized in favor of its practical, relational and affective aspects.

Understood in this way, language is composed of both chaotic processes and formal procedures. It is, like Spinoza’s Ethics itself, a complex hybrid of immediate affective passions and rational forms. Just as Spinoza’s text communicates explicitly both at the rhetorical level of natural language and at the purely formal level of axiomatic-deductive structure, language itself must be conceived in the untellable complexity of its combinations and historical changes as coordinating singular affective events and formal procedures traced in common. At the affective level, language is always immersed in concrete social, cultural and historical contexts – the surprises and vicissitudes of natural human experience. On the formal side, language is distinguished by its being capable of reflexive self-correction and thus productive of rationally approximative habits. In this way, the progressive character of modern scientific knowledge is, at a profound level, one expression of the potential inherent in the essence of language itself. Such a coordination of science and signification is confirmed by the theories of 20th century semiotics and philosophy of science.7 The “emancipation” story of modernity – the dominant narrative since the Enlightenment, according to Latour’s analysis – appeals to the human desire to be absolved from all relation, to seek freedom as abstract independence and personal sovereignty. This narrative tends to view science and technology as ways to master nature and to separate individuals away from the necessities of social cooperation and interdependence. In contrast to this narrative of emancipation, an “entanglement” narrative of modernity would emphasize the relations, connections and interdependencies that scientific and technological development produce. Where the “emancipatory” narrative preaches absolution, the “entanglement” narrative portrays us as “constantly [moving] from a superficial to a deeper interpretation of what it is to be entangled.”9 One is free to the extent that one is able to affect and be affected by the rest of nature in multiple, complex ways. Wisdom is neither theoretical knowledge nor disinterested contemplation, but rather the capacity to “do more things.” Such an idea of thought’s freedom as based in concrete relations entails renovations in the discipline of philosophy itself. In accordance with a relational model of personhood and an entanglement model of social and scientific development, philosophy’s own methods and practices need to be coordinated in active relations with other disciplines and traditions. Rather than standing absolute from the disciplines of science and the traditions of religion in a role of critic or judge, for instance, philosophy must risk the establishment of relations that would entangle it with these disciplines themselves. We will now turn to the two examples mentioned earlier of such potential relevance of Spinoza’s ideas to relations among philosophy, science and religion in an attempt to demonstrate how the relational model might encourage productive interdisciplinary and intertraditional entanglement.

Entangling philosophy and evolutionary biology

Our first case concerns the potential and actual relations between philosophy and evolutionary biology. It is clear that interest in these relations has arisen in both disciplines. On the one hand, evolutionary biologists such as Stuart Kauffman have come to see that scientific methods as applied to organisms and ecosystems must take into account the action of signification since the emergence of semiotic processes in nature is essential to the very origins and maintenance of life itself.11 So both Kauffman and Dennett agree that philosophy and biology must confer in addressing evolutionary processes, yet any possible relations between biology and philosophy would require ways of linking strictly scientific research with philosophical reflections on method, meaning and conceptualization as they themselves have developed as human, linguistically-mediated processes in nature and history. How can evolutionary science and philosophy become constructively entangled?

While the study of human culture and development from the standpoint of evolutionary biology necessarily emphasizes the rootedness of social and intellectual processes in the natural exigencies of survival and reproduction, philosophy since the Enlightenment has usually understood itself – as in Latour’s “emancipation” model – in terms of an uprooting of human minds from the pregiven limits of tradition and nature. Thus the worry of philosophers who resist bio-evolutionary “contamination” is that conceiving of human reason in general and of philosophy in particular as products of evolution would reduce the freedom of human thought to the causal determinations of “merely” natural processes. Yet this reduction of human rational and cultural phenomena to biological processes of reproduction and selection would appear as a stale and sterile necessitarianism only if evolution is equated solely with competition and selection. If, in contrast, structures of emergent order are in fact intrinsic to evolutionary processes, as the research of Kauffman and others would suggest, then “reducing” human thought to evolution may be no reduction at all but rather a realization of thought’s natural productivity, increase and potentialization. Certainly, this naturalist conception of human thought would be by no means foreign to the way of thinking expressed in Spinoza’s Ethics.

In addition, the relational focus of Spinoza’s Ethics is singularly situated within modern Western intellectual culture to provide both theoretical and practical frameworks for conceiving the interplay of natural and cultural processes in human contexts on the one hand and at the same time to serve as an actual key instance in the history of philosophy itself – with its varied semiotic processes and practical reinterpretations of tradition – of the early modern cultural, political, scientific and historical transitions whose consequences we inherit. Thus Spinoza’s philosophy may become a kind of test-case for understanding early modern forms of thought both as evolutionary products and as mappings of ways of life with continued evolutionary potential.

Such encounters between philosophy and evolutionary science may very well entail transformations in the notion of evolutionary biology as a science. Naturalist philosophical reflection is able to show that one only studies evolutionary biology to the extent that one participates in its very movement. While this insight may be especially needed in evolutionary biology and its offshoots such as human sociobiology, it should be clear that Spinoza’s trenchant naturalism with respect to human beings and all of our endeavors would imply a corresponding methodological shift in all the natural sciences, a deepening of what at least in physics has been well-known at least since Heisenberg: measurement and observation inescapably affect what is measured and observed. Hence it becomes apparent that scientific knowledge is, ineluctably, a form of affective relation.

In a parallel way, philosophy must risk its own transformations as it develops new relationships to the natural sciences. In constructive interaction with evolutionary biology, for instance, philosophy must learn to reflect more rigorously on the natural and social-historical contexts within which its methods and practices have arisen and must in addition address itself more thoughtfully to the specific needs and capacities of its interlocutors. One example here might be the important research being done around the themes of visual information processing and diagrammatic reasoning.13 When the ideas and goals of classical philosophy were revived especially in the Neoplatonic renaissance of 15th and 16th century Europe, the practical emphasis on worldly virtue was a core part of philosophy’s particular appeal. It was only with the later spread of merely academic philosophy that the ideal of philosophy as a practical form of life was lost. This process had begun already in the 17th century as Cartesianism contended with Scholasticism in the universities, but it reached its fulfillment with the rise of the “university professor” model of philosophy in 19th century Germany and elsewhere. Today, despite the immense variety of Western philosophical schools and traditions not only throughout Europe and America but worldwide, very little serious work is considered philosophy that does not take place primarily or solely through a theoretically oriented understanding of philosophy organized by printed media, lectures, conferences and so on – that is to say philosophy as talk, not as deed and certainly not as spiritual virtue.

Despite the nearly total disappearance of practical disciplines from the various Western philosophical traditions, however, such practices still remain essential elements of religions, both in personal and collective ritual. In today’s world no one could seriously argue that religious traditions have little measurable effect on human lives and communities, as one might quite rightly claim about contemporary philosophy. In the development of communicative relations across philosophical and religious traditions the effects of such ritual practices may perhaps become manifest in philosophy once again. First of all, remaining in a purely academic context, the discipline of religious studies with its sophisticated tools for the analysis and description of collective ritual and spiritual practice may take Western philosophy – especially ancient and early Renaissance philosophy – as an object of study. In this way, an understanding of the philosophical tradition in its history and in the transformations of its methods and practices may be pursued especially productively from the perspective of religious studies.15 It is possible that such practices find or create analogues within the philosophical traditions. Yet more importantly, new collaborative practices between philosophy and religion are likely to emerge from such encounters, creating new complex relational potential.

The practical consequences of such a model appear as follows: On the one hand, communicative and collaborative practices, rather than a representational, comparativist model, become the primary mode of scholarly relation between philosophy and religions. This applies especially to the conception of intertraditional dialogue. We aim then at a different set of purposes by pursuing a different set of questions. No longer do we ask: What can philosophy and religion agree on? or What do they disagree about? We ask instead: What can philosophical and religious dialogue do or construct together? and What affective relations can religious and philosophical traditions form? According to the intrinsically relational notion of identity developed in Spinoza’s Ethics, the formation of such new relations would necessarily imply the mutual transformations of philosophical and religious traditions themselves. The risk of self-transformation is a risk philosophy must take if it is to remain a relevant factor for the events and decisions of today’s world. Philosophy must find ways to communicate with and learn from religions. In this attempt, it is worth noting that Spinozist philosophy, because of its affective basis and unique discursive form, offers itself as one philosophical tradition that readily communicates and interacts with other diverse forms of thought and practice.

Conclusion

If, as Latour suggests, a theoretical shift away from the emancipatory narrative of modernity towards a relation-based entanglement model offers hope for breaking contemporary deadlocks of global ethical and political action, then Spinoza’s Ethics may help to construct the needed interdisciplinary and inter-traditional entanglements of our time. If we ourselves, our institutions, our academic disciplines and our cultural and religious traditions are not merely accidentally but essentially relational, as Spinoza’s philosophy maintains, then it becomes imperative to find ways of encouraging strong and flexibly adaptive relations among the best elements of the world’s manifold human traditions: philosophical, religious, scientific, artistic. Within these traditions, we must seek out instances of thought, expression and action that, like Spinoza’s Ethics itself, contain an internal impetus towards constructive relationality.

We have seen how the relational model of personhood and the affective-practical conception of language in Spinoza entail new practices of interdisciplinary relation between philosophy and the natural sciences on the one hand and between philosophy and religious traditions on the other. In both cases, the new object of relational study and the aims of interdisciplinary research must themselves be practiced as collaborative and experimental methods. In this way our very understanding of study and theorization becomes transformed. New forms of interdisciplinary study necessitate new methods – ones of participation, not detached objectification. Spinoza’s Ethics offers ways to conceive and to implement such interdisciplinary possibilities, particularly through integrating a relational conception of personhood with an entanglement model of collectivities, traditions and forms of discourse. The concept of relational personhood thus opens out onto a more general framework for rethinking the constructive relationality of social groups, academic disciplines and interdependent ways of life.

The real has traditionally been defined in philosophy as what exists independently of human thought and experience. If we take Spinoza’s Ethics seriously, we must revise this definition. When affectivity and relationality are essential characteristics of all natural being, what is real must be conceived in general on the basis of affective relations and their productive powers, not on some supposed independence from such relations. The real – as eminently relational – becomes that which cannot be disentangled from the collectively active work of “giving shape” to the world that is perhaps best translated by the broad semantic field of the German word Bildung. As in the narrative of a 19th century Bildungsroman, the greater and more complex the relationality developed within a history or a system, the more reality that system or history expresses. Or, to risk a further act of translation, we might identify the real in this revised sense with an ancient and non-psychological idea of psyche, soul understood here not merely in terms of the individuated forms of particular living beings but rather as the ceaseless bringing-into-relation of life itself: the networks of anarchic encounter and emergent pattern from which nature endlessly constructs its zones of counter-entropy, complexity and increase – its ecosystems, evolutes, valuations, societies and futurities.

 


 

Endnotes

2 This is the basis for Spinoza’s collapsing of the distinction between ideas and things as merely two different expressions of the identical “order and connection” of modes under the two attributes of thought and extension. See Ethics IIp7.

4 See the discussions in Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin, (NY: Zone 1992) and Spinoza: Practical Philosophy, trans. Robert Hurley (San Francisco: City Lights 1988).

6 See the comprehensive semiotic interpretation of the history of Western philosophy in John Deely, Four Ages of Understanding: The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-first Century (Toronto: University of Toronto 2001).

8 Latour, “How to Modernize Modernization,” p. 7.

10 Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity (NY: Oxford 1995) and Investigations (NY: Oxford 2000).

12 See the collections by Janice Glasgow, N. Hari Narayanan and B. Chandrasekaran, eds., Diagrammatic Reasoning: Cognitive and Computational Perspectives (NY: AAAI Press 1995) and Gerard Allwein and Jon Barwise, eds., Logical Reasoning with Diagrams (NY: Oxford University Press 1996).

14 This line of thought has been pursued in collaboration with Jason Smick (Santa Clara University) and Thomas Higgins (California State University Fresno) over the course of the past half dozen years in the work of our philosophical organization Synousia.

1 Thus, in a materialistic view, the millennia-old dilemma has been settled: external consciousness simply does not exist – a fruit of religious imagination, it should remain where it belongs – within the domains of theology or religious apologetics, and no roundabouts or insinuations as to sacred revelations within the academic discourse are welcomed any longer.

Yet, however paradoxically, with the rise of scientific materialism, the romantic longings for some sort of mysticism and transcendence among secular academics did not cease but inspired instead an alternative conceptualization of the so-called “humanistic” or “non-theistic” spirituality that undercuts the assumption in the belief in the supernatural as the only condition for a spiritual orientation. “Spiritual-humanistic tradition” suggested by Marx and developed by Fromm; the “new mystique” elaborated by Julian Huxley, “spirituality without God” advocated by MÛller de la RouviËre – these holistic, non-binary paradigms of human condition claimed to have deconstructed substance dualism and elaborated a new model of the undivided, non-metaphysical spirituality. Under the umbrella of this humanistic spirituality one may discuss spiritual phenomena in romantic, aesthetic, poetic or ethical terms or within the discourse of palliative healing, but to suggest that the eternal soul actually does exist – in whichever form, – and to imagine that it survives physical body – in whatever fashion – would be naive and retrograde and would not be worthy of serious academic exploration. Obviously, these humanistic conceptualizations of spirituality may be regarded as valid and legitimate ways to account for human condition in their own terms; however, under an honest critical consideration, they appear to be nothing more than “spiritualistically embellished” philosophical offsprings of mechanistic materialism, failing to accomplish the ambitious task of the transcendence of mind-body conceptual dichotomies. There is no such a thing as a transcendental aspect to human existence compliable with this spiritualistically-disguised materialistic worldview; nothing like that of a soul in the absolutist, Platonic, Hegelian, or Christian sense – this is the verdict that scientific materialism has passed.

Materialistic hegemony over human consciousness further shapes a broader secular public discourse on the nature of human self, which habitually refers to the laboratory-based scientific authority as an ultimate tribune in human affairs. Par example, while contemplating on the matters of brain-mind dualism, the Washington Post columnist Joel Achenbach – a recognized popular science journalist – logically concludes that if a mind (in contrast to brain) cannot be empirically tested, then it virtually does not exist at all:

The classic idea of “dualism” solves the location problem by defining it away: the mind is perceived as separate from the body, something that cannot be reduced to machinery. It is unreachable by the tools of the laboratory. Dualism flatters us, for it suggests that our minds, our selves, are not merely the result of rambunctious chemistry, and we are thus free to talk about souls and spirits and essences that are unfettered by the physical body. Dualism is pretty much dead to serious researchers … but here’s the most radical idea of all: the reason why the mind is so hard to define is not because it has some mysterious, ethereal, spooky qualities but because it does not really exist. We just imagine it. You might say it is all in our heads.3

The above excerpt appears as a classic example for the Foucauldian critique of hegemonic discourse-formation, whereby power-knowledge5 Par example, near-death experiences are now officially “real phenomena,” which emerge as the result of the suppression of activity in the superior parietal lobe. Apparently, the orientation association area (OAA) in the superior parietal lobe is responsible for our physical spatial orientation, the control of bodily motions, and the consistent awareness of the physical limits of the self – basically, neuroscientists believe that OAA is precisely what creates a coherent sense of self in humans. So, when the sense of orientation is suppressed in the near-death experience – neurotheologians explain – “self” no longer feels anchored to the body… and one often seems to be rising to “heaven…”7 As for the sense of full awareness of the surroundings in brain-dead patients, the materialistic explanation of this mystery would be that “these phenomena can occur with very minute amounts of electrical activity in the brain.”9 Hence, here is a delusional God-experience – a schizophrenic misperception of one’s own self as a separate presence. Neuroscientists Newberg and d’Aquili argue that all neurological phenomena of deafferentiation – that is, feelings of unity with the universe, a sense of being absorbed into divinity, and other modes of self-transcendence, such as sensations of “infinite sublimity,” “the sense of timelessness and spacelessness in prayer and meditation,” “communion with the universe,” “hyperlucid unitary consciousness,” “the dissolving of boundaries between the self and God, gods, universe,” “being consumed by the presence of God, Jesus, Mary, or any other religious agency,” etcetera – emerge as a result of the suppression of the OAA during meditation:

Would the orientation area interpret its failure to find the borderline between the self and the outside world to mean that such a distinction doesn’t exist? In that case the brain would have no choice but to perceive that the self is endless and intimately interwoven with everyone and everything the mind senses. And this perception would feel utterly and unquestionably real.”11 writing from personal experience with drugs in search for self-transcendence, pronounces the direct relationship between chemical influence of psychedelic drugs on the brain and having a mystical experience; Daniel A. Helminiak in Neurology, Psychology, and Extraordinary Religious Experiences13 argues that spirituality is a “nature’s white lie, a coping mechanism selected into our species to help alleviate debilitating anxiety caused by our unique awareness of death.”15 So far more than nine hundred people have already had an “instant God experience” with the help of Persinger’s helmet and reportedly all Tibetan monks and the Franciscan nun, who took part in this experiment, had experiences identical to those resulting from their authentic meditative practices.17 by not being able to experience anything at all).

While some neurotheologists, such as Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili claim to maintain an unbiased scientific approach, trying to neither prove nor disprove the existence of God through their experiments, other researchers, on the contrary, speak in a clear-cut hostile, anti-religious tone. “How much longer will we be slaves to destructive religious creeds…?” asks Matthew Alper in The “God” Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God.19 “How could evolution have favoured wasteful investment in preposterous beliefs? How can it be that human minds, evolved to cope with the real world, can hold beliefs that are patently improbable?” challenges spirituality Scott Atran in In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.21 The researchers at GIT claim that these laboratory-generated brain clumps in some ways act like actual living brains and have “a certain amount of awareness.” According to Steve Potter, a neuroscientist at GIT, “since our cultured networks are so interconnected, they have some sense of what is going in themselves… we can also feed their activity back to them, to mediate their “sense of self…”23or by suggesting some over-stretching explanations for mystical experiences as by-products of sexual development in humans, as in the following excerpt:

We believe the neurological machinery of transcendence may have arisen from the neural circuitry that evolved for mating and sexual experience… Scientists think the quiescent and limbic systems evolved partly to link sexual activity to the pleasurable experience of orgasm, with obvious evolutionary benefits. Components of the limbic system are involved in the deafferentation process. … Sex and prayer are obviously not the same experience… Neurologically they are quite different, but “mystical prayer and sexual bliss use similar neural pathways.25

Finally, neurotheologians consciously exclude any possibility of the external transcendental stimuli from their analytical framework. Beyond any doubt, spiritual phenomena are intrinsically physiologically-wired regardless of whether they are identical to, reducible to, are realized by, or are supervenient upon causal interaction with the external environment. Obviously, human emotions have a biological basis and, just like any other human emotions, mystical experiences are also manifest in the brain as a series of chemical reactions. But the real question is: why does neuroscience automatically rule out the possibility that mystical experiences may arise in response to some kind of ontologically existent transcendental stimuli? Human emotions are not necessarily always illusionary or self-induced but they often emerge in response to external stimuli. Why then do mystical experiences have to be so crudely reduced to the mere products of brain damage, chemical dysfunctions or psychological self-stimulations? In the words of Fraser Watts, a psychologist and theologian at the University of Cambridge, “even when the neural basis of religion has been identified, it remains a plausible interpretation of any conceivable neuropsychological facts that there is a genuine experience of God.”27

I teach you beyond-man. Man is something that shall be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass him? … All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and are ye going to be the ebb of this great tide and rather revert to the animal than surpass man? Beyond-man is the significance of earth. Your shall say: beyond-man shall be the significance of earth. I conjure you, my brethren, remain faithful to earth and do not believe those who speak unto you of superterrestial hopes! … What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what can be loved in man is that he is not a transition and a destruction… I love him who worketh and inventeth to build a house for beyond-man and make ready for him earth, animal and plant; for thus he willeth his own destruction. (Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra).

The curiously clairvoyant metaphor of the evolutionary model of human consciousness and its dehumanizing ramifications, which Zarathustra sarcastically articulated, urged humanity to abandon superterrestial hopes for transcendental spirituality and to remain faithful to this-earthly materialist interpretation of human existence. Zarathustra’s genius traced the link between the notion of “beyond-man” epitomizing radical anthropocentric ambitions and its potentially-destructive consequences several years before the “the philosophy of transhumanism” was even formulated and its proponents and critics were born.

Fulfilling Zarathustra’s prophetic predictions, the evolutionary model of natural selection of the species inspired the idea that scientific intervention and the further artificial selection and amelioration of humans was not only possible but highly desirable and, in fact, inevitable. Almost a century ago, Julian Huxley, a strong proponent of eugenics of his time, coined the term “transhumanism”29 The idea of amelioration of human species for the “common good” (and for reduction of State expenditures on the disabled) triggered holocaust, the compulsory sterilization and the artificial selection of humans in the past; it underlies some of the “positive eugenics” of today, presently practiced in China and Singapore, and it inspires the so-called new eugenics or liberal eugenics of the future. Currently liberal eugenics, or “the philosophy of transhumanism,” promotes the enhancement of intellectual, psychobiological and cognitive capacities of humans by means of biotechnological intervention, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, sub-molecular engineering, neuropharmaceuticals, prosthetic enhancements and the creation of artificial intelligence. A new transhumanist paradigm of human existence calls for reinterpretation of human essence as an intelligent machine that is to be redesigned and empowered by means of biotechnologies; it aims at overcoming biological determinism and the potential transition of the human race into a posthuman stage of evolution. The human condition, it holds, is not static as it may have appeared to be to the romanticists and the idealists of old; and rapid future innovations will allow humans to control their own destiny and to shape their own future characteristics as they see fit.

This understanding of human consciousness is based on materialist model of human consciousness that is embedded in dialectical materialism and reinforced by postmodernist anti-essentialism. According to this model, the essence of human consciousness resides in the continuous mutual transformation of the material (real) into the ideal in the process of cognition. This means that the material reality is reflected by the human mind and then translated into “forms of thought,” using Marxian terminology, i.e., ideal concepts, images, theories, hypotheses, etc. Then, the cognized laws of nature are re-materialized – transformed back from the ideal into the material, being embodied in “real” psychosocial patterns or/and substantial technical and productive materials, facilities and installations. Such is an empirical notion of consciousness as a unique constantly recurring cycle; simply put by Joel Achenbach for his Washington Post readers, “the mind, in this view, isn’t a single, specific thing. It’s more like a process, or an “emergent” phenomenon. This means that the many disparate components are not themselves conscious, but when they get together, the consciousness precipitates into being.”31

Indeed, human destiny truly depends on the way human beings see themselves. The way the proponents of transhumanism see it, posthuman cyborgs will be nice and friendly creatures. “Robots are getting closer to humans and humans are getting closer to mechanisms”33

However, it appears that not everybody is equally enthusiastic about the prospect of breeding “beyond-men” and building a posthuman paradise on earth. On the contrary, in the face of the looming biotechnological revolution there are many serious concerns that the eugenics project may so fundamentally alter human nature that it will shove the human race off the center-stage of this autonomously conducted self-evolutionary drama. Many social analysts today warn us that unrestrained technological advancement puts humanity at risk of reduction, and, in the end, the complete relinquishing of its freedom to its own creations—at this point of history human nature may become ultimately altered, and history itself may take an unpredictable turn. In the recently released popular movie titled Matrix, a matrix is as a monstrous technological womb in which the human beings are fueled and thereby are delimited in their world-perception by its parameters. Matrix preprograms humanity and runs the course of its destiny. While it may be looked upon as merely a science fiction fantasy, there are numerous examples in history of how science fiction writers were capable of foreseeing the future direction of technological development and also describing, with a very high degree of accuracy, future inventions way in advance. For example, Aldous Huxley had anticipated reproductive technologies of today – in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, psychotropic drugs, and genetic engineering for the manufacturing of children – as early as 1932. In his futuristic dystopia Brave New World he also envisioned the futuristic version of the technological paradise, in which genetic reproduction has replaced natural methods; religion, art, culture, and the biological family unit has been discarded as useless; suffering and pain, emotional struggle and moral conflict have been abolished; individual identity disintegrated; and a special government body established to ensure the immediate satisfaction of human desires on demand. Strangely, this perfect illustration of the beyond-man paradise on earth with its compulsory sense of happiness rather threatens than attracts us. This picture repulses us because we realize that if we, following Andy Clark, “give up the idea of the mind and the self … in embracing our hybrid natures,” then the difference between human and non-human existence would eventually fade and human beings will have ceased being human – and humane.

What can break through this preprogrammed mind-set, this techno-evolutionary pattern of life? Where is the force so original that it has the capacity to transcend matrix and deliver humanity from its humanoid destiny (besides the courageous and manly Keanu Reeves)? Interestingly, the attempts to escape the matrix mentality have turned into the quest for the restoration of the lost status of human essence as a vital notion. Key concepts in the search for something real that would anchor humanity to its original human condition are human dignity and human nature.

As genetic engineers are trying to envision the future shape of the human being, the humanities scholars are re-opening the question of what it is to be human—for highly pragmatic as well as redemptory reasons. They point to the potential dangers of artificial selection and genetic manipulation of our species (which a transhumanist ideology underpins) and they also fear that any destiny that we may discover on our own in the desacralized and dispirited universe might appear to be the ultimate science fiction nightmare. As Francis Fukuyama notes in Our Posthuman Future, Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, “denial of the concept of dignity – that is, of the idea that there is something unique about the human race that entitles every member of the species to a higher moral status than the rest of the natural world – leads us down a very perilous path.”35 echoes him Jurgen Habermas in The Future of Human Nature, noting that results of a human assuming a god-role can be devastating precisely because “a genetic designer, acting according to his own preferences, assumes an irrevocable role in determining the contours of the life history and identity of another person, while remaining unable to assume even her counterfactual consent.”37

These are only a few examples of the pitfalls on the path towards the creation of the “race of supermen.” There are uncountable bioethical concerns that arise today in the new transhumanist context – as our recent history demonstrates, de-spiritualization of human existence in a post-Darwinian era served as a breeding ground for legitimization of eugenics, artificial selection, and other forms of human manipulation and social stratification. In addition, our society’s moral condition has not much improved since then. However, while concentrating on the technological aspects of the problem we must not overlook what lies at the very heart of the matter. More than fifty years ago, having witnessed the atrocities of the World War II and the nuclear holocaust, Martine Heidegger postulated, “the threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology. The actual threat has always afflicted man in his essence.”39

Within the evolutionary framework of consciousness, the human being does not appear much more than merely an “intelligent machine” of nature, and the reality is that as long as we interpret the human being in exclusively materialistic terms, we will always approach human spirituality as a by-product of sociocultural evolution. This is the reason why recovering the conception of spirituality from its contemporary romantic and aesthetic trappings and then reinterpreting it in its original transcendental terms may have deep ethical implications on the discussion of the nature of human consciousness and the re-ascribing of the eternal value to human existence. Arguably, the restoration of the lost status of a spiritualistic paradigm of the human condition may help develop an antidote to postmodern disintegration and dehumanization of science.

Part III: “No-self” in Buddhism: Where Science Meets Religion

Buddhism is a hundred times as realistic as Christianity – it is part of its living heritage that it is able to face problems objectively and coolly; it is the product of long centuries of philosophical speculation. The concept, “god, ” was already disposed of before it appeared… the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion of the “impersonal”… Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times more austere, more honest, more objective. (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist)

As often observed within the ongoing dynamics of a science-and-religion interaction, some ancient religious observations of the world had anticipated certain insights of the contemporary science, and the science of today is finally “catching up,” arriving experimentally at the same conceptializations that religion had formulated contemplatively hundreds and thousands years ago. Thus, recent theories of the emergent nature of human consciousness and the illusory sense of selfhood (articulated by neuroscience) serve here as particularly vivid examples. Ironically, a new discovery that neuroscience celebrates today – the fact that human consciousness is an emergent, fluid, fundamentally processual phenomenon – has been a pillar doctrine of Buddhist philosophy for nearly three millennia.

The cornerstones of the original Buddhist teaching, articulated by its founder Gautama Siddhartha over two thousand five hundred years ago, are the conceptions of anātman, translated as “no-soul,” and pratītya-samutpāda view of reality, rendered into European languages as “conditioned genesis” or “interdependent arising.” Pratītya-samutpāda states that fundamental elements of existence, or dharma, arise together in a mutually interdependent web of cause and effect; since all phenomena of the world are constantly changing and impermanent, there is no unfaltering human essence, soul or permanent personality. Historically, original Buddhist doctrine arose in direct opposition to Brahmanism and discredited its belief in the existence of ātman an ancient Indian concept of “self,” variously rendered into European languages as “universal identity,” “self,” “soul,” or “ego.” Instead, human essence was reinterpreted in Buddhism as constituent of five essential aggregates (khandha), which exhaustively describe the human being and eliminate any idea of an underlying soul. The five aggregates are: rupa (matter or form), vedana (feeling), sanna (perceptions), samkhara (mental states, volitions), vijÒāna (cognitive awareness). The five-khandha Buddhist analysis of reincarnation also serves as grounds for rejecting selfhood. Buddhist reincarnation, although often crudely misinterpreted in the West as a reincarnation of soul, in essence is a process lacking any permanent shape or substance – at death the five khandhas get dissolved and continue, like a casual current or stream of existence-energy (bhava-sota) to influence another material substrates in a receptive womb; in terms of Buddha, “there is no permanent thing or stuff that flits from body to body.”41 In a Buddhist worldview, “the universe is I” and “I am the universe”; there is no stable identity or self, there is no thinker but a flux of thoughts, there is no perceiver but a flow of perceptions, there is no craver but a stream of cravings, there is no sufferer but a continuity of the states of suffering; there is no experiencing subject, there is only an immediate experience. Thus, to refer to human cognitive awareness (vijÒāna) as an act conducted by an internal subject would be false; consciousness is not an entity – it is rather a process that simply occurs; it is a result of discernment between contextually different patterns. William S. Waldron in his Buddhist Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Thinking about ‘Thoughts without a Thinker’43 The Buddhist fascination with the patterns of dependent relationships as opposed to actions of independent entities is the reason why Buddhist thought converges so closely with current trends in the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience. Apparently, the Buddhist influence on contemporary modern science has been evident for generations before the field of neuroscience emerged. In particularly, it was the Buddhist doctrine of anātman rejecting permanent self that has had a profound influence on Western philosophy: David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, William James, Charles Moore, Charles Pierce, Martin Heidegger and Ernst Mach among others advocated the concept of the transitory nature of human self; some commentators have even indicated a strong influence of Hume’s and Mach’s pro-Buddhist ideas that deny a permanent Ego and emphasize relativity of the observer on Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity.45 and to trace the conception of socially-constructed identities in postmodernist thought to the Buddhist notion of the transitory nature of the human subject (Susantha Goonatilake, 199547). (It also led some Buddhist bioethicists to argue that abortion, assisted suicide and genetic amelioration of humans can be rationalized and justified from the Buddhist perspective of no-soul (Michael Barnhart, 200249).

As demonstrated above, the Buddhist rhetoric of being in flux” has had profound implications on the scientific understanding of human consciousness and it is now being empirically expanded by current research in neuroscience.

However, the question still stands as to whether this concept of “consciousness in flux” can truly exhaustively describe human existence in all its fullness. Unquestionably, Buddhist and scientific discourses can largely contribute to the exploration of human consciousness, with consciousness interpreted in terms of psyche – that is, a natural extension of human body, but they both evidently fail to acknowledge and to analyze the tout autre transcendentalist phenomenon of pneuma and pneumatological experiences inherent in Christianity, which constitutes the Christian understanding of the human self as a coherent entity.

Part IV: Beyond Soul: Towards Transcendental Selfhood

“Body am I, and soul”- so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children? But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: “Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body.” The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd. An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest “spirit”- a little instrument and plaything of thy big sagacity. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

What is the transcendentalist phenomenon of pneuma, how is it different from psyche and how does it contribute to the formation of the coherent substantial sense of self? When analyzing human condition within the psychophysical parameters, Christian theologians probably would not argue against the idea of the emergent and ephemeral nature of consciousness as articulated in Buddhism and in contemporary neuroscience. In fact, the Christian theological critique of the natural human condition is parallel to the above discussion on no-self in that it perceives a human subject (the so-called “natural man”) as unstable, confused, constantly changing and relativistic, intrinsically intertwined with and dependent on the environment, constantly absorbing external information, alterable and transient. In Christian understanding, a “soul” is an unfolding processual phenomenon, a flux of reciprocal interaction of the cognitive apparatus with the environmental mega-context. Nevertheless, Christian theological explanation for the fragmented nature of human selfhood exceeds that of the cognitive perception arising in the processes of circular causality. Theological account for the disturbing sense of uprootedness in the “natural man” is derived from what I would call a phenomenon of a “spiritual (pneumatic) dormancy” – a condition acquired as a result of spiritual disconnectedness and alienation of the human subject from the divine Spirit. Consequently, for the adherents of the Christian faith the experience of being “born-again” that refers to the spiritual restoration of relationship between human and God through an acquisition of the supernatural divine substance articulated as “the gift of the Holy Spirit” often implies a renewed understanding of the self as a coherent entity – both in theological and experiential terms. This newly acquired perception of the self as a spiritually complete entity comes in a striking contrast with the previous experience of the self as a disconnected, disintegrated psyche of the “natural man.” Moreover, the experience of human reconciliation with the divine Spirit invokes a new perception of one’s previously incomplete and disintegrated condition as a mere deception of senses. That is to say, through the prism of the newly-discovered transcendentalist self-awareness, one’s prior experience of “no-self” or “being in flux” appears rather illusionary in contrast to a real human conditionof the permanent self (in direct opposition to Buddhism).

This argumentation, however, requires some further clarification of the difference between the functional attributes of soul (psyche) and spirit (pneuma) as well as some other Christian anthropological terminology.

Today the terms “soul” (psyche) and “spirit” (pneuma) are normally used interchangeably, erasing some of the contextual differences evident in their usage in Stoic, Platonic, and Gnostic and early Christian texts. And these terms are also frequently used today rather broadly as “the essence of things” or “the heart of the matter,” which contributes to further generalization and confusion of their meanings. Since both psyche and pneuma signify the non-physical characteristics of a human being, anthropologically there is no particularly rigid distinction between these terms even within the Christian theological context – “soul” (psyche) and “spirit” (pneuma) are often used co-terminously in the New Testament. However, there is a significant nuance in the usage of the term pneuma distinguishing it from psyche, which I would like to highlight in what follows.

The Christian notion of “soul” (psyche) signifies the rational and animating principle of the body; utilized as an umbrella-term embracing the non-physical characteristics of a human being. It is used in reference to mind, will, emotions, perceptions, conscious awareness, unconsciousness et. el. – all these manifestations of human activity are familiar concepts in Buddhist anthropology as much as in secular psychology and our daily parlance. Originally, in classic Greek the term “psyche” was used rather ambiguously but in Platonic philosophy it gained a stable interpretation as the lower or intermediate nature of the self, a so-called “animal soul,” carnally influenced and intertwined with the physical world. Pneuma, on the contrary, was utilized by Stoics and later adopted by Philo as the notion signifying the link between man and God, which makes the knowledge of God possible. This understanding of pneuma as a divine aspect of the self was further imported into Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity, where it has acquired the meaning of the transcendental spiritual aspect in a human being, a portion of the divine essence restoring the fullness of human continuum, which had been lost in the event of the original sin, resulting in spiritual dissociation of human spirit from the Spirit of God. In the New Testament the term pneuma is used as a signification of selfhood both in the Gospels (Mark, 2:8; Luke, 23:46) as well as in the Pauline Epistles, where it is utilized simultaneously to refer to the Holy Spirit of God and to a divinely-endowed spiritual aspect latently present in a human being. As Isaak demonstrates in The Concept of Spirit:

Even in its anthropological usages, pneuma is always holy; it is man in his divine aspect. … Certainly, in Paul we find that pneuma – even when it refers to the spirit of man – is always that of the transcendent, holy and divine. … For Paul also pneuma is a term of kinship between God and man, and this explains why he does not clearly distinguish between its anthropological and theological usage. Pneuma stresses man’s affinity with God … by [pneuma] man is open to the transcendent life of God.51

The Church teaches that not only there is no ontological spiritual dualism in a human continuum, but, moreover, there is no clear-cut dualism of soul and body. The Catechism of the Catholic Church postulates that “the human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual” (The Profession of Faith, Section Two, “Body and Soul but Truly One”):

The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body; [234] it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature. [365]53

As evident from the above excerpt, both Philo and Paul distinguish between the universally-present in all humans “latent pneuma,” which does not practically manifest itself and the “special pneuma” granted to the Jewish prophets and Christian believers, whose spiritual quests towards one’s self as a transcendental spirit are often sustained through the prophetic pneumatological experiences referred to as “the gifts of the Spirit” in Christian parlance. To illustrate this, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 10-14 Paul writes:

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.55

All the prophetic phenomena outlined by Paul in 1 Corinthians: 12 (apart from “speaking in tongues” that is considered to be a unique post-Pentecost phenomenon) run through the entire Old and New Testaments and are particularly often found in the accounts of the lives of Christ and the apostles, recorded in the Gospels and Acts; they can also be traced throughout the history of the Church and her saints. While Christ is portrayed to have had all the above-described gifts simultaneously operating at all times, other prophetically-anointed biblical protagonists and Christian saints appear to have had only occasional impartations of the Spirit, receiving limited revelatory knowledge or guidance, in line with the above understanding of the Church as the body of Christ on earth, whose humanly-delimited individual members depend on each other for spiritual unity.

Evidently, these supernatural prophetic revelations did not cease with time and are widely present today across denominations. Adherents of Christianity largely rely on the supernatural experiences of the divine: depending on denomination, they may include biblical revelations and divine guidance in daily life, prophetic experiences, divine healings, exorcism and other numerous supernatural phenomena that serve as mechanisms of power in sustaining Christian framework. Some of the most commonly recognized phenomena are “the message of knowledge” and the “message of wisdom,” and “prophecy” that operate as instant and usually very particular supernatural revelations of knowledge communicated by the prophesying subject to another person and function as a supernatural response to this person’s deep inner concerns, personal struggles, questions, prayers, etcetera – such supernatural revelations normally have the most dramatic effect (and as such become powerful tools of individual conviction and devotion to one’s religious system) if the underlying condition is that the prophesying subject cannot have any natural access to the other person’s personal information or if such personal information – inner struggles, prayers, concerns, secret thoughts and emotions – has never been disclosed to anyone. There are many biblical and historical accounts of such revelatory phenomena, with the story of the Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well being one of the most famous examples. While most of the above-described supernatural phenomena have been intentionally excluded from the scientific framework in the course of development of mainstream modern science and marginalized into the realm of the metaphorical or the superstitious, they are universally present throughout Christian denominations and form a specific “prophetic subculture,” having its own theory and praxis, instructional literature, symbolism, etcetera.

For contemporary neuroscience, the exploration of the above revelatory phenomena may be of crucial significance for the study of human potential; however, as demonstrated above, neuroscience operates within the reductionist empirical framework, and both Buddhism and modern science tackle the problematic of human existence on the exclusively psychobiological level. And while Buddhist or scientific understandings of the emergent nature of human psyche have no conflict with that of Christianity, still there is a significant lack – if not a complete absence – of the scientific analysis of the revelatory pheumatological aspect of human self, which may hinder many potential discoveries in the study of the nature of consciousness. Perhaps, in attempting to elaborate the framework for the study of pneuma as personhood, the first step would be to acknowledge that these long-neglected revelatory phenomena exist; they actively shape the lives of religious communities and must be scientifically examined.

Evidently, if embarked upon, this study will require a significant paradigm shift in our understanding of the human existence and invoke multiple serious concerns and questions: how can we bring into perspective spiritual experiences of the adherent agency as a valuable notion into the academic study of religion? How do these revelatory phenomena challenge our empirical frameworks for the interpretation of human subject? How can we elaborate a framework for the scientific study of the transcendent without soliciting unnecessary esoteric connotations?

Most importantly, I argue that human spirituality should not be reduced to the exclusionist parameters of psychosocial interpretation of the human subject and the discussion on human personhood must include the reality – and vitality – of the revelatory transcendental human spirit. It only took two and a half thousand years for science to come up with the same conceptualizations on the nature of human self that Buddhism had formulated millennia ago. Hopefully, it will not take science as long to recognize the significance of the Christian revelatory transcendental discourse for the exploration of human consciousness.


Endnotes

2 Achenbach, Joel, “What Makes Up My Mind? The Complexity of Consciousness Stumps Us All, ” The Dallas Morning News, December, 2, 2007

4 A term coined by Michel Foucault for the analysis of discourse institualization.

6 Bidstrup, Scott, Experiencing God, The Neurology of the Spiritual Experience, http://www.bidstrup.com/mystic.htm

8 Ibid.

10 Heffern, Rich, Exploring the Biology of Religious Experience, National Catholic Reporter, April, 20, 2001, http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives/042001/042001a.htm

12 Helminiak, Daniel, A., Neurology, Psychology, and Extraordinary Religious Experiences, Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 23, number 1, March, 1984

14 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

18 Alper,Matthew The “God” Part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God, Rogue Press, 2001

20 Scott Atran, In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Oxford University Press, USA, 2002

22 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

26 Horgan, John, “The God Experiments, Discover,” November, 20, 2006, http://discovermagazine.com/2006/dec/god-experiments

28 The brother of Aldous Huxley, who coined the term “neurotheology”

30 Achenbach, Joel, “What Makes Up My Mind? The Complexity of Consciousness Stumps Us All, ” The Dallas Morning News, December, 2, 2007

32 Hashimoto, Shuji, A New Relationship between Humans and Machines: Is it Possible to Create Machines with Heart/Kokoro?, Japanese Perspective on Science and Religion, Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, 2006, http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/projects/projects.htm

34 Fukuyama, Francis, Our Posthuman Future, Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, Picador, New York, pp. 160-161

36 Ibid., p. 87.

38 Heidegger, Martin, Basic Writings, New York: Harper and Row, 1957, p. 308

40 Becker, Carl, B., Breaking the Circle: Death and the Afterlife in Buddhism, South Illinois University, 1993, p. 9

42 Waldron, William, S., Buddhist Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Thinking about ‘Thoughts without a Thinker,’ http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/buddhist_steps.html

44 The Treatise on Human Nature by David Hume, (1740); Analysis of Sensations by Ernst Mach, (1959), quoted from Goonatilake, Susantha Asian Foundational Approaches to Bioethics, 1995

46 Goonatilake, Susantha Asian Foundational Approaches to Bioethics, 1995, www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/bioethics.final

48 Barnhart, Michael, “In Extremis: Abortion and Assisted Suicide from a Buddhist Perspective,”Varieties of Ethical Reflection, Outubro, 2002, p. 291

50 Isaak M., The Concept of Spirit, Heythrop Monographs. London, 1976, pp. 79-80

52 Ibid., [234], [365]

54 The Holy Bible, New International Version, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, 1984, 1 Cor., 2:10-14, p. 1601

1

Pragmatism as advocated by William James could not encourage anyone to look for a praxis that would be universally valid for everyone. In 1907, when James published his Pragmatism Arthur Lovejoy, a historian of ideas at Harvard, came forth with a paper, “The Thirteen Pragmatisms II.”3 Against this argument William James could oppose only some pleasing rhetoric to extricate himself from a trap of his own making.

One may argue that a pluralistic society can only be a pragmatic society where majority vote decides what is right and what is wrong praxis. But those, I mean intellectuals, who must have the highest regard for the intellect should at least be ready to see clearly what goes on. Since this conference takes place on Madrid it should be useful to report instances of self-contradictory reasoning offered on behalf of rank immorality as being legislated in the Spain of our day. Here too a major philosophical figure paved the way toward illogicality.

This is not to suggest that William James would have influ­enced Ortega y Gasset, who dismissed America as immature and mechanistic. He did this in his best known book, The Revolt of the Masses. There he tried to figure out the past and future of Europe, which he held to be the only place of real culture. But in the book he purposely ignored the contribution which Christianity, idealism, and liberalism had made to culture. Ortega y Gasset wanted culture without a cult. Similar was the case with Miguel de Unamuno and Salvador de Madariaga, The former advocated faith but only in faith, which James would have found germane to his thinking. James, the psychologist, would have disagreed with Madariaga who held high national psychology only insofar as his preference would have been for American instead of Spanish national psycholo­gy.

Those three are the icons of a purely humanistic orientation in Spain today as distinct from an effort to recover Marxism under the label of socialism. Were its pseudo-democratic spokesmen to say that majority opinion is the final test of truth, they would dissipate by one stroke the fogginess of their discourse, full of unwarranted generalizations about culture and society. But then the emperor would appear without cloth, or at least without the semblance of logic. It should not be surprising that contradic­tions abound in any humanistic defense of immorality which presents it as the new morality.

In his The Revolt of the Masses Ortega y Gasset saw at least the hollowness of references very fashionable in the 1920s to the “new morality.” Ortega began the final chapter of his book that had for its title “We Arrive at the Real Question,” as follows: “Do not believe a word you hear from the young when they talk about the ‘new morality’. I absolutely deny that there exists today in any corner of the Continent of Europe a group inspired by a new ethos which shows signs of being a moral code. When people talk of the ‘new morality’ they are merely commit­ting a new immorality and looking for a way of introducing contraband goods.” Ortega looked for a new morality that would be more than arbitrary praxis either by the individuals or by the masses. He planned to set forth that new morality in a book that would present in details “the doctrine of human existence.” This book he never wrote. Had he tried to do it logically, he should have far transcended all forms of pragma­tism. In doing so he would have discovered what had already been discovered by Christiani­ty.

Christianity stated clearly what is the first in being and intelligibility, or a personal God in brief. Moreover, Christianity, and it alone of all cults, succeeded in impressing that notion on humanity. It may be that our age is post-Christian, but no post-Christian age shall ever be a-Christian, that is, free of any trace of Christiani­ty. One may disagree with Christianity, but one cannot escape its logic which posits a fully rational starting point. One may consider Christianity erroneous, but it is not possible to say that it is illogical. And if one has to choose between an error which is logical and an error, such as pragmatism, which is flouting all logic, the preference for the logical should seem com­pelling.


Endnotes

2. Journal of Philosophy 5 (1908), 29-39.

1

Since this volume’s release in 2002, significant scientific advances have been made that can aid in the search for provisional answers to these sorts of questions. Interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), a term coined by UCLA psychiatrist Daniel J. Siegel, is a growing transdisciplinary field that focuses on ways in which relationships fundamentally shape and change the architecture and functioning of the human brain. In this essay, I argue that IPNB points to a specific set of scientifically-demonstrated conditions that appear to encourage the emergence of empathy; and further, that this set of conditions constitutes the core components of a “spirituality of compassion” by which specific spiritual practices in diverse religious traditions can be evaluated for their potential to cultivate caring attitudes and actions in selves and societies.

Following introductory discussions on definitional and methodological issues, I present key assumptions in IPNB, and demonstrate ways in which IPNB sheds light on important aspects of human empathy and compassion. Then, drawing on this analysis, I introduce four specific conditions that appear to have profound potential to encourage the emergence of empathy in individuals and groups, and suggest that these criteria may function as central elements of a spirituality of compassion. Next, to demonstrate how this set of conditions might function, I offer a case study in which I describe the Native American Ojibwe practice of the “talking circle,” and assess it through the lens of my IPNB-derived spirituality of compassion. I conclude by addressing some questions that remain unanswered, and by suggesting areas for future research.

Definitions

Since the words “spirituality,” “empathy,” and “compassion” often mean quite different things to different scholars in different fields, it makes sense to begin by clarifying what is implied by them in the context of this essay. In this section, I offer what I judge to be the most helpful definitions of each term, given the goals and purview of the present study.

Spirituality

It is well known that “spirituality” defies definitional consensus. Lucy Bregman has recently argued that the current abundance of definitions for spirituality renders the concept too ambiguous to be coherent or meaningful.3 For these reasons and others, it continues to be studied, defined, and redefined by scholars from a wide range of disciplines. The plethora of definitions need not necessarily be negative; it may be that the array is due more to the diversity of cultures and traditions in which spirituality finds expression, and the variety of disciplines that examine it, than to any inherent murkiness in the construct itself. Whatever the case, the fact that spirituality’s meaning is somewhat of a moving goalpost ought not to deter us from attempts to understand and communicate its significance, and outline its contours in particular contexts.

I am inclined to favor relational definitions of spirituality—in other words, those which tend to the dynamics of our ongoing relationships with ourselves, others, and that which we deem “sacred.” Following theologian F. LeRon Shults and psychologist Steven J. Sandage, I define spirituality as “ways of relating to the sacred.”5 and may also include persons, rituals, objects, narratives, texts, times, and spaces that are “set apart…as special, uniquely transcendent, and not ordinary or profane.”7 Second, it can support a focus on the dynamism of spirituality; that is, the ongoing transformations in our ways of relating to the sacred throughout life. Third, it is an inclusive and versatile definition, and can function descriptively in relation to a wide range of spiritual practices.9

Contemporary definitions of empathy often vary according to discipline. Philosopher Susan Langer speaks of empathy as an involuntary breach of individual separateness.11 Among social and developmental psychologists, definitions of empathy tend to center on emotional/affective responses to others.13 Interpersonal neurobiologists propose that empathy involves the complex process of imagining what it is like to be the other while simultaneously holding our own perspective in mind.15 manner.

Compassion

“Compassion” is derived from the Latin pati, meaning “to suffer,” and cum, meaning “with.” Thus, translated literally, compassion means “to suffer with.” As with empathy, definitions of compassion differ according to the contexts, perspectives, and interests of those doing the defining; however, most definitions hew closely to the word’s original etymological meaning.

For Roman Catholic priest and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen, compassion means “going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there.”17 Clinical psychologists Patrick R. Steffen and Kevin S. Masters speak of compassion as “being moved by the suffering of others and having the desire to alleviate that suffering,” and posit that a “compassionate personality” involves “altruistic behavior with a deep sense of empathy for the needs of others.”19 This brief sampling of definitions reveals that sharing in the suffering of others, and wanting them to have respite, is fundamental to compassion.

I define compassion as being empathically connected with others in their suffering, and taking action to ease their distress. This definition presupposes empathy as I have defined it above; however, it also goes beyond empathy in that it involves a component of action, or helping behavior.21 Rather, compassion is undergirded by a deep sense of respect for the other person. Finally, compassion should not be simply equated with all forms of “prosocial” action; helping behaviors are sometimes carried out in non-empathic, non-compassionate ways. While gauging human motives is always a thorny undertaking, as a general rule, a sense of empathic resonance with the pain of the other—a basic experience of “suffering with”—should be involved to some degree in those individual and communal expressions of care that we label “compassionate.”23 in each of its forms, postfoundationalist models emphasize that because all forms of human inquiry (including scientific and spiritual reflection) are irreducibly contextual and social, transdisciplinarity is a practical, embodied skill of particular, historically-situated, persons-in-relation. Practically speaking, postfoundationalism asks transdisciplinarians to assume self-aware, critical postures toward patterns in their traditions, beliefs, cultures, practices, and assumptions, and attempt to make sense of those patterns through ongoing dialogue with scholars in other fields.

I take seriously the postfoundationalist imperatives to integrate self-awareness and communal dialogue into the core of the transdisciplinary task. For the present study, this means that I remain intentionally conscious of the ways in which my own experience as a person who has received graduate education in both psychotherapy and theology has birthed and continues to shape my approach to questions of human nature, compassion, and transformation. In constructing my arguments, I draw not only on scholarly sources, but also implicitly from my experiences working with patients in therapeutic settings, and from my critical self-reflections on those experiences. My thinking has also been enriched by innumerable transdisciplinary conversations I have had over the years with therapists, supervisors, and religious scholars. A postfoundationalist approach, therefore, gives me latitude to intentionally integrate my personal and vocational history, self-consciousness, and relations with others into the very heart of my work.

In addition, postfoundationalism affirms that as we attempt to cross the boundaries of our particular disciplines and traditions, specific meeting-points for mutual understanding and collaboration can emerge. These “transversal spaces”—a notion originating in the work of Calvin Schrag25 Compassion, I submit, may be thought of as one such “transversal space” in which the distinct assumptions and thought patterns of hard science and spiritual practice can meet.

Basic Assumptions of Interpersonal Neurobiology

Drawing richly from many different disciplines (including neuroscience, psychiatry, developmental psychology, social psychology, psychoanalysis, family systems theory, ethology, evolutionary theory, comparative anatomy, and genetics), IPNB aims to paint a picture of human experience and the dynamics of change across the lifespan by focusing on ways in which human beings are formed and transformed through relationships.27

Prior to discussing specific ways in which IPNB sheds light on conditions that encourage the emergence of empathy and thereby opens up space in which to propose a scientifically informed spirituality of compassion, it will be necessary to outline several of IPNB’s basic assumptions.

Brain and Mind

First, IPNB assumes that interpersonal relationships are the natural habitat of the human brain and mind. Cozolino describes the brain as “an organ of adaptation that builds its structures through interactions with others.”29 are constituted by their ongoing synaptic connections with other neurons, so too are brains continually being formed and re-formed through ongoing interactions with other brains. Because the brain is best described as an open system that undergoes continuous change in relational contexts across the lifespan,31

Not only the brain’s health and vitality—but also its very existence—is essentially dependent upon the myriad relational connections that occur across “social synapses.”33 For Siegel, the human mind is both neurobiological (involving the flow of energy and information within the body, including the brain) and interpersonal (involving the flow of energy and information between persons). Because “Energy and information can flow within one brain, or between brains,” the mind is said to emerge at the dynamic interface of embodied and relational processes.35 “An intact and well-developed prefrontal cortex enables us to maintain a simultaneous sense of self and others that is necessary for interpersonal strategizing and decision making.”37 Let us briefly consider six of the most important structures of the social brain—many of which are hidden beneath the brain’s surface. 39 are central facets of the social brain. As we will see, many of the neurological structures and systems that IPNB finds indispensable for understanding human social and emotional life play a central role in the experience and expression of compassion.

At the same time that IPNB singles out discrete neurological structures and systems, it also attends to the connections between them in order to better understand the dynamic processes by which the brain regulates the flow of energy and information. The linking up of neural structures and networks in ways that that contribute to the establishment of “a functional flow in the states of mind across time”41 and the middle prefrontal cortex is generally seen as the main hub of this process. Greater levels of neural integration are associated with increased capacities to balance emotion, construct coherent life narratives, experience self-awareness, respond adaptively to stress, form meaningful relationships with others, regulate the body, and (most importantly for our purposes) respond empathically to others. As we will see, there are specific conditions that appear to encourage the process of neural integration.

Attachment Theory

Third, IPNB assumes that attachment theory provides the best available model for analyzing the interaction between relationships and the brain in the unfolding of the human personality. Originating in the 1950’s in the work of British psychoanalyst John Bowlby,43 Many controlled studies have confirmed its usefulness for explaining and predicting various aspects of human experience over the lifespan, including adult behavioral tendencies, developmental patterns, relational styles, cognitive processes, and self-regulatory abilities.45 proposed the existence of three main bonding styles (or “attachment schemas”): secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent. Secure attachment is promoted by sensitive, consistent, and responsive care from the primary caregiver. A secure attachment bond nurtures infant development by providing a “secure base” for environmental exploration, a reliable relational context for learning how to adaptively regulate cognitive and affective processes in the face of anxiety, and an orientation to human relationships marked by a balance of separateness and connectedness.

Insecure attachment bonds “bias the infant’s relational development toward either an excessive preoccupation with maintaining proximity or toward a persistent avoidance of closeness.”47 parenting. Here the child’s attachment system is “hyperactivated,” resulting in anxious clinging to the parent (intense “proximity-seeking”), and angry, distressed, frightened, and inconsolable affect. Later research also identified a fourth “disorganized/disorienting” category of attachment49 Along with gene expression, early communications between parent and infant “literally shape the structure of the child’s developing brain.”51 communication contributes to the creation of key structures and systems in the baby’s rapidly developing brain. The neural circuitries responsible for organizing one’s relational behaviors and “stress coping capacities” throughout life are formed in and through the countless verbal and nonverbal interactions that transpire between a parent and child during the infant and toddler years.53

Neuroplasticity

Fourth, IPNB assumes that neural change occurs throughout the lifespan. Several decades ago, there was general scientific consensus that lower brain and neocortical areas were unchangeable after early child development. While experiences with attachment figures in infancy and childhood do have a disproportionate effect on the growth and development of neural systems, more recent research suggests that the human brain is endowed with a lifelong ability to restructure itself with each new experience. Interpersonal neurobiologists thus maintain a constant emphasis on “the change[s] in neural connectivity induced by experience.”55 interpersonal neurobiologists are generally optimistic about ways in which attuned human relationships can, at any point in the life cycle, function as contexts in which positive neurological changes can unfold in the brain.57

Neural integration—the connecting of dissociated brain networks to form a functional whole—appears to be the manner by which brains change for the better. Along with loving and trusting interpersonal relationships, one of the most important factors in brain integration is the intentional use of executive forms of attention to notice and become attuned with one’s own internal states (e.g., fears, memories, anticipations, bodily sensations, etc.). Focused self-awareness—what Siegel calls “intrapersonal attunement” or “mindfulness”—involves “paying attention, in the present moment, on purpose, without grasping onto judgments.”59 and neurogenesis.61 This close neurobiological link between intrapersonal and interpersonal resonance in the cultivation of overall well-being becomes especially important when the focus is narrowed on questions of empathy and compassion.

The Neuroscience of Empathy and Compassion

It is perhaps natural for many Westerners to think of compassion as either a relatively fixed emotional and/or behavioral state, or a virtue that is possessed by individuals in varying degrees. It may strike us as somewhat odd to conceive of compassion as a trainable skill; yet, that is precisely the view that is now emerging in some parts of the neuroscientific community. This is particularly the case among researchers whose work focuses on the intersections between meditative traditions, compassion, and brain plasticity.63 These “mirror neurons” (otherwise known as “monkey-see, monkey-do” neurons) were later discovered in humans,65 While natural selection may have originally favored mirror systems in primates because they helped in coordinating social behaviors that contributed to group survival (e.g., hunting, gathering, and migration), it is thought that, in homo sapiens, “mirror systems and resonance behaviors evolved into our ability to attune to the emotional states of others. They provide us with a visceral-emotional experience of what the other is experiencing, allowing us to know others from the inside out.”67

In humans, mirror neurons are unique due largely to the fact that they are located in frontal and parietal cortical regions of the brain.69 Specific neuronal groups have been found to specialize in and respond to distinct facial expressions, vocal tones, and bodily movements in others.71

To respond to the facial, vocal, and bodily cues from another person, translate those cues into our own embodied experience, interpret them with relative accuracy, and initiate an active, intentional response is a set of skills that emerges from the high-level integrative processing functions of the prefrontal cortex.73 Among other things, the Oliners found that rescuers tended to describe their early family relationships with caregivers as close and caring, and tended to have parents who used reason rather than physical means for discipline. They also found that rescuers were more likely than non-rescuers to report feeling a poignant, personal sense of empathy for the pain of the Jewish victims. The Oliners see a clear connection between these findings; namely, that from secure attachment relationships in early life, “more rescuers learned the satisfactions accruing from personal bonds with others,”75 IPNB’s careful consideration of the role of brain development in early life helps make neurobiological sense of this link. How so?

In addition to secure attachment relationships with parents in early life, research reveals that individuals high in empathy-related responding tend to have a greater ability to regulate emotion (i.e., to have conscious control over their ability to focus and shift attention and self-soothe when under stress).77 and are at greater risk for emotional disturbances associated with poor regulatory control.79 It also makes sense that insecure bonds, trauma, and/or high levels of environmental stress in early life would stunt the growth of those neural structures and systems,81

The Inverse Relationship Between Fear and Compassion

Another fascinating finding in the Oliners’ study concerns the close correlation between fear and non-helping. In their efforts to understand bystanders’ “failure to act” (i.e., their non-assistance of Jews in Nazi Europe), they found that “Despite their hostility toward Nazis, the majority of bystanders were overcome by fear, hopelessness, and uncertainty… Asked to describe their lives during the war, their stories are brief and overwhelmingly involved with basic survival.”83

IPNB pays close attention to ways in which the brain’s “fear circuitry” shapes and is shaped by both genetic factors and social interactions. In a chapter entitled “Social Phobia: When Others Trigger Fear,” Cozolino explains how the evolutionary processes that have guided the survival and development of our species have rendered the amygdala (the brain structure most directly responsible for fear responses) fully operational even before birth, making fear perhaps the strongest early human emotion.85 The amygdala also acts as a “social brake,” inhibiting contact with unfamiliar “others” until their safety can be assessed.87 Secondly, the amygdala is kept in check by its “reciprocal relationship” with the orbital medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC), whose job it is to inhibit the amygdala’s fear responses based on conscious awareness.89

Once more, an IPNB approach reveals that a well-developed prefrontal cortex—so integral to secure relational attachments, self-regulatory abilities, successful fear modulation, and experiences and expressions of empathy—is at the very heart of compassion. Because “learning not to fear and learning to love are biologically interwoven,”91 and mindfulness practices (intrapersonal attunement)93—is also the second component of a spirituality of compassion. For many individuals, becoming aware of the flow of one’s own consciousness (i.e., meta-cognition) is a profoundly spiritual experience. Experiencing the conscious “I” as an observer of our own mental representations and bodily sensations can lead us to affirm ourselves as sacred in some sense. For many, the feeling of freedom that can result from experiencing the self as more than the sum of ever-shifting sensations, emotions, and cognitions can be extraordinarily inspiring and empowering.

Thus, when we bring together IPNB and spirituality, what emerges is that relating to ourselves with care, respect, curiosity, and love appears to be central to the experience of transformation toward well-being, and a vital aspect of what it means to relate to the sacred in ways that foster empathy.95

Due to its ability to free us from fear, open us up to receiving, and encourage neural integration, relational safety is the third condition for the emergence of empathy, and the third component of a spirituality of compassion. Spirituality often involves a deep sense of existential vulnerability, so creating safe relational spaces for communal experiences of the divine is particularly important.97 Not surprisingly, research reveals strong links between mental health, emotional regulation, secure attachment, and coherent narratives. Cozolino explains:

Because narratives require participation of multiple structures throughout the brain, they require us to combine, in conscious memory, our knowledge, sensations, feelings, and behaviors. In bringing together multiple functions from diverse neural networks, narratives provide the brain with a tool for both emotional and neural integration.99 The combination, therefore, of (on the one hand) neural integration and empathic connection with others and self, and (on the other hand) deep personal meaning and existential orientation, means that storytelling holds potential to raise us to greater levels of concern for the pain of others, and motivate us to stand in solidarity with those who are suffering by weaving their stories into the fabric of our own.

A Case Study: The Ojibwe Talking Circle

A spirituality of compassion consisting of interpersonal attunement, intrapersonal attunement, relational safety, and shared narratives provides a set of criteria by which diverse spiritual practices can be theoretically evaluated for their potential to facilitate compassion in persons and communities. To show this, I now describe the Native American Ojibwe ritual of the talking circle, and briefly discuss it through the lens of my IPNB-derived spirituality of compassion.

The following analysis draws heavily from my own first-hand experiences participating in talking circles as a therapist at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center.101

The Ojibwe are a story people, and talking circles (otherwise called peacemaking circles or healing circles) are deeply rooted in their tradition of passing on their spiritual and cultural heritage through oral practices. The purpose of the talking circle is to create a safe space for small group interaction in which personal narratives and viewpoints can be communicated in an atmosphere of authenticity and deep compassionate listening that is free from threats of judgment or condemnation.103 The talking circle thus becomes a place for openness to oneself, others, the Creator, and Nature; self-revelation (especially around painful topics) can be risked because rejection and assault are not threats. Because such protected atmospheres nurture trusting human interactions and de-activate the brain’s fear circuitry (which is toxic to neuroplastic processes), neural integration and the emergence of empathy and compassion may become more likely therein.

Sharing in one another’s spoken narratives is central to the talking circle experience, and is seen as a key ingredient in the ritual’s power to bring peace and healing to relationships with oneself, others, Earth, and Kitche Manitou. Deep, respectful, compassionate listening to stories of pain and suffering brings a sense of sacred connection one to another, and is experienced as a source of redemptive spiritual and personal transformation. As participants speak their stories out loud and resonate with the stories of others, neuroplastic processes of hemispheric, systemic, and structural integration may be activated, perhaps leading to deeper capacities to be affected by the states of others in self-aware ways, and greater inclinations toward actively reaching out to others in distress.

Conclusion

I have suggested that there are significant implications in IPNB for identifying conditions that foster empathic ways of being in the world, and that those conditions may be gathered together to form the elements of a spirituality of compassion by which particular spiritual practices can be theoretically evaluated for their potential to cultivate compassion persons and communities.

Certainly, there are questions that remain unanswered. First, given the twenty-first century reality of de-personalized, technology-dependent communication practices, and the apparent necessity of attuned, face-to-face, voice-to-voice human interactions for brain integration and the growth of empathic capacities, how realistic is it to propose a spirituality of compassion that relies so heavily on direct, embodied, relational encounters? In our globalized and bureaucracized world, compassionate praxis often involves de-personalized, systemically-aware actions rather than literal “helping-hand” behaviors. Most of us do not have potential genocide victims living down the street whom we could take into our homes. However, other impersonal acts such as refusing to purchase clothing produced by companies that exploit workers, supporting legislation that protects persons from torture and/or war crimes, and purchasing energy-efficient vehicles may have significant, positive ramifications for others who are suffering—either now or in the future. Compassion in our world requires higher-order empathy; we must find ways to connect with others’ pain when we cannot see their faces, hear their voices, speak their languages, or know their names. How can an IPNB-informed spirituality of compassion encourage care in our increasingly alienated world?

Another possible point of ambiguity concerns the fact that redemptive spiritual transformation often involves experiences of pain, darkness, and/or purgation.105 are there ways in which sharing in the suffering of another may sometimes weaken (rather than strengthen) one’s ability to act in ways that alleviate their distress? It seems important to acknowledge that there are times and places in which an apparently non-empathic and/or dispassionate response may in fact be the most helpful one.

I do not view these points of ambiguity as detractions from my argument. Rather, I think of them as invitations for future explorations into the implications of IPNB for spirituality, transformation, and compassion. Further research is needed not only on the above questions; broadly speaking, we need more empirical studies that shed light on relationships between specific spiritual practices, neurological patterns, attachment schema, and compassionate attitudes and actions. This kind of work will require input and expertise from many different religious, scientific, philosophical, and cultural perspectives. We are thus invited toward ever-greater efforts to attune with ourselves, scholars in our own fields, researchers in other disciplines, and practitioners in diverse cultural and religious traditions in order to continue the complex, arduous, yet rewarding process of uncovering the dynamics of human transformation, and revealing the conditions of the possibility of the emergence of compassion in selves and societies.

 


Endnotes

2 Lucy Bregman, “Spirituality: A Glowing and Useful Term in Search of a Meaning,” Omega: Journal of Death and Dying 53, ½ (2006): 5-26.

4 F. LeRon Shults and Steven J. Sandage, Transforming Spirituality: Integrating Theology and Psychology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005).

6 Shults and Sandage, Transforming Spirituality, 161.

8 I define “spiritual practice” as an intentional mode of acting that is thought to mediate our relation(s) to the sacred.

10 Susan K. Langer, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984).

12 Daniel Batson, well known for his “empathy-altruism hypothesis” which claims that “feeling empathy for a person in need evokes altruistic motivation to relieve that need,” defines empathy as “an other-oriented emotional response congruent with the perceived welfare of another.” “Addressing the Altruism Question Experimentally,” in Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, & Religion in Dialogue, ed. Stephen G. Post, Lynn G. Underwood, Jeffrey P. Schloss, and William B. Hurlbut (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 89-105; quote p. 92. Similarly, Nancy Eisenberg defines empathy as “an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel.” Eisenberg distinguishes empathy from sympathy. For her, sympathy is “an affective response that frequently stems from empathy, but does not consist merely of feeling the same emotion as the other is experiencing… Rather, sympathy consists of feelings of sorrow or concern for the distressed or needy other.” “Empathy-Related Emotional Responses, Altruism, and Their Socialization,” in Visions of Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature, ed. Richard J. Davidson and Anne Harrington (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 131-164; quote p. 135.

14 Louis Cozolino, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006), 19 (hereafter NHR); Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell. Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive (New York: Penguin, 2003), 224.

16 Henri Nouwen, Donald P. McNeill, and Douglas A. Morrison, Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 27.

18 Patrick R. Steffen and Kevin S. Masters, “Does Compassion Mediate the Intrinsic Religion-Health Relationship?” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 30, 3 (2005): 217-224; quote p. 218.

20 My conception of “helping behavior” is broad; while concrete actions such as feeding, clothing, washing, or nursing another person are obvious examples, I also consider the simple act of empathically bearing witness to another’s pain a “helping action.” As Anne Harrington (Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University) has pointed out, when we worry too much about whether empathy or compassion are translated into actual helping behavior, we are often tempted to overlook opportunities for deeper understandings of the role of compassion in human life: “I think in some ways, knowing that a person is compassionately watching your suffering, bearing witness, is helpful in itself even if no action results.” Anne Harrington et al., “Dialogues, Part I: Fundamental Questions,” in Davidson and Harrington, Visions of Compassion, 81-103; quote p. 101.

22 There is empirical evidence to indicate that compassionate attitudes and behaviors are linked with positive health outcomes (including reduced depressive symptoms and reduced perceived stress); however, there is also evidence that compassionate behaviors alone (i.e., without corresponding compassionate attitudes) are not enough to engender health benefits. For example, in their study on the role of compassion in the religion-health relationship, Steffen and Masters found evidence that “compassionate behaviors only relate to better health functioning when they are accompanied by internalized compassionate attitudes.” “Does Compassion Mediate the Intrinsic Religion-Health Relationship?” 222. Similarly, Lynn G. Underwood, who studies factors affecting health and illness in human populations, finds that there are motives that detract from the quality of compassionate love. These include the need for reciprocal love and affection, the need to be accepted by others or by God, the need to belong, guilt, fear, seeing the other as an extension or reflection of oneself, pleasure in looking well in the eyes of others, control of the other through their indebtedness, desire to exercise power over others, desire to reinforce a positive image of self and/or feelings of superiority, and a desire to avoid confrontation. “The Human Experience of Compassionate Love: Conceptual Mapping and Data from Selected Studies,” in Post et al., Altruism and Altruistic Love, 72-105.

24 Cf. Calvin Schrag, “Transversal Rationality,” in The Question of Hermeneutics: Essays in Honor of Joseph J. Kockelmans, ed. T. J. Stapleton (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994).

26 While some references will be made in this paper to specific scientific studies that inform IPNB, as a general rule I will focus on IPNB scholarship, which synthesizes the relevant primary source material. This is due to (first) the vastness and diversity of the literature on which IPNB draws, and (second) the overall goal of this essay, which is to connect IPNB itself with thoughts on spirituality, empathy, and compassion.

An implication of this, of course, is that my argument is prone to the critiques to which IPNB is prone. As a fairly new transdisciplinary field, IPNB has not yet been the subject of significant critical evaluation. This is not likely to remain the case indefinitely; moreover, we can anticipate that criticism will likely come from two different philosophical/methodological perspectives, broadly speaking. On the one hand, those who approach the study of the human mind reductionistically may be suspicious of the IPNB concept of “social synapses” (Cozolino 2006, 5), which seems to point toward the idea of “extended mind.” Reductionists may also be nervous about the notion of “intrapersonal attunement” in which “the mind [uses] the brain to create itself” (Siegel 2007, 32), which appears to suggest a sort of “top-down causality” that is typical of emergence theories. On the other hand, those who hold to a dualistic anthropology in which body and soul (or the “material” and the “spiritual”) are seen as separate, distinct substances may be dissatisfied with IPNB’s focus on the interface between brain functioning and human relationality, to the exclusion of discussions on “immaterial” phenomena. Dualists may also worry about the direct link IPNB makes between “neural integration” in the human brain and overall well-being. While space does not permit a treatment of these philosophical and methodological issues, suffice it to say that most IPNB scholarship to this point seems to presuppose a kind of “middle ground” between reductionism and dualism.
 

28 Cozolino, NHR, 6.

30 Cozolino, NHR, 50.

32 “The social synapse is the space between us. It is also the medium through which we are linked together into larger organisms such as families, tribes, societies, and the human species as a whole.” Cozolino, NHR, 5.

34 Daniel J. Siegel, “An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy,” Psychiatric Annals 36, 4 (April 2006): 248-256; quote p. 248.

36 Cozolino, NHR, 277.

38 These and other brain structures are discussed in Cozolino, NHR, 51-57.

40 Siegel, The Developing Mind, 8.

42 Cf. John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss. Volume 1: Attachment, 2nd ed. (1969; New York: Basic Books, 1982); A Secure Base: Parent-child Attachments and Healthy Human Development (New York: Basic Books, 1988).

44 For an accessible introduction to attachment theory and research, see Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love (Warner Books, 1994; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). For a literature review of adult attachment studies and a discussion of their significance for a description of the “healthy, effective self,” see Frederick G. Lopez and Kelly A. Brennan, “Dynamic Processes Underlying Adult Attachment Organization: Toward an Attachment Theoretical Perspective on the Healthy and Effective Self,” Journal of Counseling Psychology 47, 3 (2000): 283-300.
 

46 Lopez and Brennan, “Dynamic Processes Underlying Adult Attachment Organization,” 284.

48 M. Main and J. Solomon, “Procedures for Identifying Infants as Disorganized/Disoriented During the Ainsworth Strange Situation,” in Attachment in the Preschool Years: Theory, Research, and Intervention, ed. M.T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, and E.M. Cummings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 121-160.

50 Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (New York: The Guilford Press, 1999), 21.

52 Schore, Affect Dysregulation.

54 Siegel, “An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy,” 250.

56 A study conducted in 2005 by Sara Lazar and her colleagues—one cited frequently by Siegel—appears to provide striking evidence for the adult brain’s ability to undergo significant change in prefrontal cortical areas in response to specific practices. The study found that individuals who had engaged in mindfulness meditation practices for extended periods of time had thicker middle prefrontal areas and right insulas than non-meditators, and that the thickness in these regions was correlated with length of time spent in mindfulness meditation. This research lends support to the idea that mindfulness practices have the potential to transform and solidify neural patterns in ways that promote overall well-being. Siegel, The Mindful Brain, 341-345; cf. S.W. Lazar, C.E. Kerr, R.H. Wasserman, J.R. Gray, D.N. Greve, M.T. Treaday, et al, “Meditation Experience is Associated with Increased Cortical Thickness,” Neuroreport 16, 17 (2005): 1893-1897.

58 Siegel, “An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy,” 250. Siegel’s definition of mindfulness closely resembles the definition offered by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is renowned for bringing mindfulness meditation into the mainstream of modern medicine and society. In Kabat-Zinn’s view, “An operational working definition of mindfulness is: the awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.” Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past, Present, and Future,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 10, 2 (2003): 144-156; quote p. 145. Cf. Kabat-Zinn, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness (New York: Hyperion, 2005).

60 The creation of new brain cells.

62 “Many of our core mental processes such as awareness and attention and emotion regulation, including our very capacity for happiness and compassion, should best be conceptualized as trainable skills. The meditative traditions provide a compelling example of strategies and techniques that have evolved over time to enhance and optimize human potential and well-being. The neuroscientific study of these traditions is still in its infancy but the early findings promise to both reveal the mechanisms by which such training may exert its effects as well as underscore the plasticity of the brain circuits that underlie complex mental functions.” A. Lutz, J.D. Dunne and R.J Davidson, “Meditation and the Neuroscience of Consciousness: An Introduction,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, ed. P.D. Zelazo, M. Moscovitch, and E. Thompson (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 499-554, quoted in Siegel, The Mindful Brain, 101-102.

64 M. Iacoboni, R.P. Woods, M. Brass, H. Bekkering, J.C Maziotta, and G. Rizzolatti, “Cortical Mechanisms of Human Imitation,” Science 286, 5449 (1999): 2526-2528; M. Iacoboni, L.M. Koski, M. Brass, H. Bekkering, R.P. Woods, M.C. Dubeau, J.C. Maziotta, and G. Rizzolatti, “Reafferent Copies of Imitated Actions in the Right Superior Temporal Cortex,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, 24 (2001): 13995-13999.

66 Cozolino, NHR, 59.

68 Cozolino summarizes the specific areas of the brain involved in mirroring: “Current research supports that the human mirror system extends to the temporal, parietal, and frontal lobes as well as to the insula, amygdala, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. The areas of the brain that become activated depend on the task and whether it is observed, imagined, or involves emotions.” NHR, 193.

70 Cozolino, NHR, 186.

72 A wealth of psychiatric and neuroscientific research has confirmed that prefrontal cortical areas are integrally involved in human empathy, morality, and compassion. Many of these studies focus on the results of damage to prefrontal areas, or abnormalities in prefrontal functioning in individuals who have been diagnosed with social psychiatric disorders. Cf. M. Dolan, “What Neuroimaging Tells us About Psychopathic Disorders,” Hospital Medicine 32 (2002): 417-427; King et al.,“Doing the Right Thing”; Michael Koenigs, Lian Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc Hauser, and Antonio Damasio, “Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgments.” Nature 446 (April 2007): 908-911; J. L M¸ller, M. Sommer, V. Wagner, K. Lange, H. Taschler, C.H. Rˆder et. al., “Abnormalities in Emotion Processing Within Cortical and Subcortical Regions in Criminal Psychopaths: Evidence From a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study Using Pictures With Emotional Content,” Biological Psychiatry 54 (2003): 152-162.

74 Oliner and Oliner, The Altruistic Personality, 173. It is interesting to note that Elliot Sober, in his attempt to make evolutionary sense of “extended compassion” (i.e., feeling compassion toward strangers and other species), points to the Oliners’ study as evidence that the evolutionarily advantageous trait of feeling compassion toward one’s children (i.e., secure attachment relationships) have certain side effects, and that extended compassion is one of them. “Individuals well attuned to the suffering of those near and dear have circles of compassion that potentially extend quite far afield.” Elliot Sober, “Kindness and Cruelty in Evolution,” 63.

76 N. Eisenberg, M. Wentzel, and J.D. Harris, “The Role of Emotionality and Regulation in Empathy-Related Responding,” School Psychology Review 27 (1998): 506-521.

78 R. Karr-Morse and M.S. Wiley, Ghosts From the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997); B. D. Perry, “Incubated in Terror: Neurodevelopmental Factors in the ‘Cycle of Violence,’” in Children in a Violent Society, ed. J. Osofsky (New York: The Guilford Press, 1997), 124-149.
 

80 “‘Developmental overpruning’ refers to a toxic effect of overwhelming stress on the young brain: The release of stress hormones leads to excessive death of neurons in the crucial pathways involving the neocortex and limbic system—the areas responsible for emotional regulation.” Siegel, The Developing Mind, 85. Cf. Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton, and Clare Pain, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006); Schore, Affect Dysregulation; Onno van der Hart, Ellert R.S. Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele. The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006).

82 Oliner and Oliner, The Altruistic Personality, 146.

84 Cozolino, NHR, 250.

86 There is evidence, in fact, that “the neurobiology of racism… [is] related to the fear circuitry of the brain.” Cozolino, NHR, 253; Cf. E.A. Phelps, K.J. O’Connor, W.A. Cunningham, E.S. Funayama, J.C. Gatenby, J.C. Gore, “Performance on Indirect Measures of Race Evaluation Predicts Amygdala Activation,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12 (2000): 729-738; E.A. Phelps, and L.A. Thomas, “Race, Behavior, and the Brain: The Role of Neuroimaging in Understanding Complex Social Behaviors,” Political Psychology 24 (2003): 747-758.

88 Cozolino, NHR, 60; Cf. J.S. Beer, E.A. Heerey, D. Keltner, D. Scabini, and R.T. Knight, “The Regulatory Function of Self-Conscious Emotion: Insights From Patients With Orbitofrontal Damage,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (2003): 594-604.

90 Cozolino, NHR, 314. Cf. A. Bartels and S. Zeki, “Functional Brain Mapping During Free Viewing of Natural Scenes,” Human Brain Mapping 21 (2003): 75-83.

92 “In the intensely activated neural structures of threat, our limbic regions influence cortical reasoning and we come to believe, without a doubt, that we are right in our assessments. And ‘they’ are wrong. When the stakes are high in these intense times of tyranny and technological advance, a mindful awareness of these neural mechanisms and the reflection necessary to disengage from their automatic reactions are desperately needed. Reflection is no longer a luxury, it may be a necessity for our survival.” Siegel, The Mindful Brain, 324. Cf. D. Derryberry and M.A. Reed, “Anxiety-Related Attentional Biases and their Regulation by Attentional Control,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111 (2002): 225-236.

94 Correlatively, spiritualities that foster shame or self-condemnation may impede the development of empathic, compassionate feeling and praxis.

96 I have found the following list of groundrules to be quite reliable for establishing relational safety in contexts of communal spiritual practices: (1) Presume welcome and extend welcome. (2) Refrain from fixing, saving, or setting straight others in the group. (3) When the interaction gets tricky, turn to inquiry rather than advocacy (wonder about something instead of defending something). (4) Ask open, honest questions. Open questions are ones to which you cannot imagine “the right answer” and which have several possible responses; honest questions are ones which do not have a hidden agenda. (5) Speak for yourself (this will require listening to yourself). (6) Think of silence as another member of the group. (7) Observe confidentiality regarding material shared in the group. Adapted from Carla M. Dahl, “Guidelines for Group Interaction in Marriage and Family Therapy Courses and Formation Experiences” (St. Paul, MN: Bethel Seminary, 2003).

98 Cozolino, NHR, 304.

100 www.miwrc.org. Talking circles may be practiced in slightly different ways in different contexts; my description indicates the way it is often practiced at MIWRC.

102 Mark Umbreit, “Talking Circles,” article written for the Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking (University of Minnesota, Aug. 2003), http://rjp.umn.edu/Copy_of_Restorative_Justice_Princples.html (accessed December 7, 2007).

104 For example, in his Terror and Transformation, clinical psychologist and philosopher of religion James Jones draws on the rich apophatic traditions in Christian spirituality, and presents the via negativa (the negative way of unknowing) as an important aspect of religious de-idealization and redemptive change. Terror and Transformation: The Ambiguity of Religion in Psychoanalytic Perspective (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2002). In a similar vein, psychologist Steven J. Sandage discusses the ways in which dark “crucibles” of intense spiritual negation can function as places of transformation in which one is faced with the opportunity to re-figure relationships with self, others and God in ways that “can strengthen both the security of attachment and the wholeness of differentiation.” Shults and Sandage, Transforming Spirituality, 241.

1 whose authenticity is questioned by some Theravādins, while Western feminists often too easily label Buddhism as just another patriarchal religion that is inevitably sexist and oppressive to women. More than twenty years ago, however, Rita M. Gross pointed out three similarities between Buddhism and feminism: both begin with life experiences and stress experiential understanding, both evince the will and courage to go against the grain and see beyond the conventional points of view, and both explore the ways in which habitual and conventional patterns of thinking and behaving operate to block basic well-being of people and cause great suffering.3

Classical Buddhist teachings and recent feminist theories inspired by Foucault and poststructuralism further converge on the constructedness of individuals. One of the most widely known and possibly the most perplexing teachings of Buddhism is the teaching of Non-Self (Pāli: anattā; Sanskrit: anātman), which seems to categorically negate the existence of individual persons and thereby deny the efficacy or necessity of moral actions taken by individual persons. Coincidentally, one of the contemporary feminist theories that draw the most critical attention is the theory of the social constructedness of the subject with its concomitant negation of complete autonomy. Yet Buddhism, especially early Buddhism and Theravāda Buddhism, places much emphasis on self-control and individual moral responsibility, which is reflected in the Buddhist teachings regarding kamma. And contemporary feminist theorists argue the lack of autonomy does not dissolve moral agency. The consonance between these two strains of thought is more than just intellectually stimulating. They provide an exegetical framework as well as a basis of critique for one another. The Buddhist teaching of Non-Self may be easier to comprehend with the assistance of the feminist analysis of the constructedness of gender identity, which has been curiously overlooked in the traditional discourses of Buddhism, a tradition “so dedicated to noticing and reflecting on habitual patterns of conventional ego.”5 The Buddhist teaching of anattā negates “Attā” (or, in Sanskrit, “Ātman”) only in the sense of eternal, never-changing, independently-existing innermost “Self-Essence” of all beings. In the Upanişads this is identical with Brāhman, the permanently existing Ultimate Reality (Sanskrit: sat), Pure Consciousness (Sanskrit: chit) and Bliss (Sanskrit: ananda). This eternalist view of “Self” is also called a “pernicious view,”7 — that the Buddha refutes. The Buddha’s teaching of Non-Self is frequently summarized in the Nikāya-s in these two succinct sentences: “What is impermanent is suffering. What is suffering is not attā.”9 Nicholas F. Gier and Paul Kjellberg put it this way: “You wouldn’t be the person you are if your family, friends, and acquaintances all weren’t the people they are, if you hadn’t had the experiences you’ve had, lived in the society you live in, and so on.”11 Individual persons co-arise with, and are contingent on, their surroundings, and therefore do not exist as unchanging, permanent, blissful pure consciousness that is separate from, and independent of, worldly phenomena.

While rejecting both of the extremes of nihilism and eternalism, in the early texts the Buddha seemed to be more concerned with refuting the eternalist view than the nihilist view. The eternalist “Self” was compared to a lump of foam on a river, a water bubble during rain, a mirage, a plantain trunk, and a magical illusion.13 All of these views are called “identity views” because they are considered conducive to, and reinforcing, egocentric clinging. They lead to unsatisfactoriness or outright suffering (Pāli: dukkha; Sanskrit: duhkha).

The meaning and scope of the Five Aggregated have to be understood to see the subtleties of the teaching of Non-Self and the ways in which this teaching is highly morally demanding. In the classical Buddhist understanding, an individual person is understood in terms of the Five Aggregates: the entity we consider “self” is a psycho-physical compound of material forms (Pāli/Sanskrit: rūpa), sensations (Pāli/Sanskrit: vedanā), perceptions (Pāli: saññā; Sanskrit: samjñā), volitional constructions (Pāli: saņkhāra; Sanskrit: samskāra), and consciousness (Pāli: viññāņa; Sanskrit: vijñāņa). David J. Kalupahana expounds, “Rūpa or material form accounts for the function of identification; vedanāor feeling and saññāor perception represent the function of experience, emotive as well as cognitive; saņkhāraor disposition stands for the function of individuation; viññāņaor consciousness explains the function of continuity in experience.”15: that which can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched and felt, and that which can be cognized. With mind being considered a sense organ, virtually all phenomena in the world can be considered the “external sense bases” for the mind. Virtually all phenomena in the world can be considered mind-objects since they can all be processed in one way or another by the mind. Colors, for example, are objects for the eyes, and yet the difference between two colors may be an object for the mind. Thus considered, “external sense bases” encompasses not only concrete objects with physical dimensions, but also abstract entities without physical dimensions, such as languages, philosophies, histories, social conventions, cultural norms, political institutions, and the sentiments involved in interpersonal relationships in the past, the present, or the future.17 On account of the references to “things that are put together, constructed, and compounded,” saņkhāra is translated as “mental formations” or “mental proliferations;” on account of the references to “things which put together, construct, and compound other things,” the same word is rendered “dispositions” or “volitions.” A person’s disposition and volition both result from the things that have been put together and affect the ways in which things are being put together. In other words, one’s dispositions and volition shape the ways in which one’s thoughts are formed, and the thoughts formed in turn mold one’s dispositions and volition.

Corresponding to and co-arising with the six senses and their respective sense-objects are six classes of sensation, six classes of perception, six classes of volitional constructions, and six classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness.19 In this passage the term nāma is used to refer to the Aggregates other than rūpa and consciousness, i.e. sensations, perceptions, and volitional constructions. Sometimes, however, it seems that nāma encompasses only sensations and perceptions, for in the “Twelve Links of Interdependent Origination” volitional constructions are discussed separately from nāma-rūpa: “With ignorance as condition, volitional constructions come to be; with volitional constructions as condition, consciousness comes to be; with consciousness as condition, nāma-rūpa comes to be…”21 Saņkhāra can put together existing sense-objects to form new mind-objects that are prior-to-now non-existent in the socio-cultural realm, and then the newly formed mind-objects are fed to consciousness just as the existing mind-objects are. One’s consciousness, in turn, affects the ways in which s/he senses and perceives rūpa, thereby also affecting the mental formations to come. That is, besides the material and symbolic forces that one is exposed to (rūpa), one’s consciousness is also influenced by the functioning of one’s nāma, especially saņkhāra. The constructive aspect of saņkhāra accounts for individuation. It accounts for the fact that people exposed to the same rūpa do not necessarily have the same personality or consciousness.23 A person may be consistently prompted with a certain consciousness and identify with it for a certain period of time, and then may choose, or be prompted by further life experiences, to identify with a different consciousness some time later.

The Buddhist theory of the Five Aggregates points to the conditionality of personhood. An individual person is, and continues to be, a product of socio-cultural conditionings and his/her life experiences, the latter being affected by his/her own dispositions/volition/mental formations. A person as such is socially constructed as well as mentally constructed. Traditional Buddhist discourses elaborate abundantly on the process of mental construction but somehow come short in explicating the sociality of existence and its implications. Human existence is always social, and to be a person is to become a person in a matrix of social forces. What one holds onto as the identity of the self does not come into existence without the material and symbolic forces that have been suggesting and reinforcing it. An identity as such is not permanent and does not stay static. It is subject to change, and it changes when new experiences arise or when new situations prompt new ways of putting together old experiences. The Buddhist teaching of Non-Self, at least in its classical sense, merely denies the idea of permanently-existing, never-changing individual self-essence that is abstractly defined (by the most privileged stratum in society) and uninfluenced by worldly phenomena or day-to-day experiences. In the next section, I will further illustrate the meaning and social implications of the Buddhist teaching of Non-Self, of seeing an individual person as a process, by looking at the constructedness of gender identity.

Seeing “Non-Self” through the Making of Gender Identity

As Gross observes, there is something curiously illogical in many Buddhists’ understanding and acceptance of the central Buddhist teaching of Non-Self: “while most Buddhist do not believe in the existence of a permanent, abiding self, their attitudes and actions nevertheless indicate that they do believe in the real existence of gender.”25 or defensively denying and willfully ignoring the persistent gender discrimination, gender stereotypes, and rigid assignment of gender roles in both of the voluminous traditional Buddhist texts and the day-to-day operation of Buddhist institutions.27 The central teaching of Non-Self, the lack of eternal, unchanging, self-existing essence, is invoked from time to time in response to various kinds of contentions and disputes, but it is rarely remembered when conventional gender roles are described, expected, and even imposed.

That is, theoretically, the Buddhist Dhamma transcends gender. In everyday life, however, it often seems it is gender that transcends the Dhamma, for the Dhamma is supposed to cover every aspect of Reality/Existence but somehow is hardly ever applied to gender. This reluctance to acknowledging the existence of gender discrimination within the Buddhist traditions, Gross rightly notes, “is a more destructive and dangerous form of opposition to gender equality than outright opposition to egalitarian reforms,”29

Gender is produced through repeated bodily performances of the cultural scripts that define masculinity and femininity. Since the beginning of their existence in human societies, people are systematically inculcated with, and disciplined to perform, certain behaviors and roles that are supposedly appropriate for their anatomical characteristics. The compulsory repetition of bodily performances of gender norms has a materializing effect and “congeal[s] over time,” for the gender norms repeatedly performed by the body are thereby inscribed on the body, which is an integral part of a person’s self-identity. Since gender norms are inscribed on the body and thus become part of the person, gender is not like an outfit that can be taken off at will. That is, gender is not something that can be undone or changed with just one alternative performance because it is not created once and for all with one socially-prescribed performance. Still, gender “has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality,”31

Some colors are associated with, and used on, girls, while some other colors are associated with and used on boys. It is very common, in the United States at least, for people to put baby boys in blue clothes and bassinets, and baby girls, in pink. When I was a child in Taiwan, the colors red, pink, and orange were commonly considered as “girly colors,” while the colors green and blue were called “boyish colors.”

Children learn their gendered identities through toys as well. Girls are still commonly given dolls or items of sedentary and domestic nature to play with, while boys are often encouraged to play with toy cars, trains, airplanes, tanks, guns, robots equipped with weapons, and generally items that are mobile and/or destructive. Supposedly girls do not like to move about, and supposedly they like to play house, imagining being wives and mothers and enjoying the imaginary cleaning, cooking, and taking care of other members in the family.

The assignment of household chores is frequently gendered as well, if boys are expected to do chores at all. In Taiwan and other Chinese societies, some parents expect only girls to help out with chores, while some others train their boys to perform tasks that require a little more physical strength, such as mopping the floor. In the United States, in families that do expect both boys and girls to do household chores, girls are more likely to be assigned more “domestic” chores such as tasks in the kitchen or tasks related to caring and nurturing, while boys are more likely to be expected to take on chores of higher mobility such as taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow, etc.33 The perceptions of “lady-like” postures, however, vary across cultures and generations, too. For instance, Chinese and Taiwanese girls have also been taught to be “lady-like,” but people of older generations consider it impolite, for both males and females, to sit with their legs crossed.35 The association between a certain gender and a certain group of colors, for example, is culturally and historically variable. At earlier times in Chinese culture, the color red was associated with good fortune and was certainly used on wealthy men. My mother, however, gets intensely uncomfortable with my brother wearing red, and so do most of the Taiwanese and Chinese people of her and her parents’ generations because the color red had been associated with the female gender. In fact, once in a Buddhist temple in Philadelphia I was lectured by a Chinese woman somewhat older than my mother that I should wear more pink and red instead of black. “Wearing black makes one look like a guy, and wearing red makes one look like a girl,” she said, completely oblivious to the fact that, at that moment, I was sitting right next to a Tibetan monk who, like most Tibetans, favors the color red and wears red all the time. Among the colors that were called “girly colors” when I was little, my brother is comfortable with red and orange, but not pink. The Taiwanese men of an even younger generation, by contrast, no longer consider the color pink off-limits.

That gender is a set of conditioned acts becomes especially salient when two persons of the same biological gender in the same society can be conditioned to perceive and act out their gender in different ways due to their different economic or social classes. Some of my better-to-do female friends in Taiwan habitually buy clothes that are pleasing to their eyes but may be inconvenient for their everyday bodily motions, and they often attribute that habit of choosing beauty over functionality to the “natural” dictates of their female gender. My mother and some other women who have had to perform physical labor to make a living, by contrast, do not appreciate the kind of clothes that would limit their bodily motions or make them too self-conscious when they toil. Besides, their limited resources have accustomed them to opt for the type of clothes that allow them to function throughout the whole day. That is, they do not really pay much attention to separating work clothes from fun clothes, or sportswear from sleepwear, for they have neither the money nor the energy to buy and maintain all those different clothes for such different occasions.

Like upper-class women, lower-class women may attempt to mimic what they see in mass media, which all too often broadcast Euro-American Caucasian beauty standards, including fashions and the body type that is used to demonstrate those fashions. As a result, along with trendy attires, they may consider white skin to be more feminine and more beautiful, which is reflected in the plethora of skin-whitening cosmetic products on the market throughout East Asia. For women laborers, however, the demand of functionality and low maintenance usually outweighs the concern for the “feminine beauty” defined by the Western-dominated global market culture. After all, for women in subtropical areas who do not work indoors, Caucasian-like white skin is extremely high maintenance, if not utterly unattainable. Likewise, women laborers may conform to other societal gender expectations for females in Taiwan, such as being soft and yielding to (male) authority figures. But the reality of their working-class life has generally trained them to be tough and to tackle most tasks by themselves, including lifting heavy objects, for which most of my better-to-do female friends would predictably enlist help from men.

Neither the choice of “feminine” clothes nor the habitual recourse to men’s help is the inalterable substance of the female gender.37 Contained in the Buddha’s teaching is a call to critically reexamine the assumptions about the self-existent, unchanging qualities of social groups, especially when those qualities have been defined, prescribed, and propagated by the social group that is currently occupying the uppermost rung of the social hierarchy. The same kind of critical reexamination can and should be applied to the social grouping of genders. Gendered identity, like class identity, is conditioned, subject to change, and in lack of self-essence.

Subject Formation and Cultural Delimitation

It is noteworthy that the word rūpa, besides denoting mind and mind-objects, does refer to the material circumstances and the physical makeup of individual persons. Societal norms and cultural conventions surely provide abundant sense-objects for the mind, which is the most powerful amongst the six sense organs. Yet a person cannot relate to the world without a physical body (part of rūpa), and the matrix of socio-cultural norms and conventions (also part of rūpa) have already prescribed the proper ways of interacting with a body. They have in fact circumscribed the meanings of a body. That is, as much as a person’s contact with his/her socio-cultural world is mediated through his/her body, his/her body can play a crucial role in forming his/her consciousness and self-identity. In addition, the bodily features and functions themselves may also serve as objects for the mind, which means that, according to the analysis of the Five Aggregates, the physical makeup of a person may affect his/her personality and consciousness (or, more precisely, consciousness-es). At the same time, though, each person has developed his/her own way of putting things together (saņkhāra) and therefore the same bodily functions do not necessarily fuel the same consciousnesses (and different bodily functions do not necessarily fuel different consciousnesses). In other words, it is the co-arising and interconditionality of physical existence, social constructs, and mental constructs that accounts for an individual.

One must live in society dependent on a physical body, and one can only apprehend body and materiality through the conventions in one’s society, particularly the conventional treatments of the type of body one has. One learns through societal views and expectations how to perceive one’s body, and to like it, or hate it, or attach meanings to it, or alter the appearance of it, in the hope of measuring up to societal standards. In the framework of the Five Aggregates, the body is acknowledged as a constituent of a person, although it does not necessarily determine a person. It is because of a body that one can live and think and function in a society, and it is because of this particular body that exists in this particular socio-cultural environment in this particular time that one is conditioned to live and think and function in these particular ways.

The values and norms of a society often seem natural or normal to its subjects precisely because those values and norms have been inscribed on the bodies of the subjects. In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault draws on Jeremy Bentham’s concept of panopticon and delineates the ways in which the socio-cultural norms, which vary from culture to culture and greatly depend on the dominating power, become such a seemingly integral part of a person that they are simply considered normal or even “natural.” Through a series of apparently innocent subtle arrangements concerning details in life,39 to exert their disciplinary powers in different aspects of people’s lives. Individuals are incessantly watched and disciplined to conform to the norms that, once recognized as such, make further societal disciplines easy and invisible. Thus the gazes of power are internalized, “automatic docility”41 Any individual, from the “beginning” of one’s life, or even before it, is configured by the language that carries conventionally-established concepts and collectively-recognized meanings, by the historical usages of that language, and by the socio-cultural circumstances in which that language has been used.

The concepts, meanings, usages, and socio-cultural circumstances reflected in that language are formed as a result of, in Butler’s word, sedimentation. In the same way that sediments of earth are formed because a large amount of sand is repeatedly brought over by water to the same place and allowed to accumulate and solidify, socio-cultural conventions are formed because people are acting and reacting in certain ways over and over again. A particular social convention, such as dressing baby girls in pink or allowing boys to be disruptive and aggressive, is in place because people repeat it, generation after generation, though not entirely without variation. Being able to function and be recognized as a functioning subject in any society necessarily means carrying the weight of the tradition and internalizing to a large extent those sedimentations of that society.43 Language constitutes the persons who use it in the sense that it suggests and promotes a certain way of thinking of the self and relating to each other as well as to the larger society.

In Buddhist terms, as the rūpa for the mind, socio-cultural conventions supply the raw materials from which the consciousnesses of the individuals embedded in those conventions are made. Different people may “put together” (saņkhāra) the rūpa in different ways and thus may have different dispositions and may further choose to continue putting things together in those ways. That is, the rūpa do not determine the individual consciousnesses and socio-cultural conventions do not determine the ways in which people think and perceive their environment and relate to each other. Yet the rūpa does limit the possibilities of the ways in which individual consciousnesses take shape. With the raw material of iron, one may make a chair or a weapon, but the possibility of making ceramics is precluded. Thus Butler contends, “The one who acts…acts precisely to the extent that he or she is constituted as an actor and, hence, operating within a linguistic field of enabling constraints from the outset.”45 The ways in which one thinks, speaks and acts are, and always will be, conditioned by the material and socio-cultural circumstances, and in this regard one does not have an eternal, changeless “Self” that is above, or operating independently of, the matrix of rūpa in which one is embedded. Both personhood and identity are processes and are in continuous construction and reconstruction.

 


 

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Endnotes

 

2 Rita M. Gross, “Buddhism and Feminism: Toward Their Mutual Transformation, Part I,” Eastern Buddhist 19.1 (Spring 1986): 47-49; Rita M. Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 157.

4 Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy, pp. 128 and 158; “Buddhism and Feminism,” 49-50; “The Dharma of Gender,” 6.

6 Samyutta Nikāya III.99 and 182-183 (Khandhasamyutta), 204-205 (Diţţhisamyutta). See also Majjhima Nikāya i.130-131 (Alagaddūpama Sutta) and i.256-257 (Mahātaņhāsankhaya Sutta).

8 For examples, see Samyutta Nikāya III.22 and 45 (Khandhasamyutta).

10 Gier and Kjellberg, “Buddhism and the Freedom of the Will,” p. 291.

12 Samyutta Nikāya III.140-143 (Khandhasamyutta).

14 David J. Kalupahana, The Principles of Buddhist Psychology (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 20-21.

16 In the Pāli Abhidhamma, six kinds of objects are considered mental objects: sensitive matter, subtle matter, consciousness, mental factors, Nibbāna, and concepts. While the consciousnesses of the other five sense organs pertain only to the present, the mind-consciousness can cognize an object of the past, the present, or the future. See A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: Pāli Text, Translation and Explanatory Guide of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha, 1st BPS Pariyatti edition, Pāli text originally edited and translated by Mahāthera Nārada, translation revised by Bhikkhu Bodhi, introduction and explanatory guide by U Rewata Dhamma and Bhikkhu Bodhi, Abhidhamma tables by U Sīlānanda (Onalaska, Washington: Pariyatti Press, 2000), pp. 135-7.

18 For examples, see Samyutta Nikāya III.60-61, 63-64, 102-103 (Khandhasamyutta).

20 For examples, see Samyutta Nikāya II.28, 70, 78, and 95 (Nidānasamyutta). Bhikkhu Bodhi explains, “only when consciousness is present can a compound of material elements function as a sentient body and the mental concomitants participate in cognition.” Bhikkhu Bodhi, “General Introduction,” in The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, p. 48. Alternatively, nāma is understood by some to include consciousness as well. For example, Therāvadin scholar Hammalawa Saddhatissa asserts, “nāma-rūpa should be understood as the particularity or determinate character of individual things” and can be used as a synonym for individual beings. Hammalawa Saddhatissa, Buddhist Ethics (Boston, Massachusetts: Wisdom Publications, 1997), pp. 5-6. In the early Upanişads, the term nāma-rūpa is used to refer to the things of common experiences, as opposed to the Absolute Reality of Brāhman.

22 It is doubtful that any two persons are ever exposed to the exact same rūpa. Two siblings growing up in the same family, for example, are not necessarily treated in the same way by their parents, and they certainly do not treat each other in the same way they are treated by each other. This goes beyond the scope of this paper.

24 Gross, “The Dharma of Gender,” 4.

26 Ibid., 7. It is not uncommon for Buddhist communities to divide needed labor and volunteer work along gender lines and, in effect, impose and reinforce stereotypical gender attributes. Alan Sponberg finds that the “soteriological inclusiveness” in early Buddhism is compounded with “institutional androcentrism” and “ascetic misogyny.” Alan Sponberg, “Attitudes Toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism,” in Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, edited by José Ignacio Cabezón (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 3-36. Susanne Mrozik also notes that in the South Asian Buddhist traditions virtues are still strongly associated with the male body, despite the talk about the “ultimate” irrelevance of bodily distinctions. Susanne Mrozik, “Materialization of Virtue: Buddhist Discourses on Bodies,” in Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler, edited by Ellen T. Armour and Susan M. St. Ville (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), pp. 34-5.

28 Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy, p. 117; “The Dharma of Gender,” 11. Similar concerns are shown by Mrozik in “Materialization of Virtue,” p. 35; Tsomo in “Family, Monastery, and Gender Justice,” p. 2; Sara McClintock in “Gendered Bodies of Illusion: Finding a Somatic Method in the Ontic Madness of Emptiness,” in Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars, edited by Roger R. Jackson and John J. Makransky (Richmond, UK: Curzon Press, 2000), p. 261; and Faure, The Power of Denial, pp. 119-42.

30 Ibid., p. 173.

32 The gendered assignment of household chores not only suggests the division of genders and reinforces gender roles, but also affords the male gender more physical mobility and financial resources since childhood: boys can earn some pocket money by mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow for their neighbors, but no one would really hire girls in the neighborhood to do the dishes. Even when girls and women are hired as maids for household maintenance, their contributions are commonly deemed less valuable and, as a result, they may work longer hours and still earn less money. “A sexual division of labor,” Zillah Eisenstein observes, “…divides men and women into their respective hierarchical sex roles and structures their related duties in the family domain and within the economy.” Zillah Eisenstein, “Developing a Theory of Capitalist Patriarchy and Socialist Feminism,” in Capitalist Patriarchy: The Case for Socialist Feminism, edited by Zillah R. Eisenstein (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1979), p. 27.

34 In fact, one of the unwritten but much reinforced internal rules of the Taiwan-based International Tzu-Chi (Compassionate Relief) Foundation is that no volunteer, male or female, may sit with their legs crossed if they are wearing the Tzu-Chi uniform. That unwritten rule was laid down by Master Chengyen herself.

36 In a ethnographical study on moving in Montréal that deliberately leaves out the factor of social class, Jean-Sébastien Marcoux finds that handling heavy objects is often done by men in a paternalistic manner and so in effect becomes a privilege of men and boys, while most of the work relegated to women, such as sorting, packing, and cleaning, is unappreciated. He also finds that this gendered division of tasks is developed and reinforced relationally — while women tend to either voluntarily stay away from, or be intimidated out of, physical tasks in the presence of men, they, especially younger ones, do not hesitate to handle heavy objects in the absence of men. Jean-Sébastien Marcoux, “Body Exchanges: Material Culture, Gender and Stereotypes in the Making,” Home Cultures Vol. 1, Issue 1 (2004): 51-60.

38 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated from the French by Alan Sheridan, 2nd edition (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 139.

40 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, p. 169.

42 Coincidentally, in explaining the “grammar” of the market, Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr. also make a similar reference to language: “Individuals are free to try to communicate in whatever ways they wish. But to succeed they have to conform to certain community conventions. The result is not a Tower of Babel, but an amazingly well-ordered structure, as is evident in the grammar of any language. No one designed a language, not even the French Academy. Yet language has an order and logic that would appear to have been the product of rational planning.” See Daly and Cobb, For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1989), p. 44.

44 Butler, Excitable Speech, p. 16. Likewise, feminist scholar Linda Martín Alcoff likewise remarks, “the options available to us are socially constructed, and the practices we engage in cannot be understood as simply the results of autonomous individual choice.” Linda Martín Alcoff, “The Problem of Speaking for Others,” in Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity, edited by Judith Roof and Robyn Wiegman (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1995), p. 101.

1and many other more recent incarnations in novels and films. In the futuristic societies des­cribed in these influential works, people can have and do whatever they will or choose, but only to the extent that they have been conditioned since birth by behavioral engineers or neuro-chemists to will or choose only what they can have and do. Their surface freedoms are bought at the expense of a deeper freedom of the will.

Skinner goes further in a modern vein, by arguing that this so-called deeper “freedom of the will” is no loss at all, since it is not something we can have anyway. In our ordinary lives, we are just as much the products of upbringing and social conditioning as the citizens of Walden Two, though we may delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. We may think we are the creators or originators of our own wills only because we are unaware of most of the genetic, psychological and social influences upon us. Then, echoing Nietzsche, Skinner adds that the idea that we could be ultimate or “original” creators of our own wills—that we could somehow be “causes of ourselves”—is an impossible ideal in any case, dreamt up by philo­sophers and theologians before we understood more about the hidden causes of behavior. It is an outdated idea that has no place in modern scientific picture of the world.

Reflecting in this way on the idea of freedom is one path to understanding free will. Another is by reflecting on the notion of responsibility. Suppose a young man is on trial for an assault and robbery in which his victim was beaten to death. Let us say we attend his trial and listen to the evidence in the courtroom. At first, our thoughts of the young man are filled with anger and resentment. What he did was horrible. But as we listen daily to how he came to have the mean character and perverse motives he did have—a sad story of parental ne­glect, child abuse, sexual abuse, bad role models—some of our resentment against the young man is shifted over to the parents and others who abused and mistreated him. We begin to feel angry with them as well as with him. Yet we aren’t quite ready to shift all of the blame away from the young man himself. We wonder whether some residual responsibility may not belong to him. Our questions become: To what extent is he responsible for becoming the sort of person he now is? Was it all a question of bad parenting, societal neglect, social conditioning, and the like, or did he have any role to play in it?

These are crucial questions about free will and they are questions about what may be called the young man’s ultimate responsibility. We know that parenting and society, genetic make-up and upbringing, have an influence on what we become and what we are. But were these influences entirely determining or did they “leave anything over” for us to be responsi­ble for? That is what we want to know about the young man. The question of whether he is merely a victim of bad circumstances or has some residual responsibility for being what he is—the question, that is, of whether he became the person he is of his own free will—seems to depend on whether these other factors were or were not entirely determining.

Reflections such as these point to a basic condition that down through history in my view has fueled intui­tions that free will and determinism must be incompatible. I call it the condition of ultimate responsibility or UR, for short. The basic idea is this: to be ultimately responsible for an action, an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason (condition, cause or motive) for the action’s occurring.3 Free will is not just about free action. It is about self-formation, about the formation of our “wills” or how we got to be the kinds of persons we are, with the characters, motives and purposes we now have. Were we ultimately responsible to some degree for having the wills we do have, or can the sources of our wills be completely traced backwards to something over which we had no control, such as Fate or the decrees of God, or heredity and environ­ment or social condi­tioning or hidden controllers, and so on? Therein, I believe, lies the core of the traditional problem of “free will.”

Focusing on UR also shows, as suggested earlier, how free will is related to self­hood, the central topic of this conference. I explained this in an earlier work in terms of what I called a “dialectic of selfhood.” In the first stage of this dialectic, imagine a baby several months old lying in a crib or infant seat. The baby’s arms and legs shake with uncontrolled and undirec­ted energy as she looks about the room. This shaking comes from her nervous system, and ultimately from the brain which soaks up a high percentage of the energy-producing glucose of the body. (We call the young “bundles of energy” for a reason.) The baby doesn’t know what to do with all that energy yet; her task is to gradu­ally learn to get more control over it.

An early stage of this process of gaining control is one many parents have observed. Objects pass in front of the infant and she follows them with her eyes. She has no control over most of the objects and simply observes them pass by. But one passing object has a special fascination—her own hand. It is different, for it seems she can control it. One day she actually learns to hold the hand still in her visual field, make a fist with it, and then open it again. This turns out to be utterly fascinating. When she first discovers it, the act is repeated over and over again, and she smiles with delight at her success. She has discovered that this passing object is something special. It is part of her; and she can control it by an act of will. She has discovered the phenomena of action and will simultaneously by recognizing that she can control and direct some things out there in the world by attending to them and willing them to happen in her mind. No wonder she is fascinated.

Not surprisingly, this discovery is also connected to the distinction the infant is learning to make between herself and the world. And she begins to make this distinction in terms of what she can directly control with her will and what she cannot. Our full sense of being a distinct self is tied up with our con­ception of being a distinct source of motion or activity in the world, such that what goes on behind the screen of our mind (our will) can have effects our there in the world.

But in the second stage of the dialectic of selfhood, doubts arise about this simple picture. For we find that we are not separate from the world, but in it, and influenced by it in many hidden ways. Behind the window to the world—where we are supposed to be—is the brain, which is a physical object, like the body itself, part of world and influenced by it. Per­haps we only seem to “move ourselves” by our wills in a primordial way when we are in fact moved by causes coming from the world of which we are unaware operating though our brains and bodies. Such thoughts provoke a spiritual crisis. One crude reaction is to insist that we are not in the natural world at all—that the self behind the window is outside the natural world altogether, yet able to influence what goes on it that world in some magical way. A more subtle reaction is to argue that, while the world influences us, we can determine just how the world influences us through our senses and through our processing of informa­tion. We can detemrine what gets in and what is screened out, what influences our thought and action and what does not.

Alas, this solution only temporarily quell doubts about the influ­ence of the world upon us. If we have already learned we are influenced by many things of which we are una­ware, how can we be sure the very selections we make from within our inner sanctum are not determined by influences from the world in our past and present of which we are unaware and are beyond our control? What if our choices about how the world will influence us are them­selves determi­ned by the world? This thought propels us to a third stage of the dialectic of selfhood, where we encounter full-fledged threats of deterministic doctrines in all their historical guises—physical, biological, psychological, social, and so on. What I am sugges­ting is that we view the problem of determinism and free will, not as an isolated problem, but as a stage in the dialectic of selfhood—the process of self-understan­ding about the relation of our self to the world. At each stage, we are trying to preserve a remnant of the idea that we are in some sense ultimately responsible to some degree for how the world influences us and how we react to it—against the threat that we are merely pro­ducts of forces coming wholly from the world.

Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, focusing on this condition of ultimate responsibility or UR shows us why free will has been historically thought to be incompatible with deter­minism. If agents must be responsible to some degree for anything (such as their prior formed character) that is a sufficient cause or motive for their actions, an impossible infinite regress of past actions would be required unless some actions in an agent’s life history did not have either sufficient causes or motives (and hence were not entirely determined). These undetermined actions would be the self-forming actions or SFAs required by UR.

3. The Intelligibility Question

But this approach to the incompatibility of free will and determinism through UR raises a host of further extremely difficult questions about free will—including how actions lacking both sufficient causes and mo­tives could themselves be free and responsible actions, and how, if at all, such actions could exist in the natural order where we humans live and have our being. These are ver­sions of what I call the Intelligibility and Existence questions about free will, to which I now turn. Can we make sense of such a notion of free will or is it an unintelligible, impossi­ble or self-con­tradictory ideal, as Nietzsche, Skinner and many other modern scientists and philosophers contend? And can such a notion of free will be reconciled with modern scientific concep­tions of humans and the cosmos?

Doubts about the very possibility or intelligibility of free will are connected to an ancient dilemma: If free will is not compati­ble with determinism, it does not seem to be compatible with indeter­minism either. Determinism means: Given the past, there is only one possible future. Indetermi­nism means the opposite: Same past, different possible futures. But how is it possible, one might ask, that different actions could arise voluntarily and intentio­nal­­ly from (exactly) the same past without occurring merely by luck or chance? This question has had a hynotic effect on those who think about free will. One imagines that if free choices are undeter­mined, then which one occurs must be like spinning a wheel in one’s mind or one must just pop out by chance or randomly. If, for example, a choice occurred as a result of a quan­tum jump or other undetermined event in one’s brain, would that amount to a free and respon­sible choice? I’ll not trouble you with all the arguments, like these and others, by which philosophers have made the case that if undeter­mined choices or actions really were required for free will, they would occur as a matter of chance and hence would be “arbitrary,” or “capricious,” or “random,” “irrational,” “inexplicable,” mere matters of luck” and not under the “control” of the agents, hence not free and responsible actions at all.

No wonder libertarians about free will, those who believe it is incompatible with de­ter­­minism, have looked for some deus ex machina or other to solve the problem, while their opponents have cried magic or mystery. Indeterminism was required for free will, libertarians argued, but indeterminism was not enough. Indeterminism might provide causal gaps in nature. But that was only a negative condition. Some additional form of agency or causation was needed that went beyond cau­sation in the natural order, whether deterministic or indeter­ministic. Thus, in res­ponse to modern science, we had numerous historical appeals in moder­nity, from Descartes to Kant and beyond, to “extra factors” such as noumenal selves, imma­terial minds, transempi­rical power centers, non-event agent causes, and the like, to account for a traditional libertarian free will. I long ago became disenchanted with all such appeals.

4. Indeterminism and Responsibility

If one is to make sense of free will in a modern context, I believe one must avoid all such traditional strategies and take a whole new look at the indeterminist problem from the ground up. This is another place where new ways of thinking about old problems are re­quired. It is a scientific question, of course, whether the indeterminism is there in nature in appropriate ways. As the Epicureans said, if the atoms don’t “swerve” in undeter­mined ways there would be no room in nature for free will. But our question is the philo­so­phical one that has boggled people’s minds for centuries: What could we do with indetermi­nism, assuming it was there in nature, to make sense of free will as something other than mere chance or ran­dom­ness? Chance after all is not freedom. The first step in addressing this question is to note that indeter­minism does not have to be involved in all acts done “of our own free wills” for which we are ultimately responsible, as argued earlier. Not all such acts have to be undeter­mined, but only those by which we made ourselves into the kinds of persons we are, namely “self-forming actions” or SFAs.

Now I believe these undetermined self-forming actions or SFAs occur at those difficult times of life when we are torn between competing visions of what we should do or become. Perhaps we are torn between doing the moral thing or acting from ambition, or between powerful present desires and long term goals, or we are faced with a difficult tasks for which we have aversions. In all such cases, we are faced with competing motivations and have to make an effort to overcome temptation to do something else we also strongly want. There is tension and uncertainty in our minds about what to do at such times, I sug­gest, that is reflected in appropriate regions of our brains by movement away from thermodynamic equili­brium—in short, a kind of “stirring up of chaos” in the brain that makes it sensitive to micro-indeterminacies at the neuronal level. The uncertainty and inner tension we feel at such soul-searching moments of self-formation is thus reflected in the indeterminacy of our neural pro­cesses them­selves. What is experienced internally as uncertainty then would corres­pond phy­s­ically to the opening of a window of opportunity that would tempo­ra­rily screen off complete determi­na­tion by influences of the past.

When we do decide under such conditions of uncertainty, the outcome is not deter­mined because of the preceding indeterminacy—and yet it can be willed (and hence rational and voluntary) either way owing to the fact that in such self-formation, the agents’ prior wills are divided by conflicting motives. Consider a businesswoman who faces such a conflict. She is on her way to an important meeting when she observes an assault taking place in an alley. An inner struggle ensues between her conscience, to stop and call for help, and her career ambitions which tell her she cannot miss this meeting. She has to make an effort of will to overcome the temptation to go on. If she overcomes this temptation, it will be the result of her effort, but if she fails, it will be because she did not allow her effort to succeed. And this is due to the fact that, while she willed to overcome temptation, she also willed to fail, for quite different and incommensurable reasons. When we, like the woman, decide in such circumstances, and the indeterminate efforts we are making become determinate choices, we make one set of competing reasons or motives prevail over the others then and there by deciding.

Now let us add a further piece to the puzzle. Just as indeterminism need not under­mine rationality and voluntariness, so indeterminism in and of itself need not undermine con­trol and responsibility. Suppose you are trying to think through a difficult problem, say a mathe­matical problem, and there is some indeterminacy in your neural processes complica­ting the task—a kind of chaotic background. It would be like trying to concentrate and solve a problem, say a mathematical problem, with background noise or distraction. Whether you are going to succeed in solving the problem is uncertain and undetermined because of the distracting neural noise. Yet, if you concentrate and solve the problem nonetheless, there is rea­son to say you did it and are responsible for it even though it was undetermined whether you would succeed. The indeterministic noise would have been an obstacle that you overcame by your effort.

There are numerous examples supporting this point, where indeter­mi­nism functions as an obstacle to success without precluding responsibility. Consider an assassin who is trying to shoot the prime minister, but might miss because of some undeter­mined events in his ner­vous system that may lead to a jerking or wavering of his arm. If the assassin does succeed in hit­ting his target, despite the indeterminism, can he be held responsi­ble? The answer is clear­ly yes because he intentionally and voluntarily succeeded in doing what he was trying to do—kill the prime minister. Yet his action, killing the prime minister, was undetermined. It might have failed. Or, here is another exam­ple: a husband, while argu­ing with his wife, in a fit of rage swings his arm down on her favorite glass-top table top intending to break it. Again, we suppose that some indetermi­nism in his outgoing neural pathways makes the momentum of his arm indeter­mi­nate so that it is genuinely undeter­mined whether the table will break right up to the moment when it is struck. Whether the husband breaks the table or not is undetermined and yet he is clearly res­ponsible if he does break it. (It would be a poor excuse for him to say to his wife: “chance did it, not me.” Even though there was a chance he wouldn’t break it, chance didn’t do it, he did.)

Now these examples—of the mathematical problem, the assassin and the hus­band—are not all we want, since they do not amount to genuine exercises of (self-forming) free will in SFAs, like the businesswoman’s, where the will is divided between conflicting motives. The assassin’s will is not divided between conflicting motives as is the woman’s. He wants to kill the prime minister, but does not also want to fail. (If he fails therefore, it will be merely by chance.) Yet these examples of the assassin, the husband and the like, do provide some clues. To go further, we have to add some further thoughts.

Imagine in cases of inner conflict characteristic of SFAs, like the businesswoman’s, that the indeterministic noise which is providing an obstacle to her overcoming temptation is not coming from an external source, but is coming from her own will, since she also deeply desires to do the opposite. Imagine that two crossing (recurrent) neural networks are in­volved, each influencing the other, and representing her conflicting motivations. (Recurrent neural networks are complex networks of interconnected neurons in the brain circulating impulses in feedback loops that are now generally thought to be involved in higher-level cognitive processing.5

Indeed, in these cases, agents have what I call “plural voluntary control” over the op­tions in the following sense: they are able to bring about whichever of the options they will, when they will to do so, for the reasons they will to do so, on purpose rather than acci­dentally or by mistake, without being coerced or com­pelled in doing so or willing to do so, or other­wise controlled in doing or willing to do so by any other agents or mechanisms. I show in my 1996 book that each of these condi­tions can be satisfied for SFAs as conceived above even though the SFAs are undetermined.7 I agree with the broad out­lines of the account of human agency presented in that book (which appeals to a number of other writers) and would adapt it for my own purposes, adding only the element of indeterminism, which I believe is consistent with the broader outlines of the dynamical systems approach. And I would add an historical note: the idea of rational agents as “hierarchically ordered, informa­tion sensitive, complex dyna­mical systems” is very much in the tradition of Aristotle’s “form/­matter” account of the human agent, a version of which I would endorse.

But would not the presence of indeterminism at least diminish the control persons have over their choices and other actions? Is it not the case that the assassin’s control over whether the prime minister is killed (his ability to realize his purposes or what he is trying to do) is lessened by the undetermined impulses in his arm—and so also for the husband and his breaking the table? And this limitation seems to be connected with another problem often noted by critics of libertarian freedom—the problem that indeterminism, wherever it occurs, seems to be a hindrance or obstacle to our realizing our purposes and hence an obstacle to (rather than an enhancement of) our freedom.

There is a truth to these claims, but I think what is true in them also reveals some­thing important about free will. We should concede that indeterminism, wherever it occurs, does diminish control over what we are trying to do and is a hindrance or obstacle to the reali­za­tion of our purposes. But recall that in the case of the businesswoman (and SFAs generally), the indeterminism that is admittedly diminishing her control over one thing she is trying to do (the moral act of helping the victim) is coming from her own will—from her desire and effort to do the opposite (go to her business meeting). And the indeterminism that is diminishing her control over the other thing she is trying to do (act selfishly and go to her meeting) is coming from her desire and effort to do the opposite (to be a moral person and act on moral reasons). So, in each case, the indeterminism is functioning as a hindrance or obstacle to her realizing one of her purposes—a hindrance or obstacle in the form of resistance within her will which has to be overcome by effort.

If there were no such hindrance—if there were no resistance in her will—she would indeed in a sense have “complete control” over one of her options. There would no compe­ting motives that would stand in the way of her choosing it. But then also she would not be free to rationally and voluntarily choose the other purpose because she would have no good competing reasons to do so. Thus, by being a hindrance to the realization of some of our purposes, indeterminism paradoxically opens up the genuine possibility of pursuing other purposes—of choosing or doing otherwise in accordance with, rather than against, our wills (voluntarily) and reasons (rationally). To be genuinely self-forming agents (creators of our­selves)—to have free will—there must at times in life be obstacles and hindrances in our wills of this sort that we must overcome. Self-formation is not a gift, but a struggle.

Recall Kant’s image of the bird which is upset by the resistance of the air and the wind to its flight and so imagines that it could fly better if there were no air at all to resist it. But of course, as Kant notes, the bird would not fly better if there were no wind, but would cease to fly at all. So it is with indeterminism and free will. It provides resistance to our choi­ces, but a resistance that is necessary if we are to be self-forming agents. And being such self-forming agents is deeply connected to our sense of self, as I have argued.

I conclude with one final objection. Even if one granted that persons, such as the businesswoman, could make genuine self-forming choices that were undetermined, isn’t their something to the charge that such choices would be arbitrary? A residual arbitrariness seems to remain in all self-forming choices since the agents cannot in principle have sufficient or overriding prior reasons for making one option and one set of reasons prevail over the other. This is again one of those truths that tell us something important about free will. In this case it tells us that every undetermined self-forming free choice is the initiation of what I have elsewhere called a “value experiment” whose justification lies in the future and is not fully explained by past reasons. In making such a choice we say, in effect, “Let’s try this. It is not required by my past, but it is consistent with my past and is one branching pathway my life can now meaningfully take. Whether it is the right choice, only time will tell. Meanwhile, I am willing to take responsibility for it one way or the other.”1 Huxley 1989. Skinner 1962.

3 Kane, Free Will and Values (SUNY Press,1985), The Significance of Free Will (1996), “Responsibility, Luck and Chance: Reflections on Free Will and Indeterminism” Journal of Philosophy 96 (1999): 217-40, Kane (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Oxford University Press, 2002), A Contemporary Introcution to Free Will (Oxford University Press, 2005).

5 We have to make further assumptions about the case to rule out some of these conditions. For example, we have to assume, no one is holding a gun to the woman’s head forcing her to go back, or that she is not paralyzed, etc. But the point is that none of these conditions is inconsistent with the case of the woman as we have imagined it. If these other conditions are satisfied, as they can be, and the businesswoman’s case is in other respects as I have des­cribed it, we have an SFA. I offer the complete argument for this in The Significance of Free Will, chapter 8, among other works listed in note 3

7 Oxford Univer­sity Press, 2007.

1 But that is an important part of the modern story.

And it is this part of the modern story I want to address today. Can the ancient quest for wisdom be retrieved or reconceived in a manner that would allow us to res­pond to modern doc­trines of subjectivism and relativism about values that seem to be implied by the modern proble­matic? I want to suggest a new way this can be done. Though I’ll talk boldly, much of what I say is provisional as befits such weighty matters. As St. Augus­tine said many cen­tu­ries ago, the way of seeking wisdom is a manifestation of humility; and that will be a key theme in what fol­lows.

2. Pluralism and Uncertainty: the “Modern Fall”

The question at issue has more than merely theoretical signifi­cance. There is consi­de­rable doubt and confusion in the modern world about the existence of objective values and ethi­cal standards and about how we can find them if they do exist. And many people point to these doubts and confusions about values as the source of misun­der­standing and strife in the “clash of civilizations” seen today throughout the world, often erupting into violence, as well as in the polarization of our politics and international relations.

Modern doubts about the possibility of objective values have their source I be­lieve in two inescapable conditions of the modern world—pluralism and uncertainty. By pluralism, I mean just the fact that we live in a world of many conflicting voices, philoso­phies, religions, ways of life and points of view on fundamental matters, including ethics and values. Such a pluralism is made more insistent by two pervasive features of the modern world—the crea­tion of a global order through information technology that puts people in daily con­tact with views and values different from their own; and the spread of democratic societies that allow and en­courage differences of point of view within individual societies.

The familiar image of a “global village” may be the wrong one for this new order of things since most villages of the past shared a common heritage of traditions and beliefs. A better analogy would be a global city in which different cultures and ways of life mingle and are forced to confront one another; or perhaps even a new Tower of Babel. In Nietzsche’s image, seeing a thousand different tribes beating to a thousand different drums, we become the first people in history who do not believe we own the truth.3 Lewis describes the journey of a man named Ransom to the planet Venus—called “Pere­landra” in the novel and described as an Eden-like world of islands floating on water and covered by exotic foliage. There Ransom meets a solitary human-like creature, a woman who tells him that her god, Maleldil, has commanded her to search for a man of her own kind who also inhabits this planet. Ransom’s conversations with the woman are inter­rupted one day when he says that the floating islands on which they stand are making him queasy. He suggests they move over permanently to the “fixed land”—the land that does not float on water.

The woman is horrified by this suggestion, telling him that the one thing her god Maleldil has forbidden her or anyone to do is to stay overnight on the fixed land. Ransom’s response then confuses the woman. For he says that in his own world, on Earth, everyone lives on the fixed land, night and day, and no one thinks it is wrong. In her confusion, the woman wonders whether there are different meanings of good and evil, right and wrong, and whether God may command one group of people to live one way and others to live a different way. In her confusion, she is tempted to go with Ransom over to the fixed land: If others can do it, she reasons, why can’t she?

The thoughtful reader suddenly realizes that these two figures are reenacting the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, with Ransom playing the serpent, tempting this new Eve in her alien Eden to do the one thing her God has commanded her not to do. In the original Biblical story, the command is to not eat of the fruit of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Eve eats of this fruit and Adam also; and by succumbing to temptation they come to “know good and evil” and are banished from the Garden. But in Perelandra, Lewis is suggesting a different, dis­tinctively modern, version of the knowledge of good and evil. The new awareness that tempts and confuses us is the awareness that there may be more than one right way of living and that our way may not be the right one or the only right one. Like the woman on Perelandra, we may then say: If others can do it, why can’t we?

Thus ends moral innocence—the secure feeling that the rights and wrongs learned in child­hood are the only correct or true ones, unchallengeable and unambiguous. By knowing other ways of life and entertaining doubts about our own, we learn something about the com­plexi­ties of good and evil. But the learning comes with a bitter taste. Having bitten into the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in this distinctively modern fashion, we live “after the modern Fall,” so to speak. We have lost our moral innocence.

But pluralism itself would not be a problem is it weren’t for another crucial feature of modernity—an uncertainty about how to show which of the competing views is right. This un­certainty, it turns out is based on a deeper philosophical problem. There is a troubling circularity involved in trying to prove the universal or absolute rightness of one’s point of view from one’s own point of view in a pluralistic world. To show that one point of view is right and other com­peting views wrong, you must present evidence. But the evidence will be gathered and interpre­ted from your own point of view. If the dispute is about good and evil, some of the evidence will include beliefs about good and evil that are not going to be accep­ted by those who have funda­mental disagreements with your values in the first place. Your values must be defended by appealing to other more fundamental values that are also yours. Perhaps you will refer to the Bible or the Qu’ran or the Bhagavad-Gita or some other sacred text, which is not going to be accepted by those who have basic disagreements with your point of view in the first place. (Even those who share your sacred text may not interpret it as you do).

There is a troubling circularity in such debates, the circularity of defending your own point of view from your own point of view, of defending your values or beliefs in terms of other values or beliefs you hold, but others may not. The problem arises because we are finite creatures who always see the world from some particular perspective, limited by culture and history. How can we climb out of our historically and culturally limited points of view to find an objective standpoint about values above all the competing points of view?

This problem—the result of pluralism and uncertainty—haunts the modern intellec­tual landscape. It gives rise to trendy new theories such as postmodernism and poststructuralism and everywhere challenges beliefs about objective intellectual, cultural and moral standards. You can see, for example, how this problem threatens both of the goals of ancient wisdom: (1) understan­ding objec­tive reality—the way things really are rather than the way they appear to us—and (2) understan­ding objective value or what is objectively worth striving for in the nature of things.

3. Openness

Now one natural reaction to the challenge of pluralism and uncertainty that is com­mon in modern democratic and pluralist societies is the following. People think to themselves that since it seems impossible to demonstrate that their view is right from their point of view (because of the circularity problem mentioned) and since everyone else is in the same condi­tion, the only proper stance to take in the presence of pluralism and uncertainty is an attitude of “openness” or tole­rance toward other points of view. Judgments about good and evil, right and wrong, one might reason, are personal matters that should be made for oneself and not imposed on others against their will. Is it not true that much of the evil of human history has come from taking the opposite attitude, assuming one has the correct view and the right to impose it on others? “Evil takes root,” as the late Russian poet Joseph Brodsky once said, “when one man begins to think he is superior to another.”5 “Make judgments only for yourself, not for others,” this openness of indifference says, “and don’t suppose your view is superior in truth or rightness to those of others.” But such an attitude, Bloom argues, is a short step away from supposing that no view is any better (or truer) than any other and that no one can take a universal point of view and say what is right or true for everyone.

Now relativism of this sort is a serious challenge in a pluralist world, as we’ve seen. But it is a mistake to think that relativistic conclusions of the kinds Bloom has in mind are the inevi­table conse­quence of an attitude of openness toward other points of view. I now want to suggest that such an attitude of openness, when it is conceived as part of a search for wis­dom, need not lead to relati­vism or indifference, as one might fear. Rather openness, when it is so conceived as part of a search for wisdom, actually points the way to belief in some objective and universal va­lues.7 are not merely abstract theories that can be tested or experimented with in a laboratory. Systems of value are guides to ways of life that can only be ultimately tested by being lived. So openness to systems of value other than one’s own (in the interests of finding out what is true about the good from every point of view) would mean respecting other ways of life; it would mean letting them be lived or experimented with or tested in a way that is appropriate for values, in action or practice.

4. The Moral Sphere and its Limits

But, once the matter is put this way, we can see why people have shied away from this line of thought. Does it mean respecting or tolerating every way of life, allowing it to be lived or experimented with, which would mean tolerating (among others) the ways of life of the Hitlers, Stalins, ruthless dictators, killers and other evildoers of the world? Then openness would amount to relativism and indifference, as critics such as Bloom contend.

But the fact is that such openness does not imply respect for every point of view or way of life whatever. To the contrary, it turns out that you cannot open your mind to every point of view in the sense of respecting every way of life. There are situations in life (many of them in fact) in which it is impossible to respect every point of view. So, while the initial attitude in the search for wisdom is to “open your mind to all other points of view in order to find the objective truth about value,” the truth you find when you do so is not that “you should open your mind to all points of view.” You cannot. Openness of mind is an initial attitude in the search for truth. But “openness of indifference” or relativism is not the final attitude.

Why not? Consider a situation in which you are walking down the street and see a man being assaulted and robbed in an alley. Suppose you are the first to see the event and the out­come will depend on what you do. If you stop to assist the victim by intervening or yelling for assistance, the assailant may see that he has been found out and will run. But if you just “walk on by,” as wary city dwellers sometimes do, the man will be beaten and robbed. In such situations, where the outcome depends on your action, you cannot respect both the points of view of the assailant and the victim, where respecting their points of view means “acting in such a way that their desires and purposes are allowed to be realized without hindrance or interference.” If you do something to prevent the assault (by intervening or calling for help) you will not be respecting the point of view of the assailant. You will be acting in such a way that his desires and purposes are interfered with and not fulfilled. If you “walk on by” when you could have done something to help, you will be acting in such a way that the desires and purposes of the man being assaulted will be interfered with and not fulfilled.9

5. Two Ways of Searching

Needless to say, there are many complications and questions about this line of rea­soning that will have to be addressed. But lest we miss the forest for the trees, let us stand back for a moment and consider what it all means. It means that the attitude of openness to all ways of life, when put to the test in practice, does not lead to relativism or indif­ference, as its critics fear, but actually leads to the conclusion that some ways of life and forms of action are to be treated as less worthy of respect than others by anyone who searches for the wisdom about the objective good in this way.

Or, putting the result in another way, it entails that a relativism of indifference—under­stood as the belief that every way of life is as good as any other—like openness itself, is an im­pos­sible ideal when put into practice in an imperfect world. And what was said of the assailant in the alley and of the pirates, can be said of all the Hitlers, Stalins, murderers, rapists, oppressors, exploiters and other evildoers of the world. We do not have to say their ways of life are just as good as everyone else’s. By their actions, they place themselves “outside the moral sphere” so to speak, and make their ways of life less worthy of respect by making it impossible for others to respect them, while respecting everyone else as well.

Here is yet another way of looking at the matter. In a pluralist world of conflicting points of view, there are two distinct ways of searching for objective or universal values (those that hold for all persons and all points of view). An older way was to position oneself in one point of view—one’s own—and argue that it was right and every other view wrong. This is the way peo­ple have thought about establishing the objective truth and right for centuries. But in a world of pluralism and uncertainty, this way founders over our finiteness and the circularity problem discussed earlier. One could, of course, deny or ignore this problem—asserting the absolute or certain truth of one’s own point of view from one’s own point of view on authoritative or other grounds, as many do. In the face of the terrifying prospects of pluralism and uncertainty, one may engage in a kind of “fundamentalist retrenchment,” reasserting the old ways in the old way. I think we can understand this reaction and see why it has become an increasingly common means of coping with moral uncertainty in the modern age—even as we fear the dogmatism and violence that may result from it.

But our question is a different one: What options are available to persons who, moved by the reflections about pluralism and uncertainty, can no longer go back to the older way of esta­blishing absolute values—merely defending the universal truth of their own points of view from their own points of view? Such persons can either abandon the search for objective or universal values altogether or they can try something new. They may succumb to subjectivism, relativism or skepticism, or look for a new way of searching.

When the problem is put this way, the preceding line of reasoning may be viewed as suggesting an alternative way of searching: the way of openness. Instead of trying to prove your own point of view absolutely right from your own point of view, try this: Open your mind initially to all points of view in order to find out what is true from every point of view, not just from your own. Try this as a thought experiment and see what happens. When you do so, you will find that some ways of life are more worthy of being treated with respect than others in the sense required by a persistent striving for this openness under adverse condi­tions, and some less worthy; and this will be true for anyone who undertakes the experiment.

In this way, we lift from ourselves the burden of proving our view is absolutely right and every other wrong, and place the burden of proof on everyone equally to prove their ways of life right or wrong by their actions. If they break the moral sphere, they make their ways of life less worthy of respect by others by making it impossible for others to treat them and everyone else with respect.

6. Restoring and Preserving the Sphere: Violence and Pacifism

What then is to be said about our own way of life, if we proceed in this way? It is to be treated no differently than the others. If we break the moral sphere, then we make our view less worthy of respect by others. So we are not entirely off the hook as a result of having distributed the burden of proof equally to everyone. We still have the burden of proving ourselves right or wrong; and that is burden enough. For the “proof” (whether of our way of life or other ways) is not carried out merely by arguing in the abstract that one view is better than others, but in practical engagements with others, by how we live and act. (Theoria and praxis thus come together here in the search for wisdom about the good, as the ancients assumed, but not exactly in the way they assumed.)

Do we then have to wait until some persons actually break the moral sphere and show themselves less worthy before intervening—which would be disastrous in many instances? The answer is no, for the reason that, as noted, respect for the ideal of a moral sphere in which all persons are respected requires not only restoring that sphere when it has broken down, but also preserving it from breakdown in the future. The point is that it is by this persistent striving to maintain the ideal of openness to the degree possible in adverse circum­stances—in the interests of limiting narrowness of vision—that we go about seeking the objective truth about value. And we would not be respecting the ideal to the degree possible if we failed to take reasonable steps to forestall future breakdowns of the moral sphere when possible. For that sphere is the sphere in which the ideal can be followed.

Thus, we punish criminals not only to stop them here and now (restore the sphere), but to deter them and others from committing similar acts in the future (to preserve the sphere). We do this because it is as close as we can come to preserving the ideal of respect for all when we must violate it for some, no matter what we do. Similarly, in the interests of preserving the moral sphere in the future, we can act preemptively if we see it is about to be broken. Those who read Hitler’s Mein Kampf could see that his life-plan was a moral sphere-breaker and they had every right to intervene by force if they saw he was about to carry it out. Unfortunate­ly, we know that too many of Hitler’s contemporaries could not believe he meant what he said.

Consider pacifism. It may be the correct view within the moral sphere, but it fails when the moral sphere breaks down. Sometimes force is required to restore and preserve the very ideal that normally prohibits force. This is consistent with the idea that one should try to maintain the ideal to the degree possible when it cannot be followed to the letter, no matter what one does. When the pirates raided and pillaged Philadelphia, every point of view could not be respected. It was not a question of whether some view would not be respected, but whose view it would be (the pirates or their victims). The point is revealed by a joke about pacifism common among members of the Society of Friends or Quakers with whom I taught for a time in the Philadelphia area. It was about the Quaker farmer who found a thief in his chicken coup. Aiming his shotgun at the thief, he exclaimed, “I do not want to hurt you, sir, but I advise you to run, because you are standing where I am about to shoot.”

The tensions of an extreme pacifist view are evident in tales of this kind. There are some situations in which every point of view (including your own) cannot be respected, no matter what you do. Yet even as we might question the universal truth of pacifism, it is worth recognizing that pacifism might be regarded in another sense as the “ideal” view on the above account. For pacifism is the correct view within the moral sphere and the moral sphere is the ideal sphere. It is just that the world is not always perfect or ideal (indeed it rarely is); and so we find ourselves constantly trying to realize the ideal to the degree possible in an imperfect world. In such a non-ideal world, the ideal view is not always the right view.

7. Exceptions to Moral Rules: Lying

The above line of reasoning shows something else of importance for ethical rea­soning. It shows why there are commonly recognized exceptions to many traditional moral commandments —thou shall not kill, lie, steal, cheat (exceptions, for example, such as self-defense and just wars in the case of rules against killing or engaging in violence.) The existence of exceptions to tradi­tional moral commandments is a controversial matter, to be sure; and it is also a persistent source of confusion about objective ethical values, along with relativism. For, a common thought is that if moral rules or commandments have exceptions, they cannot be universal or absolutely binding. Another fear is that once any exceptions are admitted, it will become problematic where the line on allowable exceptions is to be drawn. Disagreements will proliferate and the question of the woman on Perelandra will return: “If others can do it, why can’t I?”

So it is interesting to note that exceptions to moral rules can be dealt with by the rea­soning of this paper in the same way that relativism of indifference was dealt with. In the case of relativism of indifference, we start with openness or respect for all ways of life as a thought experiment and find that, at the point of moral sphere breakdown, one cannot be open to, or respect, all ways of life. But it is at just this point—where the moral sphere breaks down and relativism fails —that exceptions to moral rules also arise. Vio­lence and force are not usually allowed (inside the moral sphere), but when the moral sphere breaks down (as in the case of assaults or warfare), violence or force may be needed to res­tore it. In such cases, we continue to serve the ideal of respect for all by striving to restore conditions in which it can be followed once again by all.

Or consider another traditional moral rule or commandment: Thou shall not lie. Lying usually means not treating others with respect and this accounts for its usually being wrong within the moral sphere. But what happens if the moral sphere breaks down? An example of a kind familiar in theoretical discussions of ethics is the following. In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo, arrive at your door and ask whether you are hiding a Jewish family on your farm. You are in fact hiding a family; and the family is not likely to be found unless you reveal its presence. But should you lie? Here is a case where most people feel an exception to the rule against lying is in order. But if so, why? Note that the case is struc­turally similar to the assault in the alley. The moral sphere has broken down because you (the farm owner) cannot treat all persons involved with respect for their purposes and desires in the situation. If you tell the truth to the Gestapo, you are choosing to favor their desires and purposes over the Jewish family’s. If you lie, you respect the Jewish family’s desires and purposes, but not the Gestapo’s.

Once again, you cannot have it both ways in the situation. The only question is who will be treated as less worthy of respect, not whether someone will be. And, as in the assailant and pirate examples, those who should be treated as less worthy are those whose plans of action have made it impossible for others to treat everyone in the situation with respect. That would be the Gestapo in the present case, whose plan it is to harm the Jewish family, as the assailant and pirates planned to harm their victims. If the Gestapo are the ones whose purposes and plans are to be treated with less respect, then you should lie. It is not that lying would merely be permis­sible in this case. It would be the right thing to do, just as the right thing to do would be to stop the assailant or the pirates. The same ideal that tells you lying is usually wrong—inside the moral sphere—tells you that it can be the right thing to do when the moral sphere breaks down and you are no longer “inside” it. So it would be also, if someone forced you to play a game of cards threatening to kill your children if you lost. Cheating is usually wrong (inside the moral sphere) but in this case, where the moral sphere has badly broken down, it would be right to cheat in any way you could.

One can thus see how this line of reasoning, if successful, would support many tradi­tional ethical commandments endorsed by major world religions (thou shall not kill, lie, steal, cheat) and commonly recognized exceptions to these commandments as well. Moreover, the ex­ceptions would not be arbitrary or ad hoc; they would follow naturally from the line of reasoning that leads to the rules themselves once one understands the limitations imposed by imperfect conditions.

In addition, the above line of reasoning would lead to another traditional and widely acknowledged moral principle, the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”) in one of its traditional readings—respecting the ways of life of others as you would want your own way of life to be respected11 This was, of course, Mill’s classic defense of freedom of speech. But the above argument gives it a new twist: By being initially open to all points of view, the “ethical” truth emerges that all points of view and ways of life cannot be equally respected.


Endnotes

2 Nietzsche 1966, section nos. 5, 749, 1011. I am indebted to Kathleen Higgins for these references.

4 I believe I am fairly crediting this quote to Brodsky since I recorded it from his writings some years ago; but I have not since been able to retrace its origins.

6 Bloom himself admits (ibid., 41) that there is another more positive attitude of openness we can take (being open to learning the truth) that does not necessarily lead to indifference. But he does not pursue this suggestion in the way that I do in this paper.

8 This preliminary account of “respecting another’s point of view” needs to be refined in various ways to meet various objections, something I do in later chapters of my book.

10 The most comprehensive historical and systematic book-length discussion of the Golden Rule is Jeffrey Wattles The Golden Rule,1996. Wattles confirms that the interpretation stated here is a widely accepted interpretation historically (though it is surely not the only one). The addition of “up to the point of moral sphere breakdown” is of course my own and is not a part of traditional formulations. A modern version of the Golden Rule is presented in Amitai Etzioni, The New Golden Rule, 1996.

1 This is remarkable insofar the latter is heir to a discipline that for some time has taken itself to be above such things (and continues to do so in some quarters). Apparently the oracle must be proven right by the other char­acter in the most recent version of the drama: rather than the gods leaving through the back door, as hy­pothe­sized by mainstream secularization theory in the twentieth century, it is the theory that has had its day. Perhaps this is not so surprising. After all, the gods are used to witness their expul­sion from the cosmos while going about their busi­ness. To the prophet Jeremiah is attributed the observation

that nations in general do not desert their gods, although they are ‘false’; while Israel, who has the ‘true God’, deserts him (E. Voegelin CW 5, p. 311; cf. Jer 2:11).

For various reasons, religion stirs up philosophical disquietude again. One reason is the reappearence of the distinction between the “true God” and the “false gods” in public space where it was thought to have become obsolete, at least in Western Europe. In what terms are we to address this situation and its problems?

In scholarly discussions religion and religious beliefs are often associated with a philosophical frame of mind styled “metaphysics” (cf. Westphal, 2007). The meaning of the term has remained as elusive as has the term “religion”. Still, or perhaps just for this reason, one can observe two reactions at work.

In the first case, the equation of religion and theology with meta­physics appears to be reinvented over and over in order to be symboli­cally expulsed from rational discourse, lock, stock and barrel. The result is a kind of dogmatic anti-dogma­tism. Thus, one can often sense a quite intolerant espousal of (their under­stand­ing of) tolerance precisely among philosophers and scholars who extol the neutrality of reason and “sci­entific” objectivity as our highest ideal. There is logic in this, since (monotheis­tic) religion and its alleged intellectual twin metaphysics are here construed as perhaps the most obnoxious of all sources of social exclusion and intolerance.

The second reaction emphati­cally decouples religious faith from metaphysics and all theoretical investigation of the structures of reality. Religion is then reinvented by concerned intellectuals to fit an “ethical” slot from which it is ex­pected to deploy its benign effects on us. In contrast to the first approach, reminiscent of positivism and scientism, religion is here given a more “pietistic” or Kantian interpretation. Wrested free from the grasp of theoretical speculation, religious faith can perhaps become a liber­ating force again in the struggle against misery and oppression of all sorts.

Sometimes, underneath the hard and fast boundary separating these two approaches, there may be gleaned a common motivating concern. It is the fear of potential con­flict between “open” liberal societies and “closed” tra­di­tional religious or phi­loso­phi­cal world-views. But the invocation of con­flict, whether real or perceived, comes at a cost. It implies that large swaths of the earth’s population are required to exert self-censor­ship proportional to Western expectations of a universal develop­ment to­wards secular life-orientations. But then, of course, it may be that “we secularized Westerners are the freaks, considering the long history of humankind, when we take our secular ethos as self-evident truth of the matter.” (Desmond, 2008, pp. 5-6)

Problems are further ex­acerbated if no convincing accounts are forthcoming that help us separate the blessings of secular society from the secularist ideologies and world-views dominating our intellectual and political past. One may think that if religious life-orientations are to be kept a private affair, a matter of “the heart”, so should non-religious ones like “ex­clusive humanism” (Taylor, 2007) or secular liberalism. Surely it will no longer do to assert that public institutions have a merely instrumental character serving a limited, imma­nent purpose to which no one can rationally object. Such views (choose to) over­look the fact that societal structures are not like stones and sticks, or contracts, that can be wielded to this or that end. Rather, societal structures are held in place by a certain “spirit”, i.e. a net of tacit self-inter­pretations con­joining actors into solidary communal or institutional wholes. What, indeed, is the instrumental or contractual view of society if not a domi­nant modern self-under­standing or “social imaginary” (ibid., pp. 171-176) predetermining its theoretical justification in a specific direction?

Here it is well to remember that the distinction between public and private was to solve the problem of fractured Christendom. Only later was it expanded to make possible the co-existence of all sorts of comprehensive world-views, philosophical doctrines and life-orientations. The historical-particular character of this distinction should make one weary to regard it as some sort of panacea. To make matters worse,

the solution no longer grips the conviction and imagination of Western humanity as a whole. And when that happens, when liberalism becomes no more than one among other communities of conviction, its hegemony becomes oppressive. For those Christians and Jews who all these years strove for wholeness in their existence, it always was oppressive (Wolterstorff, 1995, p. 210).

Arguably, the point applies to members of other traditions, too. Take the case of Islam: is it really self-evident that what Muslims most object to are other religious beliefs rather than the exclusion of religion per se from Euro­pean consciousness? The only way to more just and less homogenizing arrangements seems to lead from liberal to plural. But what kind of pluralism is viable or even desirable? And what kind of societal order is necessary to make it possible?

In this paper I offer a discussion of two philosophical thinkers whose work promises to bring illumination to our situation. The thought of Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) and Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) is of special interest for the robust yet supple frameworks they provide allowing us to track the issues here mentioned to their roots. Moreover, the deep affinity between the two renders their points of disagreement all the more instructive.

Dooyeweerd and Voegelin: two “forgotten” philosophical master-thinkers

Thinking in the shadow of the modern separation of faith and reason

Both Dooyeweerd and Voegelin were thinkers of transcendence. Perhaps the spirit animating their work can be captured in a line taken from the latter’s Auto­bio­graphi­cal Reflections. Here we read that “man does not exist out of himself but out of the divine ground of all reality” (CW 34, p. 76)3 who is also a Christian believer (Voegelin), and a Christian who is also a philosopher and law-theorist (Dooyeweerd). Both thinkers hold these identities together in rather different ways; not only in comparison with each other but also within their own lives. The resulting tensions can be studied in their work. Indeed, both authors struggled with them to their last. Perhaps the main difference between the two is in their sense of vocation hinted at in the above charac­terization. The pairing suggests that it is the first element taking the lead. Beyond this momentous difference of existential outlook, it is worth mentioning that both thinkers felt committed to engage in philosophy rather than theology. For different reasons, theology as they knew it could not provide the necessary coherence or point of reference to their ambitious projects. And no amount of dialectics would help them sorting out the claims of faith and reason along the conventional boundaries between science (Wissenschaft), philosophy and theology. An experience of periagogē or “conversion” in the quest for greater theoretical insight drove their discontent with the way modern reason had been carved up.

Says Voegelin: “I found out that a political theory, especially when it was to be appli­ca­ble to the analysis of ideologies, had to be based on Classic and Chris­tian phi­losophy.” (CW 34, p. 66) Setting him on a similar yet different track, Dooyeweerd’s moment of reori­entation is worth quoting at length:

Originally I was strongly under the influence first of the Neo-Kantian philosophy, later on of Husserl’s phenomenology. The great turning point in my thought was marked by the discovery of the religious root of thought itself, whereby a new light was shed on the failure of all attempts, including my own, to bring about an inner synthesis between the Christian faith and a philosophy which is rooted in faith in the self-sufficiency of human reason. I came to understand the central significance of the “heart”, repeatedly proclaimed by Holy Scripture to be the religious root of human existence. On the basis of this central Christian point of view I saw the need of a revolution in philosophical thought of a very radical character (NC I, v; italics added).

Unsurprisingly, much of the difficulty in the reception of Dooyeweerd and Voegelin arises from the inability or unwillingness to meet these thinkers on their own terms.5 Let us examine the thought of H. Dooyeweerd first. Dooyeweerd’s discovery of the biblical idea of the “heart” as the center of human per­sonality must be seen against the back­ground of a scientific and philosophical culture in which the concrete human self had been divided up into a complex of empiri­cally ab­stracted functions (e.g. biotic, psy­chic, cogni­tive, etc.) held together by some “higher” philosophical abstraction. Hark­ing back to ancient philosophical thought, modern rationalist philosophers had thoroughly identified the human person with what for Dooyeweerd is just one aspect of our experience of the world and ourselves, i.e. the rational-analytical (hypostasized into a substance called “rational soul”). Other aspects were integral to the human self just insofar as reason could form an idea of their unity within itself. Dooyweerd quotes the Kantian-idealist philosopher and educationist Th. Litt: “It [i.e. the concrete ego] has the standpoint of possible self-assurance absolutely beyond itself…” Where? In the Archimedean point of “pure thought” (reines Denken) (cf. Litt, 1933, p. 162. NC I, 78).

True enough, “critical” reason and the “pure” reflection of theoretical thought on its own activ­ity could no longer find expression in the ancient symbolism of microcosm reflecting the divine order of the macrocosm. After the breakdown of the attempted medieval-scholastic synthesis of faith and reason in a double-layered vision binding together the supernatural and natural realms, reason had taken the role of nature’s “lawgiver” upon itself (Kant, 1976 [1783], p. 79, II. § 36). As a consequence, the human person was both subject to the order of reality as well as its origin. This raises a quandary: how can “the law” both bind and arise from autonomous persons without dividing them up? (Skillen, 2003, p. 6) It’s as if a feudal sovereign, originator of law and hence a legibus solutus (released from the laws), had to share the same flesh and bones with his subject.

The basic antinomy of this conception is, following Dooyeweerd, at the root of a century-long dialectical proc­ess. What first appears as emancipation and progress results in spiritual crisis shaking the early twentieth century down to the foundations. In the meantime, however, just about every aspect of our human experience of world and self besides the rational-analytical had been hypostasized and elevated into the position of origin (archē) or “lawgiver”. After rationalism came various irrationalisms followed by new rationalisms. But no single “-ism” – Enlightenment rational­ism absolutizing the analytical aspect, Romantic idealism (psychic and aesthetic aspects), historicism (historical aspect), vitalism (biotic aspect), etc. – has been able to support the divine status of its candidate without provoking some other to assault the Olympian throne.

I cannot pre­tend to approxi­mate the complex­ity and detail of the account given by Dooyeweerd of this process in the first two volumes of his magisterial New Critique of Theoretical Thought. To cut a long story short, the original antinomy at the heart of modernity is even­tually accepted as “given” in some form or other and buried in the very founda­tions of reality from where it exerts its influence on the unsuspecting immanence-philosopher. The consequences are truly deplorable. While philosophical thought officially turns around “autono­mous” reason as its declared center and measure, each school and tradition in fact presup­poses a different meaning of this notion depending on a specific “faith” guiding its overarching view of reality. Philosophical discourse is obstructed by its inability to even ascertain the differ­ent meanings of “autonomous reason” without violating the requirement of autono­mous reason to follow but its own lights (NC I, 36). Having compromised or abrogated the integral idea of creation from its center, modern philosophical thought is tossed to and fro between the deification and utter defamation of human reason.

After his “turning point” Dooyeweerd thus sought to ground his thinking in a bibli­cally inspired idea of creation, according to which everything that exists or claims legitimate validity is subject to God’s laws (nature) and norms (culture, history).7

As we will see, this orientation puts Dooyeweerd in close proximity to Voegelin. But it also has irritated critics for the seeming non-realism and expressivism driving it (e.g. Plantinga, 1958; Wolterstorff, n.d.). Can the rejection of mind-inde­pendent substances and laws in creation really preserve the truth that the world is not of our own making? How can God be the creative and sustaining origin of all that is when there is no independ­ent reality to be sustained? Why is this not some other version of the meaning-idealism that Dooyeweerd wants to overcome along with all philosophical reductionisms isolating one aspect of creation and turning it into its inner core and essential being?

For Dooyeweerd creation is indeed oriented towards human subjectivity. This does not imply anthropocentrism or the sense that creation is there just for us. It rather means that the faithful valuation of creation as having an integral, non-arbitrary meaning is a human attitude and task approximating a creational norm of stewardship. Humans are indeed the measure (not masters!) of all things, and God is the measure of humans. In the words of philosopher W. Desmond: “we are sources of origination that instantiate the original power of the ultimate source” (2008, p. 26). If this source is thought thinking itself, so are we. If it is pure will, we too are will (to power). After the ascent to the bright origin of reason as consummate self-determination comes the descent into the dark origin of a blind, insatiable striving (ibid., p. 25). Can we find a way out? Is there a transcendence other than self-transcendence caught in the antinomy of law-giving and the blind submission to fate?

Yes, says Dooyeweerd. It is operative in “the heart” of human beings where the diversity-in-coherence of created reality is (re-)oriented to the unity of the divine ground manifested in Jesus Christ through the Spirit. All of creation participates in the transcendent unity or “root-community” (NC III, 656) of humankind whose “journey into God” gives direction to the unfolding of reality in the first place. Humankind has a god-given mediatorial role in the transfiguring of creation and the shaping of history towards eschatological consummation. Nothing less seems implied in the dogma of the council of Chalcedon (451) stating the indivisible and unconfused union of the divine and human nature in Christ, the “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15). While this vision has taken the risk of ideological deformation to hitherto un­imaginable levels, and its perversion goes in fact a long way to explain the apocalyptic furor of nationalist and totalitarian aberrations, it is at the heart of Chris­tian thinking from the earliest centuries onwards. Dooyeweerd was well aware of this. On the other hand, as a philosopher in the Dutch Reformed tradition he took pains to extricate himself from what he perceived to be the Hellenic and thus insufficiently Christian char­ac­ter of patristic thought. Still, or precisely for this reason, his basic philosophical orientation can hardly be grasped apart from the theo-cosmological background provided by Byzantine “orthodox” thinkers among whom Maximus the Confessor (ca. 580-662) has achieved towering status (Dalmais, 1952; Thunberg, 1995).

The theory of modal aspects

As for his great predecessor, anthropology and cosmology are for Dooyeweerd inextricably intertwined. His theory of modal aspects, pivotal to his whole philosophical project, starts from the idea that all cosmic “levels” of creation are re­flected in the human person (he is well aware that the idea of man as microcosmos and the world as macroanthropos or man writ large goes back at least to pre-Socratic times; cf. NC II, 592). Humans appear to be unique among creatures insofar they participate and have “subject-functions” in all the modes or aspects of reality that consti­tute our experiential horizon. What are these aspects of reality? As R. Clouser explains (2005, p. 66 ff.), in our everyday experience of the world there figure not only innumerable different things, events and processes but also different kinds of properties and laws characterizing them. The distinction and theoretical determination of these kinds becomes important when scientists or scholars make use of their capacity for mental abstraction in order to focus, for example, on just the biotic or juridical features of a phenomenon. Dooyeweerd eventually came to distinguish a number of such aspects, from the numerical, spatial, physical, biotic, etc. to the moral and pistic (Gr. pistis, faith), the “higher” ones presupposing the “lower” ones for their existence. The life of human adults exhibits all these kinds.

To wit, other sentient beings have subject-functions9

Humans, perhaps uniquely so among creatures, aren’t qualified by any modal aspect or combination thereof. Humans actively function in all aspects and can mediate between the extremes of creation because they exceed the cosmos in direction of its divine ground.11 This is why Dooye­weerd is so adamant in the philosophical critique of human attempts at self-deification. Self-deification occurs where a created feature of hu­man experience is abstracted from its position within the tapestry of meaning and made to appear independent and a legibus solutus. It then becomes its own “law” to which eve­ry­thing else has to submit. True, “the process of theoretical disclosure of temporal reality is only possible in the cadre of the Divine world-order” (NC II, 582) and cannot thus alter the fundamental goodness of creation. Yet the wildly divergent directions this process may take depend on the ground-mo­tives by which humans let themselves be governed in their “heart”. The motive of creation in the “radical” or holistic biblical sense makes us realize that the potencies inherent in self and world can only be brought out through the simultaneous realization of modal laws. All asymmetry threatens to turn the process of reality into a zero-sum game in which some functions “develop” but at the cost of others.

Differentiation of consciousness and the search in the In-Between

Let us move on to the other interlocutor. E. Voegelin is the philosopher of “universal history” at a time when philosophical and theological disengagement from history picks up speed and becomes the norm rather than the exception. Yet at the heart of his thought is a vision of Being. “Phi­losophy”, he states, “is the love of being through love of the divine Being as the source of its order. The Logos of being is the object proper of philosophical inquiry.” (CW 14, 24) Since time immemorial, the history of humankind is a drama played out on the stage of being. In this drama, humans are not the only actors. God and humans, world and society together form what Voegelin calls the “primordial community of being” (CW 14, 39). Being is here envisaged in a social metaphor. This is a crucial point, as it is for Dooye­weerd (recall his notion of “root-community”). Negatively, it implies that reality is not an assem­blage of things, forces, processes, social structures and persons dispersed across external time. It is not exhausted by the facts investigated and manipulated by the physical sciences. Nor is it the external world ontically enlarged by thinking substances, perhaps including supernatural entities such as spirits and God(s). And reality is not a world of meaning spreading over the brute facts from an inner realm of consciousness, value or feeling either. Being comprises both “outer” and “inner”, “higher” and “lower” and yet is not ex­hausted by them. Voegelin’s philosophy of being can be read as a persistent attempt to show why the epistemic picture of a fundamental split between inner and outer is part of a stillborn yet persistent myth culminating in the ideological aberrations of modernity. For always the picture betrays the aspiration of one “part” of reality (empire, nation-state, technology, etc.) and its corresponding type of consciousness to the status of a self-regu­lating, autonomous whole. However,

[i]f we let any part of reality drop out of sight by refusing it public status in the world of symbols, it will lead a sort of underground life and make its reality felt in intense moods of alienation, or even in outright mental disturbances (CW 12, 93).

What is it that has been dropped out of sight? That humankind participates in the community of being with which it is “consubstantial”. For Voegelin, existence is participation in being. Speaking of ancient cosmological cultures:

Whatever man may be, he knows himself a part of being. The great stream of being, in which he flows while it flows through him, is the same stream to which belongs everything else that drifts into his perspective. The community of being is experienced with such intimacy that the consubstantiality of the partners will override the sepa­rateness of substances (CW 14, p. 41).

Drawing on wide-ranging historical analyses Voegelin concludes that the “earliest” documents and artefacts left by human civilization unfailingly testify to this sense of participation. This is no philosophical dogmatism hastily promulgated by a lay-historian in the absence of the “latest” evidence available to the specialist. For what counts as a historical docu­ment or artefact is essentially related to what a human being is; and we are not completely other than our predecessors. Thus the hermeneutical circle of (self-)inquiry is firmly restored and empiricist conceptions of history defused. Although ever keeping abreast of the newest scholarship available to him, Voegelin never got trapped by a one-sided he­gemony of the facts over interpretation. In effect, his approach nicely dovetails with Dooyeweerd’s re­jection of mere “external” states-of-affairs that are seemingly independent of one’s (self-)under­standing guided by the light of transcendence and the irruption of divine order.

Yet what is true in the oldest strata of experience is true now: the meaning of the “drama” of being is only partially known, as is therefore our own human nature. Existence is basically a divine mystery in the unfolding. The “essential” unknowability of being and of our own role in it does not, however, preclude the partial symbolic illumination of the mystery in which we move and have our being. We ask: what is a symbol? About anything that assists us in finding direction becomes a symbol. The technical term for such illumination through symbols is differentiation: “[T]he history of symbolization is a progression from compact to dif­ferentiated experiences and symbols.” (CW 14, p. 43) Differentiation is not the one-sided result of a theoretical act culminating in a philosophical system. Nor does it simply proceed with the imposition of new boundaries in the wake of political or economic conquest. Both “pragmatic” reality and “paradigmatic” symbolization interact until a relatively stable and well-defined nucleus of symbols encapsulating the prevalent order is achieved (cf. CW 14, p. 61). But then the order of today is the disorder of tomorrow. Voegelin, more than Dooyeweerd, makes extensive use of the im­agery of flux and movement to denote the “stream” of reality and its quest for his­tori­cal order.

For Voegelin, too, humankind rises beyond the cosmos and is thus engaged in the permanent “struggle to advance the symboliza­tion of existential consciousness” (CW 18, p. 107). Of course, not every individual walking the earth shows awareness of participating in the community of being. And in a sense, all human beings are just individual “of sorts”, not fully awake to their role as partners in the community of being. But, one may ask, what about the great representatives of humanity? Are they not possessed of an individuality evoking sincere admiration and even devotion? Certainly, says Voegelin, yet in the moment a Moses, a Gau­tama Buddha, a Zoroaster, a Socrates, a Jesus Christ, a Mohammed become what they “truly” are, they become living symbols for those who are partially illuminated by and in the “event” (cf. CW 12, pp. 192-93). No doubt, this “event” is no ordinary event in external time. Nor does it simply happen in the eye of the duped beholders. For Voegelin, it rather takes place in the metaxy or In-be­tween of the human-divine encounter.

Plato was so acutely aware of man’s consubstantiality but nonidentity with divine reality that he developed a special symbol for man’s experience of intermediate status between the human and the divine: he called the consciousness of this status the metaxy, the In-Between of existence (CW 12, p. 233).

Here we come across a Platonic term (“symbol”) that is of central importance to Voegelin’s philosophy. The event by which human consciousness becomes (more) luminous to itself takes place in the In-between of existence. This term simply denotes the community of being in which the significance of each “partner” begins to manifest itself. The movement of differentiating consciousness, which has always already begun, is character­ized by increasing or decreasing “ten­sion” between the various spheres of being – divine, cosmic, societal and individual. There is nothing nega­tive or conflictual about this, for it is just to say that the (experience of) cosmos “unfolds” along the axis of immanence-transcendence. Why? There is no prior reason for this to be so; we have reached the bedrock of Voegelinian theorizing, the fides guiding his thought. As pointed out above, Voegelin’s philosophy does not offer a master-narrative (historiogene­sis) purporting to justify some privileged course of historical-civilizational development from the vantage-point of “autonomous” reason. The goal of history is not known to us but remains a mystery. Human symbols of order both illuminate and preserve this mystery, unless they are distorted. If they fail us in one or the other respect, if they fall victim to “literalist degradation” (CW 17, 204), the door is open to all sorts of attempts to translate transcendent-divine order into man-made immanent order. Alas “the possibility of making immanentist nonsense of symbols that express the experience of divine presence in the order of man’s existence in society and history is always present.” (ibid.) The vision of a single “humanity under God” is indeed submerged by the forces of “egophanic revolt” manifest in ideological constructions of history or imperial conquests riding roughshod over historical-political boundaries.

Is there trace in Voegelin’s “metaxological” philosophy of the idea of a divine world-order? In Dooyeweerd’s thought God’s law for creation is the original “boun­dary-line of the temporal order of the creation, which sets an insurmountable limit between the absolute Being of God and His creation, whose meaning is absolutely dependent on Him.” (NC II, 590) The Neo-Calvinist thinker, unlike some of his colleagues and students, does not go as far as to turn this “absolute boundary between God and His creation” (NC I, 507) into a “third” sphere neither divine nor created but partici­pating in both and mediating between them (Morbey, 1979, p. 3). Perhaps we can understand Dooyeweerd to say that the Law or divine order of creation both separates and joins creation and its Creator. While it is not external to and hiding the transcendent origin, it is not identical with it either. In more theological language, it is the revelation of the Father’s creative will embodied in the Son and mediated to us through the Spirit. Thus creation remains distinct from and “prior” to the fall into sin or nothingness. These two “motives” of biblical faith and thought should neither be identified nor taken apart. Dooye­weerd is of course not the first to see this crucial distinction blurred in the Gnostic, Hermetic and Neo-Platonic traditions. For whenever the gradations in created being betoken degrees of separateness from the divine source the radical goodness of creation is obfuscated. Here is not the place to examine this kind of vision or loss of vision. Suffice it to point to the principle that everything is either God or created (pancreationism)13 The account starts with the Ancient Near East comprising the various “cosmological” civilizations and their corresponding mythical symbolizations of order. In ancient imperial contexts the experience of consubstantiality is most conspicuous. “Compactness of experience” dominates human existence.15

Historical consciousness, symbolized by the figure of Moses, is slow in the emergence in external time. It has many stratifications and may appear much later in the chronological past than one could expect by making the biblical narrative one’s only guide to “historical” reality (CW 14, p. 176). Moreover, the experience of “a people under God”, pressing as it were toward the experience of “one humanity under God”, is never fully there at any given point in time. In other words, the experience has eschatological drive. The troubling possibility thus arises that the true character of God, Moses and Israel become “luminous” within historical consciousness only when hope of a worldly kingdom under God has vanished and moved beyond all territorial ambitions. Voegelin takes this possibility to be the actual telos of Israel beyond all historical goals. It provides the hermeneutical key for his reading of the Old Testament. For him, Israel’s “exodus from itself” (CW 14, p. 567) has indeed been the condition for it to become the vanguard and representative of a new humanity under God.

What emerged from the alembic of the Desert was not a people like the Egyptians or Babylonians, the Canaanites or Philistines, the Hittites or Arameans, but a new genus of society, set off from the civilizations of the age by the divine choice. It was a people that moved on the historical scene while living toward a goal beyond history. This mode of existence was ambiguous and fraught with dangers of derailment, for all too easily the goal beyond history could merge with goals to be attained within history. The derailment, indeed, did occur right in the beginning. It found its expression in the symbol of Canaan, the land of promise. The symbol was ambiguous because, in the spiritual sense, Israel had reached the promised land when it had wandered from the cosmological Sheol to the mamlakah, the royal domain, the Kingdom of God (CW 14, p. 154).

“Canaan is as far away today as it has always been in the past” (CW 14, p. 171).

To conclude this section: “God’s revelation to Moses” is an ongoing event in the metaxy. Even in secular Western culture it continues to make a series of temporally and spatially scattered “history-like” narratives to be of God, Moses and a people called Israel. For Voegelin, the modern quest for the “real” historical Moses is no less parasitic on this event than pre-modern typological, doctrinal or hagiographic accounts. If the event should cease, so will the reconstructed referents “behind” these narratives degenerate into mere “objective” data. For a history-generating symbol to remain alive it needs to be taken up in the life of the mind or nous. Not reducible to its “external” referents, it does not yetbecome a focal point of orientation by dragging our aesthetic or religious imagina­tion either (cf. CW 18, 52). The implications of a symbol may take centuries to unfold, but much less is required for our imagination to get dulled by “vivid” images of “great personalities”. Of course, “imagina­tive vision and noesis are not independent, rival or alternative sources of knowledge and truth but interacting forces in the historical process of an imaginative vision that has noetic structure.” (CW 28, 227).

In the event of the opsis [sc. vision] and its language we reach the limit at which language does not merely refer to reality but is reality emerging as the luminous ‘word’ from the the divine-human encounter. The emerging word is the truth of the reality from which it emerges; it is what we call a ‘symbol’ in the pregnant sense (CW 28, 231).

Religious antithesis vs. differentiation of noetic consciousness

Of ground-motives and motivating centers of experience

I have reserved discussion of Voegelin’s account of the other, Hellenic “spiritual outburst” for the last section in order to directly confront it with Dooyeweerd’s idea of a religious ground-motive. For it is here that real tension between the two thinkers surfaces – with no guarantee of release. Why? Voegelin has no doubts that the two “motivating centers of experience”, Israel and Hellas, ultimately belong to one and the same human consciousness. The divine ground is one, and so is the In-between of the divine-human encounter. The spheres of influence of the two spiritual centers cannot be separated out along the later theological division of reason and revelation. Why, they need not even be made complementary along the same distinction as in the dogma of grace perfecting nature. The symbols discovered in the process of philosophizing always had a double status, human and divine. Voegelin makes no bones about his view of (Western) Christian theology, Catholic or Reformed:

The double status of the symbols which express the movement in the metaxy has been badly obscured in Western history by Christian theologians who have split the two components of symbolic truth, monopolizing, under the title of “revelation”, for Christian symbols the divine component, while assigning, under title of “natural reason”, to philosophical symbols the human component (CW 12, 187).

Strikingly enough, Dooyeweerd, the Christian Reformed philosopher, fully concurs with this assessment. But just because the two spiritual centers, Athens and Jerusalem, are of a religious or ultimate nature they each claim the totality of the In-between or horizon of human experience. The Dutch thinker thus pulls his philosophical weight to demonstrate the ultimate incompatibility and religious anti-thesis between the ancient Greek and biblical ground-motives. It’s either-or. Philosophy has to be reformed as everything else in life. True reformation cannot restrict itself to matters of church and theology while putting the stamp “adiaphoron” (inessential for salvation) on everything else. Theoretical reason which is in the grip of a spirit other than the spirit of the true God cannot be the ancillae theologiae (handmaid of theology). Nor can it be used as mere “instrument” helping to conceptually clarify faith in God and direct church-matters (cf. CW 6, 384). Philosophy is religiously charged from the very beginning (much of the first volume of his New Critique is precisely dedicated to substantiate this claim with regard to Western philosophy; see also Dooyeweerd (2004)). Attempts of religious synthesis inevitably lead to theoretical antinomies conjuring up the nemesis of creation order which does not allow for the deification of anything within creation.

Back to Voegelin: if the “break” with cosmological civilization leads to God’s search for man in Israel, it takes the reverse direction in Hellas. It is here that man is revealed to himself as the being who is in search of the divine ground of being.

The knowledge that human being is not grounded on itself implies the question of its origin, and in this question human being is revealed as a becoming toward what is, albeit not as a becoming in the time of existing things, but a becoming from within the ground of being (CW 6, p. 173).

Philosophy is the name of the mind’s (nous) activity in and through which this search comes to reflective self-awareness in thinkers like Plato and Aristotle.17, or the paradoxical “we” invoked by present-day liberal political philosophers (“we are all individuals”). In our human quest for historical order strata of experience in need of re-symbolization constitute an enduring and recalcitrant reality. In principle, there is no end to this quest.

In Hellas, the “motivating center of experi­ence” that is at the heart of philosophy puts the polis and its traditional gods into second position. Rather than denying them all right of existence, Plato, with the help of many predecessors, makes the gods dependent upon an origin that transcends them. Presumably, the gods don’t accept their demotion just like that (this was before the invention of the golden parachute). Now, Dooyeweerd’s characterization of the Hellenic ground-motive picks up on exactly this point: since Greek thinkers lacked the revelation of the transcendent origin of creation, and thus the idea of (non-demiurgic) creation, they were in principle unable to reconcile the divinized forces of nature (matter) and culture (form) represented by the telluric and Olympian gods.

Stripping the number of gods down to one doesn’t help here. The divine origin of all “coming to be” has still to be envisaged in terms of “being” or in terms of “becoming”, with nothing to mediate between them. Thus, the divine ground lacks radical unity. It is simultaneously torn into the direction of the form-motive expressing itself in the “Olympian religion, the religion of form, measure and harmony, which rested essentially upon the deification of the cultural aspect of Greek society” and into the direction of the matter-motive driving the cults of “mother earth with its ever flowing Stream of life and its threatening anangkē [sc. fate]”(NC I, 62). Heaven and earth are in constant strife. The battle between the Delphic law-giver Apollo and the Dionysian forces of formless becoming and perishing ever goes on and results in a dialectical tension never to be resolved. To the contrary, antinomies get ever more intractable over time. For each pole disguises itself by taking on characteristics of the other, but only to subvert it again.

At the outset, under the primacy of the matter-motive, the law of nature has the juridical sense of justice (dikē): every indivi­dual form must be dissolved into “matter” according to a stan­dard of proportionality. This dikē is conceived of as an Anangkē, an unescapable fate to which the form-things are subjected. Under the primacy of the form-motive of the later culture-religion the concept of the law in its general sense of order assumes a teleological sense in respect to all “natural subjects”. This conception is introduced by Socrates and elaborated in a meta­physical way by Plato and Aristotle. It was opposed to the extreme Sophistic view of the purely conventional character of the nomos in human society and the complete lack of laws in “nature” as a stream of flowing becoming (NC I, 112).

For Dooyeweerd there is nothing in Hellenic philosophy and its later developments warranting our hope to find there an integral, non-dialectical “starting-point” for theoretical and scientific thought. The religious dialectic plays itself out unawares even where denied and shows no respect for the subjective claims to the contrary of a thinker who is in its grips. No amount of re-symbolization or invocation of paradox will help to transform the religious (absolute) tension into a humanly manageable theoretical (relative) dialectic. Therefore, the Hellenic “motivating center of experience” cannot be synthesized with the biblical ground-motive. The symbolisms of God in search of man and man in search of “God” cannot and will not converge but will rather cancel each other out. One should not entrust one’s mind and life to an “apostate” motive producing but counterfeit doubles of the origin(al) even while professing faith in the one God. That comes at a cost.

At this point we see the debate move to the next stage. For now it has become unclear what the disagreement between the two thinkers is. Do they hit the same nail after all? Voegelin uses other words to make us alert of what he perceives to be the upsurge of spiritual or psychopathological “derailment”, long in the preparation throughout Western philosophy. Philosophy, or what passes for it, can do real harm. Dooyeweerd, for his part, does not deny that out of religiously misguided attempts at philosophical synthesis good may come nonetheless. This is because the divine order of creation impinges on all rational and historical developments, irrespective of human motivation. Indeed, God’s law for the cosmos and human life not only makes those attempts, but even distorting positivizations of it possible to begin with. Nevertheless,

[g]enuine Christian philosophy requires a radical rejection of the supra-theoretical pre-suppositions and “axioms” of imma­nence-philosophy in all its forms. It has to seek its own philoso­phic paths… It cannot permit itself to accept within its own cadre of thought problems of immanence-philosophy which originate from the dialectic ground-motives of the latter (I, 114).

It is easy to misread Dooyeweerd if one isolates passages like this. Of course he doesn’t mean to break off philosophical and scientific conversation with unbelievers or those of “unregenerate heart”. And Reformational Philosophy as a whole has not fallen prey to self-insulating tendencies over the years of its existence. For philosophy and intellectual inquiry is the testing and contesting of ideas and theories across boundaries political, national, confessional etc. Theoretical activity, where it deserves that name, is governed by its own integral laws. As all modal laws governing human activity they are ultimately rooted in the divine order of creation, no matter how much the latter may be repressed in and through human consciousness. But we should not commit ourselves to the fiction of a neutral space of autonomous reason, especially if “we” happen to be a cultural and philosophical majority. We should not assume our perspective to be the default position beyond all perspectives. In times witnessing to renewed religious violence and secular fears (or is it the other way around?) it is important to realize that for Dooyeweerd the “anti-thesis” holding between different ground-motives is no socio-psycho­logical category focussing on the communicative attitudes of the participants in some dialogue. Good will, openness and tolerance is required of them all. There is no going back on these virtues, however one might account for their origin and pedigree.

Rightly understood, the anti-thesis is not even the sort of “logical” boundary dividing doctrines, positions or propositional claims to truth (cf. McFarland, 2003, p. 181). It is of a “radical” nature, meaning that it cuts across the self or I of each human being, believers and “other-believers” alike.19 How is it possible to go beyond a Socratic notion of knowledge as noetic recollection of divine truth available to everyone who is willing to plunge into the depths of his soul? Kierkegaard gives a peculiar answer. To become a Christian is to throw oneself upon the “absolute paradox” that a relationship to the eternal God be built on historical knowledge of an individual called Jesus Christ (the thought-experiment can be modified appropriately by inserting some other contingent event in time). Should it be the case, then, that we who have been born after the fact possess the one, all-decisive advantage? Yet Christianity insists on the relation between the eternal and that birth in “external” time. It sets up the skandalon of particularity just to make sure that faith in God is not conflated with a speculative system of thought.

The “absolute paradox” has the baffling consequence that the sought for difference between Socratic recollection and Christian faith appears to elude all thought. It cannot be stated within a doctrine, perhaps tempting its followers to claim superior knowledge or insight based on “revelation” rather than mere human insight (this is a point close to the heart of Voegelin who felt the repeated desire to chastise “the theologians” in this regard). But whence the unthinkability? The answer is not hard to come by. The difference between the idea of the eternal God entering time and the object of faith proper, the actuality of God entering time, cannot be thought. Unless, of course, one more idea arises in one’s mind to mediate between the two. But this only serves to push the problem one step farther back. The difference between thought and actual existence cannot be determined by thought. Not even that this should be so is in its powers of determination. Indeed, thought has no “outside” eluding its own capacity of self-transcendence. “The only an sich [in itself] that cannot be thought is existing, with which thinking has nothing at all to do” (Kierkegaard, 1992, p. 328). “Existence” as an individual and faith in the “absolute paradox” thus form a perfect match. This is Kierkegaard’s (in)famous answer to Kant’s “solution” of giving both theoretical reason and practical faith their due by drawing a seemingly neat geometrical boundary between the two.

Back to Socrates: who is to say that he couldn’t have framed the idea of the divine ground of being entering time? But even so he couldn’t have become a Christian. Not if that step implies taking up a relation to some “historical” actuality coming to happen after his death. The upshot for our discussion is this. No matter how much exegesis goes into Dooyeweerd’s efforts of showing that Plato did not in fact have the idea of a God who is so transcendent as to be able to freely enter time rather than being included in the cosmos in virtue of his everlasting-tempo­ral nature, it will never be sufficient to show that the prospective Christian is not some sort of inventive Platonist. But then, we must conclude, divine revelation in the biblical sense is not like a message that could be delivered whether its intended recipient receives it or not. It is not like an exterior force working upon our souls while we happen to be absent. Revelation and response belong to one and the same experience. There is no content of revelation that one could happen to stumble upon unless it were there to be recollected, even for a Socrates or Plato, in whatever terms are available. Revelation so understood does not take us outside the Socratic approach. Voegelin puts it thus: “the fact of revelation is its content” (CW 5, 151; 18, 87), and “the experience has no content but itself” (CW 28, 185). Symbols and beliefs resulting from the experience are well needed to identify its linguistic content, but they neither define nor exhaust it.

Where does that leave us with the question of the religious anti-thesis? Dooyeweerd’s intention to differentiate between God’s Word-revelation eliciting our response and the actual response itself is manifest enough. His transcendental argument(s) at the beginning of the New Critique precisely aim to show the necessary directedness of all theoretical thought to some ground-mo­tive, whether biblical or apostate. At the same time, the radical self-insufficiency of theoretical thought had to be brought home to make sure that finite and distorted theoretical thought would not intrude on the sacred precincts of divine revelation directed at the “supra-temporal heart”. But why dress up the whole line of thought as a transcendental argument reminiscent of Kant? Kierkegaard equally wanted to drive the anti-thesis and “absolute boundary” between God and man home to an age dabbling in the “pure thought” of speculation. Eternity and the temporal were apparently collapsed into each other without remainder. Just for this reason the Danish thinker adopted the literary device of pseudonymity and other means of “indirect communication” through which to state what cannot be stated directly. Surely, the act of abstracting from one’s old, hubristic self in trying to think God as the one whose Word of revelation reduces one to mere passivity and listening is one act too many for a passive recipient. Over time, the act becomes a habit making one truly “absent-minded” (Kierkegaard, 1992, p. 121). One becomes blind to acts of theological ventriloquism in which the voice of Scripture, dogmatics, tradition, religious experience or whatnot appears with the blinding authority of a counterfeit Word of God. And that is the precise opposite of what Dooyeweerd wanted to achieve with his notion of an “absolute boundary”. We seemingly cannot get rid so easily of the In-between of the divine-human encounter explored by Voegelin.

Attempts at consigning the Word of God to sheer univocity untainted by our equivocal responses have run rife in modern theology. In the heat of opposing (in)human attempts at self-deification, it has sometimes been neglected that God alone knows the difference between himself and the bearers of his image. Yet God’s agapeic Word creates the conditions for finite human existence by drawing humanity to himself. Reorienting our lives and minds to the “original” plan and order of creation eo ipso means to be elevated above our own nature. Not that we thereby cease to be creatures. The point only goes to show that there is no purely immanent knowledge or fact of the matter constituting who we are. So we cannot recover the creational bounds set to our theoretical or noetic powers without being lifted above them in the process. Human attempts to shield God’s Word-revelation or divine Law from our hubristic grasp and theoretical mastery can hardly accomplish their goal without risking to further aggravate what they seek to avoid. A pious exercise at transcendental-philosophical self-limitation of our theoretical powers may amount to sneaking into a God’s eye point of view – “from behind” as it were – as well as to spotting and averting the temptation to do so. The divine origin is in excess of human powers of conceptual determination and theoretical self-transcen­dence, no doubt. But so it is in excess of these powers even when put to the service of a quasi-Kantian transcendental argument to overcome all types of Kantian transcendental arguments. Rather than the “spirit of geometry” we here need the “spirit of finesse” to guide our powers of spiritual-theoretical discrimination. Lacking that, put somewhat starkly, it may look as if Christ’s injunction to take up one’s cross (Mat 10:38) really means that we should nail ourselves to the cross even before taking it up.

Of course I am not suggesting that Dooyeweerd must be read in this way. Indeed, I am inclined to think that he was pushing ahead in the same direction that I am trying to follow here. Still, from hindsight, one may wish that his thought was more alive to Kierkegaard’s meditations on the “passion to think what cannot be thought” (without necessarily having to go with him all the way).

[T]he demonstrative force of our critique has been negative in character, so far as it, taken strictly, can only demonstrate, that the starting-point of theoretical thought cannot be found in that thought itself, but must be supra-theoretical in character. That it is to be found only in the central religious sphere of conscious­ness, is no longer to be proved theoretically, because this insight belongs to self-knowledge, which as such transcends the theoretical attitude of thought. We can only say, that this self-knowledge is necessary in a critical sense, because without it the true character of the chosen starting-point remains hidden from us. And this would be fatal for the critical insight into its true significance in respect to the inner direction of philosophic thought (NC I, 56-57).

The point towards which Dooyeweerd’s transcendental critique lures the mind strangely hovers between blinding recognition of its immediate dependence on the “true” origin and critical acknowledgement of the prior “choice” to follow some supra-theoretical starting-point, some of them leading into an apostate direction (cf. NC I, 57). How is the point of contact between intuitive self-knowl­edge of the “heart” and theoretical reasoning to be thought? How can one speak of a prior choice without presupposing the actual reorientation of the heart? For whom is the insight into the character of the chosen starting-point a critical necessity?21 This sort of criticism, however, proceeds on the axis of intentional consciousness and propositional belief. It concerns the what of the divine ground in relation to the world and human society. Voegelin does detect an insufficient differentiation in the Hellenic ideas of cosmos and God in this respect. Only pneumatic revelation cuts the umbilical cord in direction of a world-transcendent God who is able to freely identify with his people in a history-constituting covenant. The movement towards greater differentiation between the partners of the human-divine encounter is also the movement towards their more intimate relation. For Voegelin, the movement reaches its eschatological climax where the people has become a “suffering servant”, hanging on the cross and deserted by his followers with their deluded messianic expectations of a this-worldly polity of ultimate peace and prosperity. From progress in pragmatic history the way leads to the “pilgrim’s progress toward fulfilment through grace in death” (CW 15, 70); although the shift does not make the question of humankind’s advance in the truth of immanent order obsolete.

But there is also another axis to be reckoned with. It is that of the movement of our questioning selves towards the divine Beyond. In this regard Voegelin finds Athens pressing ahead of Jerusalem. True, “the noetic experience of the Beyond and its Parousia in the soul of man” (CW 28, 232) cannot be identified and understood without the symbols it engenders (for Voegelin the ascertaining of the author’s meaning must come before our use of his text within the context of our own quests). But the experience is not exhausted by the symbols. Symbols such as Plato’s philosophical myth of a world-soul are neither dispensable nor ultimate (and they have become victims of “literalist” deformation just as much as biblical symbols).

In the end we have to ask ourselves the question what to make of the notion of a double revelation. Voegelin supplies the original content of human experience of God, world, man and society without recourse to Jewish or Christian documents. He relies on his own philosophical vocabulary gained from close interaction with Plato and Aristotle. This way of proceeding for Dooyeweerd is not an available option. True faith is response to the Word of God and thus inseparably bound to the Scriptures, even if not exhausted by them. We can only speak of the presence of God’s Spirit in pagan culture and thought as far as analogies are warranted by pagan and biblical witnesses themselves. If there was “another” source of revelation there would be notice in the texts, or at least some scripturally warranted way of interpreting the Bible to make sense of such a notion.

On the face of it, Dooyeweerd’s approach has one “critical” advantage: it does not tear the experience of faith apart from symbol. One may say that if we let the Word-revelation come unstuck from its native, pre-theoretical symbolization, as Voegelin seems to do, we run danger of conflating ourselves with the divine ground. Rather than being “under the law” and judged by it, we judge ourselves. Dooyeweerd insists that religious faith in the biblical sense doesn’t lack anything without Hellenic or modern theoria. Ad firmandum cor sincerum sola fides sufficit.23 Faith illuminates and guides the life of the mind precisely by helping us to avoid its propensity for theoretical hybris.

Voegelin, however, would not endorse the identification of theoretical and noetic reason. Heir to quite another tradition of Christian and classical philosophy, nous is for him openness to the divine ground as much as our powers of logical-ana­lytical distinction. The two form an inseparable unity. So much indeed that we can’t even frame a non-distorted explanation of why they have come apart! Immanence-philosophy in Dooyeweerd’s sense is for him as much a spiritual as an intellectual-theoretical derailment. The malaise cannot be understood and much less over­come by (negative) transcendental-theoretical self-policing paving the way for the breakthrough of (positive) divine Word-revelation in the “heart”. This rigid distinction between the human and divine sides of the human-divine encounter in the metaxy is itself the result of noetic failure or “doctrinalization”. Voegelin thus rejects the doctrine of original sin in the sense of a general lapse from God. The experience of disobedience against God expressed by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 2:11) and Paul the apostle (Rom. 1:18) is not sufficient to generally exclude a right search for the divine ground.

At bottom, the disagreement seems to turn on the idea of nous and the idea of a personal God who in his Word-revelation makes accessible his saving and judging will to us which we could not otherwise have had recourse to. In contrast to Dooyeweerd, Voegelin has no apparent use for the idea of a God who validates creational decrees and authorizes biblical symbols, although the notion of God’s participation in human suffering plays an important role in his philosophy.


 

Sources

Dooyeweerd, H. (1997). A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, 4 vols. Lewiston et al.: Mellen.

Dooyeweerd, H. (2004). Reformation and Scholasticism in Philosophy. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press.

Voegelin, E. (1990-2006). Collected Works, 34 vols. Columbia et al.: University of Missouri Press.

References

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Endnotes

2 In this paper CW always refers to Eric Voegelin’s Collected Works, NC to Herman Dooyeweerd’s New Critique of Theoretical Thought.

4 On the slow and difficult reception of Voegelin’s work in Germany see Braach (2003).

6 Hence the name Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee (Dutch Wet, law), or philosophy of the cosmonomic idea.

8 Clouser calls them active functions (2005, p. 250)

10 “The Idea of a cosmos from which immanence-philosophy starts in all its nuances, also in its medieval synthesis with Christian faith, is incompatible with the Biblical revelation concerning creation, and so is its Idea of man as a microcosm. Man, in his full selfhood, transcends the temporal “earthly” cosmos in all its aspects, and partakes in the transcendent root of this cosmos. He cannot be a self-contained and isolated microcosm, a mirror of a so-called macrocosm.” (NC II, 593)

12 Cf. Clouser (2005, p. 213 ff.)

14 Varying in length and detail, Voegelin’s discussion covers the ancient empires known as Mesopotamia (6th millennium to 6th century BC), the Achaeminid Persian empire (559-330 BC), and Egypt (dynastic period from ca. 3150 BC to 30 BC).

16 I use some linguistic indirection here because for Voegelin all endeavours to nail down the “real” Plato to this or that doctrine (of Ideas, of the ideal State, etc.) betokens a later spiritual derailment affecting not only subsequent philosophy and the ancient Christian Church but the entire Western world.

18 It has to be admitted that within the circles of Reformational Philosophy there has been considerable uncertainty and controversy over this point. For the necessary (self-)criticisms see Wolterstorff (2004, pp. 64-86).

20 Perhaps Dooyeweerd’s critique should be read in a spirit similar to that L. Wittgenstein, a great admirer of Kierkegaard, requires of the readers of his Tractatus logico-philosophicus. In paragraph 6.54 he enjoins us to treat his sentences as a ladder to be kicked away as soon as we have climbed it (Wittgenstein, 1995, p. 85). Dooyeweerd himself gives us no interpretive clues along such lines.

22 From the famous hymn Pange Lingua by Th. Aquinas: Faith alone suffices to upbuild the sincere heart.

1 An ability to describe fictive parts of what is in reality a seamless whole is a useful exercise because the act of naming allows us to better appreciate the dynamic functioning of our intrapsychic and interpersonal experience. Moreover, understanding our internal and relational “parts” suggests creative ways for dialogue to occur across boundaries of difference.

What is the practical value of “dialogue across boundaries of difference”? Difference is all around us—we each have unique fingerprints, unique DNA. We are obviously different from other men and women, and different as humans from other living and non-living entities that compose the web of life on earth some have named Gaia (Lovelock, 1979/1995). If we examine our subjective experience we find difference even within our own consciousness, different affective states, different patterns of thought and imagination in waking states, in REM sleep, in the natural (as opposed to drug induced) altered states of consciousness that figure in religious experience.3

What I will not address here is the question of whether the soul is something that has an existence before this life and after death. That raises the problem of “substance dualism” which in turn leads to questions of hierarchical dualism—soul over body, mind over body, male over female, human over creation, etc. In making distinctions between parts of our experience, I do not intend to imply rigid separations between parts, much less a hierarchy of parts. Distinctions are made here for the purposes of discernment (Kelcourse, 1998).

Attempts to make distinctions between various aspects of human experience can readily be criticized as arbitrary. For example, we routinely speak of mind and body as if they were two distinct entities. Yet as neurologist Damasio makes clear in Descartes’ Error, there can be no such thing as a mind without a body (1994). A mind wholly bereft of the body’s senses has no means of interacting with the world to form what Daniel Stern calls RIGS (representations of actions that have been generalized) or structures of experience (1985). Yet we still find it useful to distinguish between afflictions that appear to have a primarily organic origin, as in congenital dispositions to depression or schizophrenia, and those that are apparently of psychological origin, as in physical symptoms that can be traced to specific traumas – insomnia following a car accident or chest pains following the loss of a loved one, for example. There is no specific boundary between body and mind in these cases, yet distinctions that allow us to consider the etiology of an illness are diagnostically useful.

If the routinely accepted division of mind and body is suspect, distinctions between self, psyche, and soul are even less verifiable in any objective sense. What I propose is that these distinctions, although ultimately arbitrary, are nonetheless useful ways of sorting out subjective phenomena that have a different ‘feel’ to the person experiencing them. The definitions we use do matter since they serve epistemic purposes. In other words, naming the subtle differences between ways of knowing can itself advance the project of internal and interpersonal dialogue, promoting broader awareness of self and other.

Before I proceed to offer my working definitions of self, psyche, and soul, it is worth noting that the distinction between ‘self’ and ‘other’ is ultimately arbitrary too. When pediatrician turned psychoanalyst Winnicott wrote that there’s “no such thing as a baby” (1960, p. 39), he was naming an experience that we have all housed in some wordless region of our being, the amodal memories of our own infancy (Stern, 1985). We enter the “primary maternal preoccupation” as parents when we find ourselves mesmerized by the hourly care of a newborn (Winnicott, 1960a/ 1965/1987, p.147). This kind of boundary blurring between self and other is also a feature of ‘being in love’, especially in its more intense, quasi-hallucinatory forms. And we find the self/other boundary crossed in religious experience as shared by individuals in small groups or worshipping communities who recognize, however fleetingly, the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). Freud describes this felt sense of spiritual unity in psychological terms: “each individual is bound by libidinal ties to the leader (Christ…) and on the other hand to the other members of the group” (1921/1989, p.35). Despite Freud’s overt rejection of religion, he displays in this passage a clear understanding of what the experience of spiritual unity in a group context affectively entails.

So what is it that makes us simultaneously separate in our skins yet mysteriously interconnected in other ways? Virginia Woolf captures this sense of interconnected lives, outward and inner dialogues in Mrs. Dalloway; one hears the cacophony of memories, the collisions of past history in present experience (1925). Woolf offers a phenomenology of consciousness that is closer to our daily lived experience than the illusions of separateness Westerners typically cultivate. The terms self, psyche, and soul have light to shed on both our individuality and our collectivity.

The development of self experience: Functional integrity and fragmentation

The word “self” I propose as a synonym of Freud’s “ego” (das Ich), our partially conscious sense of who we are. “Self” is the most familiar of the three terms in question; most adults will answer the question ‘Who am I?” in relation to their roles, relationships and a subjective sense of continuity in space and time. If one loses an awareness of this continuity does one still have a self? The film Memento graphically illustrates this question (2000).5 so in spiritual direction it is possible to cultivate a broader awareness of grace, just as in psychotherapy one cultivates a broader awareness of self and other. Jesuit spirituality talks about “consolation without prior cause” when, without consciously trying at all, we are suddenly met by grace in ways that feed our souls and affirm a sense of the goodness and wholeness of creation, including ourselves (Fogarty, 1978).

This is a believer’s understanding of soul as something that comes to us from beyond ourselves and often serves to keep our little boats of selfhood afloat in stormy seas. But the soul can also convey requests for the ultimate sacrifice of self to the greater good. James Fowler has identified this perspective as the Universalizing stage of faith development (Fowler, 1981), the self-sacrificial faith of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa. Note that putting one’s own existence at risk in service to one’s sense of the greater good is not the same as taking the lives of others through an act of terrorism. In killing innocent non-combatants the interconnectedness of souls is denied rather than being affirmed, as it is in any form of murder or warfare.

When it comes to describing the soul’s connection to God in psychodynamic terms I am drawn to the work of Moshe Halevi Spero (Religious Objects as Psychological Structures, 1992) who speaks of God both as a psychic structure and a living reality. Examples of the redemptive elements of religious experience can be found in pastoral theologian Kathleen Armistead’s book, God images in the healing process (1995). On the other hand, psychiatrist Volney Gay, in Understanding the occult (1989) sees all forms of non-ordinary experience as caused by the fragmentation of the sense of self under stress. I consider this reductive because I distinguish between non-ordinary experience that is life-affirming, contributing to a greater sense of integration and aliveness (c.f. Ulanov, 2007) and non-ordinary experience characterized by fear and distrust which takes us out of connection with self and others.

I find the four terms that William James uses to describe mystical experience helpfully descriptive of the ways the soul’s perspective is communicated to the self through the psyche: ineffability, a noetic quality, transience, and passivity (1902). In other words, dialogues with the soul tend to be difficult to communicate discursively, have, in James’ words, “a curious sense of authority for after-time,” are relatively brief and do not depend on our conscious agency or will. While these terms accurately describe aspects of religious experience in which the soul is filled with a sense of Presence, I prefer the term receptivity to passivity. Spiritual direction actively cultivates receptivity to the Holy Spirit whereas passivity can be understood as aimless inactivity. On the other hand, the Jesuit understanding of consolation without prior cause does not presuppose effort—it simply is.

The language best suited to the soul’s perspective is imaginative rather than discursive, the language of poetry, story and myth. Peter Birkhauser’s images in Light from the darkness (1991) captures aspects of the soul’s vision—a moth that appears with one leg raised, tapping on the window to claim our attention; a face divided between the right side looking out and the left side gazing in; a hunchback emerging from a manhole bearing a lantern; a green stranger at the door; a divided face beginning to heal; the artist’s tiny figure reaching out to touch divine fire (six images in Light from the darkness, pp. 7, 30, 36, 58, 78, 76).

Case histories told as stories can also illustrate the interaction of physical, emotional and spiritual healing:

A female college student craved the attention of male authority figures because she missed her father’s active attention as a child. This lack made her vulnerable to a professor who mistook her idealization of him for seduction (an alternate ending to the male fantasies in the film American Beauty). Following a rape repressed from conscious awareness, the young woman married but found herself unable to give birth. Depression following pregnancy loss led to her first experience of counseling. Counseling brought healing through self-awareness, reclaiming embodied memories into consciousness and finding the words to give them meaning. Emotional resolution of loss came through grief work, parenthood through adoption, and persistent medical efforts to overcome infertility which eventually resulted in a successful birth. Spiritual direction provided the means of grace that ultimately enabled this woman to forgive, setting her free from the original trauma. In this story the various psychological, physical and spiritual treatments explored over many years were inseparable components of healing (Kelcourse, 2003, pp. 60-71).

The sense of interconnection between psyches that also directs us to our shared life in God is expressed by contemporary poet Franz Wright who describes, in “Thanks Prayer at the Cove” (2001, 17-20), an experience of seeing subway passenger’s faces move back and forth through time so that he realizes at length that there is:  

…only one person on earthbeneath a certain depththe terror and the loveare one, like hunger, samein everyone (p.19) 

I don’t take the poet literally to mean that all persons are indistinguishable. I do take him to mean that the soul, as our umbilical chord to the life of God, also connects us to one another. To see this essential unity and understand its implications—that I harm myself when I harm another—is to embrace the soul’s eye view (Kelcourse, 2001).

Celebrating the essential unity of this life

What good does it do us to be in dialogue with the soul’s perspective if it can be so threatening to the ego? Having a strong ego is important for our daily functioning but being overly identified with the ego’s perspective ultimately serves to disconnect us from others, from the radiant core of our own being, from God. Being master of one’s own ship is not enough. Being able to set our sails to receive the winds of the Holy Spirit and set our course accordingly can bring us into harmony with all we were created to be.

Freud identified the need for a protective father figure God as a regressive return to childhood dependency, religion as the “universal neurosis” of humankind (1927). Perhaps Freud was correct in his observation but wrong in his conclusions. It is a universal human wish to be loved and cared for by someone all-loving and all-powerful. But if this wish for a loving parent is indeed a universal wish, surely that makes the wish normal, not neurotic. And what if our desire for a loving parent in heaven is not a projection of our human parents writ large, but the reverse? What if our search for someone, a parent, lover, life partner, or friend, who will love us and seek to protect us from harm is instead a projection of our prior connection to God onto our human relationships? This seems to be what Jesus is suggesting when he says “If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mathew 7:11; Luke 11:13).

From a theological perspective, we believe in the power of love because God first loved us. Cultivating the soul’s perspective, through prayer, spiritual direction, and other religious practices, can connect us powerfully to the abundant love, grace and light to which the lives of the saints attest. It also serves to overcome the separateness of our self experience, causing us to be more receptive to others and to creation itself. 1 For similar appropriations of a phenomenological perspective in psychological contexts see Medard Boss (1963/1982) and the writings of intersubjective theorists such as Atwood and Stolorow (1984).

3 Despite the current popularity of the word soul, many authors are reluctant to define this term with any precision. See for example Moore, Care of the Soul (1992) and Rollins, Soul and Psyche (1999).

5 See Kathleen Greider, Reckoning with Aggression (1997) for beneficent functions of aggression.

1

The lack of correspondence between Augustine and contemporary thinkers in this regard is not simply a matter of translation. The “inmost self”—or more literally, “interior man”—in Augustine does not resemble the typical modern concepts of the self (in which the self is constituted primarily by an accomplished set of self-developed competences and inherent powers). By contrast, Augustine’s interior homo is no stable inner reality, ready to be viewed clearly and distinctly by the purified inner vision of introspection. The “I” explored with such penetrating insight in the Confessions defies attempts at a clear introspective view: for Augustine, there simply is no clearly established, private inner space of the self, above which God stably hovers. As Cavadini explains:

The content of self-awareness for those truly self aware, is much more disturbing and mysterious, more exciting and hopeful, more treacherous and full of risk. Someone who is self-aware is not aware not aware of a reified self, but of a struggle, a brokenness, a gift, a process of healing, a resistance to healing, an emptiness, a reference that impels one not to concentrate on oneself in the end, but on that to which one’s self awareness propels one—to God.3According to Descartes and his rationalist descendents, conscious reason was to be our exclusive guide. Descartes equated thought with conscious rational processes, and rigidly divided the physical and mental realms of man’s life by way of his dualist account of human nature. This dualism strictly separated mind from body, reason from perception, and abstract concepts from the somatic passions. This scheme made no room for unconscious cognitive, affective, or motivational states; it turned man’s inner life into the stable, closed room that Augustine knew to be a fiction.

Following up on Descartes’ doubts about the possibility of certitude, along came Freud a few hundred years later to shatter the hard won Cartesian confidence in reason. Descartes’ extreme begat Freud’s opposite extreme. Following a trail blazed by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Freud claimed that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—no matter how clear, distinct, and rational they may appear on the surface—are for the most part controlled by tumultuous unconscious forces, operating relentlessly beneath the tranquil surface. Although the unconscious was inaccessible to all but the psychoanalyst, it nevertheless influenced us in radical, often disturbing ways. In contrast to Descartes’ portrait of “rational man,” operating from the clarity of consciously experienced logical reason, Freud introduced us to “psychological man,” operating from unconscious, irrational, and contradictory ideas, affects, fantasies, and wishes.5 For the next hundred years of theory and therapy—from the untamed id of the 1890s to the recovered memory debacle of the 1980s—this warning went largely unheeded. Clinical exercises in unearthing unconscious material often amounted to just what he worried about—exercises in whimsical tumbling.

The Unconscious: Contemporary Neurobiological Considerations

To some degree, more recent studies in neurobiology have begun to remedy this. At first glance, the unconscious does not seem like a likely object of study for the biological sciences. Unlike serotonin receptors, dopamine, cortisol, or the amygdala, the “unconscious” appears free-floating, unmoored from anything measurable, and therefore, a potential excuse for the most fantastic assertions and interpretations. But recent research has begun to uncover what appear to be neurobiological underpinnings of unconscious cognitive and affective processes. Studies examining brain-damaged patients distinguish faculties of explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) memory. From studies of blindsight and neglect in other neurologically impaired patients, we find evidence for the distinction between explicit and implicit (unconscious) perception. Studies of Korsakoff syndrome patients suggest that there can be unconscious learning of knowledge and behavior, acquired without conscious awareness. While the details of these studies lie outside the scope of this paper, I will briefly discuss one set of contemporary scientific findings which demonstrate that some unconscious mental processes are inherently relational.

Contemporary cognitive science reveals that much is occurring unconsciously, yet measurably, in ordinary face to face interpersonal encounters. The human face is a remarkable canvas of self-presentation7 The mirror neuron system and other recent findings from cognitive science reveal unconscious mental processes to be inherently relational: the mind is dependent upon other persons for its full functioning and development. No man’s unconscious mind is an island, sufficient unto itself.

These studies, many of them remarkable for their scientific rigor, address James’ concern that the unconscious may turn what might become a science into a pseudo-scientific enterprise. Their findings support the concept of the unconscious, while grounding it in empirical evidence instead of armchair speculation. As psychiatrists gain experimentally-based knowledge of unconscious mental processes, they are less prone to whimsical tumbling in the clinical setting. The clinician is prevented from spinning off into unwarranted speculation through a clear understanding of what sort of mental events do, and do not, occur unconsciously.

Comparing Freud’s view of the unconscious to the portrait emerging from recent neurobiological studies, it seems that “unconscious” should function less as a noun—as in the Freudian concept of the unconscious as a place or realm within our mental structure or topography—and more as an adjective or adverb that qualifies some of our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and motivations as occurring outside of awareness. The term is descriptive rather than explanatory. (Incidentally, this is how the word “unconscious” functioned not only in the psychological writings of William James, but also in the novels of his equally renowned brother, Henry.) Modern psychiatry has begun to dispense with the Freudian unconscious, confining it to the dustbin of unproved (indeed, unfalsifiable) psychological concepts. But unlike the behaviorists, who threw out the mental baby with the bathwater, we need not jettison all references to the unconscious.

The contemporary understanding of the unconscious turns out to be less Freudian, and more—of all things—Aristotelian. The peripatetic philosopher identified and distinguished various mental faculties: the intellect (reason), the will (the rational appetite), the passions (what we call emotions), and the appetites (analogous to the Freudian drives, absent the death instinct).9

If the unconscious allows us to accomplish work of its own accord, making possible such blessed moments, we would do well not to ignore it. After its promiscuous psychoanalytic beginnings and subsequent exile courtesy of behaviorism, the unconscious has returned. The tools of contemporary neurobiology and experimental psychology give us a chastened view of its true features: we now see that unconscious mental life is learned, habitual, adaptive, intrinsically and irreducibly relational, and in the last analysis, essential to human health and flourishing.

Unconscious Moral Development and Religious Conversion

Some practical therapeutic consequences result from our contemporary view of the unconscious. While the legitimate aim of psychotherapy is often to make unconscious processes conscious (as Freud taught), the therapeutic goal may also legitimately run in the opposite direction: sometimes therapy aims to make conscious processes more unconscious. For example, the beginning stages of cognitive therapy involve bringing automatic negative thoughts into awareness, in order to subject them to more deliberate and rational conscious control. Once this is achieved, however, the ultimate goal is that more realistic thoughts and behaviors eventually become less deliberate and more automatic—that is, more unconscious.

Aristotle spoke of a similar phenomenon in the context of acquiring good (virtuous) habits and ridding ourselves of bad (vicious) habits. When perfected, the virtues become, in his well-worn phrase, “second nature”. What has become second nature is largely unconscious and automatic. A sign of moral development, when a person has acquired a high degree of virtue, is that an otherwise difficult moral act is performed with ease—one could say, the good act is accomplished almost unconsciously.

In addition to the gradual and progressive acquisition of virtues, unconscious cognitive and volitional processes seem to be at work in the period of life preceding sudden and dramatic changes of thought and behavior, such as those characteristically seen in religious conversions. William James devotes two chapters to the phenomenon of conversion in his Varieties of Religious Experience. While some conversions occur slowly and gradually, others seem to burst forth with a dramatic suddenness, which nevertheless can produce deep and lasting changes in a person’s thought, feeling, and action. “To say that a man is ‘converted’ means, in these [psychological] terms, that religious ideas, previously peripheral in his consciousness, now take a central place, and that religious aims form the habitual center of his energy,” James Explains.11 He sees no necessary contradiction between psychology, which would speak of these forces in terms of subconscious incubation operating on the natural level, and theology, which would speak of these forces in terms of grace operating on the supernatural level. For James, the possibility was entirely open that supernatural grace could operate on the human person precisely by means of assisting natural unconscious processes. In the following passage he offers a suggestive, potentially reconciling solution, while (in his characteristic fashion) carefully refraining from passing judgment on questions theological:

But just as our primary wide-awake consciousness throws open our senses to the touch of things material, so it is logically conceivable that if there be higher spiritual agencies that can directly touch us, the psychological condition of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region which along should yield access to them. The hubbub of the waking life might close a door [to supernatural grace] which in the dreamily Subliminal might remain ajar or open.13

The psychoanalyst, if sufficiently skilled in his craft, is placed in the position of omniscience, if not in actual knowledge, at least in terms of his potential knowledge of the patient. The desire on the part of patients to be privy to such omniscient self-knowledge was evident in the large sums of money and tremendous investment of time that many spent lying on the analyst’s couch and free-associating their brains out. Such patients often sought a formulation (perhaps in simple mechanistic terms) of why they act as they do, of why they feel or think as they do. Gnosticism’s promises of secret, hidden, salvific knowledge granted to the select few has tempted modern people no less than those in the early centuries of Christianity.

But, if we understand the unconscious rightly, we see that human beings—contra Freud—are by nature never fully analyzable. We humans are beguiling in our intractable mysteriousness: the psyche is always outstripping attempts at facile formulation, and our unconscious mental life forever recedes from our grasp. We can discover (as Augustine did) suggestive signposts, tantalizing clues, and sometimes real self-discoveries; but we will never fully formulate, in Gnostic fashion, the secret of the self, no matter how much unconscious material we bring to conscious awareness. There always remains a mysterious core—a personal center—whose depths are never fully plumbed.

Just as the psychiatrist can never discover all that is contained within the patient, so the patient himself can never express all that he is. This is, in fact, a sign of his creaturehood—of his lack of complete (Godlike) self-possession. Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, in his infinite self-possession, could eternally and fully contemplate his own depths and perfections. According to Trinitarian theology, God the Father not only completely knows himself, but also in this knowing expresses all that he is in his Word, his Son. But he can do this precisely because he is God—because his essence is identical with his existence and operations. The human person’s expressions and self-explorations are, by contrast, like our nature itself, always limited and incomplete. If, with God’s assistance, we do come to deeper self-knowledge that transcends our natural capacities, we do so through “sighs to deep for words”—with groans that gesture beyond what can be expressed.

Psychiatrist Karl Jaspers was keenly aware of the limited knowledge gleaned from the psychiatrist’s limited perspective. “The object of psychiatry is man,” he wrote. “When we know him, we know something about him, rather than himself. Any total knowledge of man will prove to be a delusion brought about by raising one point of view to the status of an only one, one method to the status of a universal method.” He summarized these limits with the lapidary observation, “Like every person, every patient is unfathomable.”15 In his own way, Freud recognized this need for free self-expression; but his peculiar method of psychoanalysis, where the analyst sat behind the patient, attempting to reveal nothing of himself (not even his facial expressions) and acting as an impersonal and anonymous blank screen, showed that Freud did not fully grasp the nature of a personal encounter between the healer and sufferer.

As persons (Greek, prosopon—a theatrical mask from which one is seen and through which one sees another) we come to ourselves only in the context of a face to face, intimate encounter with another person. Our desire to move beyond our isolated self in relationship with others constitutes an indispensible path of self-knowledge. Philosopher W. Norris Clarke, in his perceptive essay, Person and Being, argues that the person is not only self-possessive, but also tends toward self-transcendence: the person is by nature self-manifesting, self-communicative and relational. Furthermore, the person can only reach his proper finality and fulfillment by way of his receptivity to other persons, by being in community with them.

Our self-consciousness begins in ignorance—we start out in the dark, so to speak—and are only awakened to self-knowledge from without, by means of another human person with whom we enter into a mutual relationship of love and dependence. The other person calls us into a personal, “I – thou” relationship. Absent this relationship—whose prototype is the mother – infant pair—there is no growth in self-knowledge. Clark complements his philosophical and phenomenological analysis of relational personhood with insights drawn from Trinitarian theology: “Only when we express ourselves to others—including God, of course, who is infinitely self-expressive in his Word, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—can we come to know our own selves fully.”17 Our self-awareness, no matter how skilled and refined our introspective or contemplative methods may be, always remains only a partial light within us, surrounded by shadow that shades off into an (at present) impenetrable darkness.

All this suggests that our journey of self-discovery, a journey initially inward, if traced far enough, always leads back to a journey outward, toward other persons and eventually toward a personal God. “Go back into yourself,” Augustine writes, “the truth dwells in the inner man (interior homo); and if you discover that your nature is mutable, transcend yourself also,”19 The Augustinian insight here can be summarized by saying that in the domain of self-knowledge, and in the domain of religious knowledge, love and self-opening enable us to understand what we would never grasp otherwise.21

Frankl’s reference to an “unconscious God” should not be confused with Jung’s unconscious religious archetypes. Jung identifies (and thus reduces) God to that which is housed in the collective unconscious of mankind. God and the unconscious are, in the last analysis, identical for Jung. Frankl’s unconscious God, by contrast, is at once immanent, transcendent, and profoundly personal. One could say thatFrankl’s characterization of God is not far from Augustine’s in this respect. God indwells within each of us; if we acknowledge his presence, we will see that our life has not just meaning, but ultimate meaning. On the other hand, Frankl warns that turning away from God is the ultimate source of all man’s ills:“Once the angel in us is repressed, he turns into a demon.”23

Frankl, and in his own way, Augustine, suggest that the process of religious repression is quite the opposite of that described by Freud: if we repress our implicit knowledge of God, with whom we are meant to be in relation, the repression always remains incomplete and leaves us all the more restless and internally fragmented. We become, to borrow a phrase from the late novelist Walker Percy, both Christ-forgetting and Christ-haunted. We may repress the knowledge of God and seek for consolations or communion elsewhere. But this always remains problematic: our desire for intimate union is a desire we do not fully grasp and cannot fully realize if we attempt to realize it only in relation to other finite persons. We can never be fully known—as we desire to be known—either by our self or by another limited human person. Yet our longing to know ourselves and to be fully known still persists. Augustine characterized this, from his own experience, in terms of his restless heart, which found no rest until it rested in God.

The restless heart is drawn to God, Christianity suggests, by way of God’s own self-communication, his self-revelation. Our desire to know ourselves and to be fully known by another points toward our origin and our end—the one God who can know us fully precisely because he is both personal and infinite. In him, our unknowable depth is grounded. Herein lies our hope: to attain the face-to-face, personal vision of the only One by whom we are fully seen, and to know him even as we are fully known.

In his Encyclical on the virtue of hope, Benedict XVI states Augustine’s insight as follows: “Looking more closely, we have no idea what we ultimately desire, what we would really like…. Yet in not knowing, we know that this reality must exist.” Quoting Augustine, he goes on, “There is therefore in us a certain learned ignorance (docta ingorantia), so to speak.”25

We are unconscious—or only dimly conscious—of that towards which we are most deeply driven. Another way of expressing this would be to say that we are unconscious—or only dimly conscious—of that person with whom we desire communion, that person (or those Triune Persons) by whom we can be fully known and fully understood. Even our destructive tendencies, arising as they do from our restless heart, stem from an unconscious desire that remains fundamentally good even when distorted or misdirected. G.K. Chesterton expressed this abstract idea in more concrete terms when he quipped that even the man knocking at the brothel door is looking for God.

Christianity posits that it is precisely here—in this unconscious desire—that God’s self-revelation comes to meet our dim wisdom and half-ignorance in order to more fully illuminate it. Consider St. Paul’s preaching to the Athenians on Mars Hill, recounted in the Acts of the Apostles:

Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’…” (Acts 17: 22-28)

Divinely revealed truth comes to meet man precisely where his unconscious longings simmer, giving form and content to this “known-unknown”—making the unknown God, the unconscious God, more fully knowable, more fully conscious. This is why Christianity claims that grace—God coming to meet us and assist us in his self-communication and self-revelation—is required for us to arrive at authentic self-knowledge. We cannot achieve this by our own powers alone, no matter how much we refine our introspective self-awareness by means of meditative or ascetical methods. “Mere introspection into my isolated inner consciousness loses itself finally in an impenetrable abyss of unlit mystery. Only the ultimate light can light me up to myself at the deepest levels of my being and meaning.”1 “The Darkest Enigma: Reconsidering the Self in Augustine’s Thought,” Augustinian Studies, Vol. 38, no. 1, 2007.

3 Cf. Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations Concerning First Philosophy, in Descartes’ Philosophical Essays, translated by Laurence J. Lafleur. New York: Macmillan/Library of Liberal Arts, 1964

5 James, William, Principles of Psychology, Volume 1, chapter 6, “The Mind Stuff Theory”. New York: Henry Holt, 1890.

7 Cf. Iocaboni, Marco, “Face to Face: The Neural Basis of Social Mirroring and Empathy,” Psychiatric Annals 27:4, April 2007, 240-241.

9 Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, part III, chapter V. New York: Harvard Classics, 1917.

11 Ibid., 218.

13 “Fragment of an analysis of a case of hysteria,” The Standard Edition of the complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol 7. Strachey J, trans and ed. London: Hogarth Press; 1905: 77-78.

15 Milwaukee, Marquette University Press: 1993, 92.

17 Ibid., 47.

19 Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter, Augustinum Hipponensem, 1986.

21 The Unconscious God: Psychotherapy and Theology. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975, pp. 61-62. (Originally published in 1948 as Der unbewusste Gott. Republished in 1997 as Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning.)

23 The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. New York: Knopf, 1955, xviii.

25 Spe Salvi, 12.

1.

The mimetic desire is the wish for the object that the model of desire owns or desires. The desire is also metaphysical (‘metaphysical desire’) as it is a desire for the ontological status of the model. The subject wants to reach the fulfilness of the model.

There are though three actors of desire: the subject, the object and the model, which are set up in a triangle of desire3:

  1. external- the mediator- my favourite actor for instance- who becomes the model of my desire, and the subject, do not share the same surroundings, so direct contact between them is not possible. The external mediation does not lead to the conflict.
  2. internal – the subject and the model/mediator share the same surroundings: „(…) if he is my neighbour, the objects he possesses or desires- are in range. Therefore the emulation establishes”.5 The mutual relation becomes more intense and guides the model and the subject straight to become doubles: „Mimetic crises is always a crises of doubles.”7

    When the Sequence of the community – the hierarchy of imitation – is strong, mediation is external and can be a positive power for cultural changes. Such hierarchy points the outside object of desire. When the Sequence weakens – the crises begins. Everyone begins to desire the same object and imitate one another.

    As Mikołajewska notices: „The engine of mimetic desire is the desire for model’s b e i n g., which was previously stated as a transcendent value. When the Sequence falls, other beings become sacred. Mimetic desire is a metaphysical desire – the desire to be the Other.”9

    Phase IV: Double bind mimesis and the mimetic manipulation

    As a result of mimetic mechanism the subjective polarization establishes. There are now two positions: extreme self-disdain and extreme narcissism.

    Satisfying the desire turns out to be disappointing. That is why the desire can sometimes focus on the object that can never be reached. The desire wants to stay unfulfilled and abjures the object to become a desire for desire.

    There are also positive aspects of mimetic mechanism. Girard believes that it is crucial for human culture, upbringing and socialization. He trusts that not every mimetism is the evil one.

    To sum up: According to Girard the desire is always mediated – it is always borrowed. The conviction of spontaneous and individual desire is a myth. The desire must be learned. The subject does not know what to desire until the moment the mediator appears. The freedom of desire is not to pick the object, but to pick the mediator.

    The owner gains confirmation of his position by manifesting it. He initiates the desires without an intension to share what he possesses.

    The desire is in essence metaphysical. It is a desire for b e i n g the mediator: „Desire by the Other account is always the desire for being the Other.”11. The free flow of capital, services, population or information, technological progress and the media development foster the conviction that we live in a “global village”.

    Global dependency constitution effected the social space: „ Everything has entirely changed since the virtual communities appeared – local bonds (neighbourship) or national identity (citizenship) have become marginal. The traditional division to the real, three-dimensional world and the created, virtual one blurs or even disappears. The electronic space is often treated as the only social space”13.

    Giddens also stresses the interconnection as the core: „[Globalisation] is the intensification of global social relation, which link distant communities in a way that the local event are shaped by the events happening in places many kilometres far away, and vice versa” 15. This leads straight to the authority crises, or, as Girard would say, the crises of Sequence. Wątroba claims: „Postmodernity favours the prestige hierarchy decomposition and causes disorientation among mandatory norms. The new social roles pass the traditional frameworks like family, job or territory. Individuals are free to choose various roles from the variety presented by the media. Consumption becomes the most important stimulant and causes increasing fragmentation of roles, positions and signs.”17

    Democratisation of desire leads to social undifferentiation. Among the variety of products (or identities) consumers make usually similar, repeated choices. For instance, there are tourists that go to exotic trip to have lunch in a far away McDonalds, which resembles the one they visit in their own neighbourhood.

    It does not seem inevitable for undifferentiation (which I see more as a dangerous tendency than a fact)to lead consumer society – as according to Girard’s theory –to crises. The variety of goods, and models, which are rewarded with prestige, make it less possible. At the same time the distance between the model created by the media and the subject is distant enough to prevent the conflict. The chances for antagonism between Nicole Kidman promoting Chanel and myself are low. And that is not only because meeting the famous actress is not very common, but also because the actress in a commercial is in a double ‘role’. She is not herself, but she is an idea, an archetype, an embodied ideal of imaginary model.

    Consumption and the mimetic desire

    Consumption is no longer an act of paying out goods in order to fulfil needs, but is rather a way of life.

    In contemporary culture the meaning of the terms ‘desire’ and ‘need’ have been shifted. Wątroba claims that, production was the central issue of the industrial economy, and today, in post-industrial world, there is consumption in the middle. That is why the role of desire has grown. And widening its area is crucial not only from the economic perspective, but also in a social ground. „Consumer culture is the world of new desires. Nonetheless it is the world where the real needs are hidden under a flow of pseudo- needs created by commercials.”19

    Marketing slogans refer to the mimetic desire – usually without being aware of it – and follow the magical rule it creates that „ there is nothing more encouraging for a desire than a desire itself.”21

    Wątroba states the same: „ In the consumer culture most of the consumers greedy desire, and so, try to get, and flash with goods, which are socially useful not for the pragmatic reasons, but because they reflect social status, evoke envy or just simply provide new sensations. Modern consumption used to fulfil immanent, existential needs. Postmodern consumption, as symbolical in essence, provides satisfaction by self- labelling and collecting codes involved in the consumed goods”23

    The object itself, as explained before, is meaningless. The objects are disposable and the desires circulate. The profit is not p o s s e s s i n g, the profit is the symbolic message given by the object – the ontological status that it provides to the subject during every day performance.

    The symbolic message, as the consumers believe, is supposed to miraculously change our existence. The prestige involved in the code is to pass into the subject and make him ‘be’ the model.

    The bubble obviously pricks and the subject slowly discovers his own misery. The conclusion though is not usually extended and seen as a universal phenomenon. Generally we believe that the illusion works for the Others, and that we are the only one stigmatised and fail every time.

    Why is the conversion so important? Consumption spreads to more and more spheres and what you consume decides about who you are: „Contemporary societies become the sphere where almost everything can be sold, where people are linked to what they consume- or rather what the symbolic value (sign) of the consumed object says about them.”25

    Girard considers the problem of mediated identity and the mimetic essence of narcissism and snobbery in his first book: Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure.

    The salvation, in Girard’s opinion, is to reject mediation and the divinity of the model. Recognizing and respecting one’s own position can salvage: „By abjuring divinity, the actor abjures enslavement. The level of existence turns symmetrically and all effects of metaphysical desire switch to opposite effects. The truth replaces the lie, reminiscence replaces fear, qualm changes to calmness, hate to love, humiliation to humility, desire by the Other to desire by Oneself and the reversal transcendence to the vertical one.”27Ceaseless desires are liquid and unstable. People following them direct to objects to get satisfaction, and so, they require other humans to provide the same pleasure. Disposable products are equalled with disposable relationships. The Other becomes, above all, the model, or the imitator that is needed only as a mirror of admiration.

    The power of commercials, or rather our susceptibility, slowly changes us to obedient consumers, who do not bother about consequences of their choices.

    Consumers, however, command an undervalued power. Choices they make are one of the most shadowed phenomenon and are translated into different ‘numbers’ and incomes. The choice is interpreted and used for future strategies. Consumer’s choice resembles voting and conscious consuming is a moral problem and a chance for a change.


    Endnotes

     

    2 por. R. Girard, Prawda powieściowa i kłamstwo romantyczne, KR, Warszawa 2001, p.12 n

    4R. Girard, Początki kultury, p. 62

    6 R. Girard, Początki kultury p 63

    8 R. Girard, Szekspir, p. 445

    10 R. Girard, Prawda powieściowa, p. 89

    12 W.Wątroba, Społeczeństwo informacyjne a ponowoczesna kultura konsumpcyjna, http://winntbg.bg.agh.edu.pl/skrypty2/0096/365-373.pdf , access:20.03.2008, p.366

    14 W. Wątroba, Społeczeństwo konsumpcyjne…, p. 53

    16 H. Domański, Prestiż, Wydawnictwo Funna, Wrocław 1999, p. 75-77

    18W. Watroba, Społeczeństwo informacyjne…,p. 368

    20 ibidem, p. 156

    22 W. Wątroba, Społeczeństwo informacyjne,p. 368-9

    24W. Wątroba, Społeczeństwo konsupcyjne…, p.128

    26 R.Girard, Prawda powieściowa…p. 301

    Acknowledgements

    We would like to thank the Program of Knowledge Engineering and Management (EGC), UFSC, Brazil, for encouraging this line of research. Special thanks to Roberto Pacheco and Vinícius Medina Kern.

     

    The idea of integrating different levels of reality is at the core of NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) convergence. Converging technologies enable hybrid cognitive interfaces, through the systemic integration between neural networks and nano artifacts. Hybrid interfaces occur on the thresholds between biology, information technology, neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence. Digital technologies enable not only a multiplication of levels, but are in themselves tools for higher levels of convergence. There is a convergence of levels around the juxtaposition of the concepts of mind versus matter. In this paper, we argue that converging technologies enable the intersection of three main levels of reality: quantum, informational and semiotic. The thresholds of NBIC convergence are also the thresholds connecting quantum theories to semiotics. Nicolescu´s Logic of the Included Middle and Peirce´s Law of Mind emerge as crucial theoretical standpoints in the study of hybrid cognitive interfaces.

    5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10492 Providing Meaning to the Human Experience in Spite of Epistemic Distance

    As human beings we are living in a world and are subject to a milieu of cultural, institutional, linguistic and behavioral influences; and yet we are constantly striving for some sort of meaning to our existence. To provide some answers to this yearning for meaning, the German Idealist tradition maintained a unified notion of the self, and provided an ontology of a subject that could be known. Alternatively, Postmodern philosophy is critical of this pursuit of a universal notion of the self, and pursues a constant disruption of any coherent, stable, or absolute notion of agency, in order to make room for subjects that ultimately become marginalized in the process of abstracting from human experiences. Taking into consideration thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Žižek and Judith Butler, this postmodern stance promotes the notion that there are epistemic limitations to human agency, and to uphold an anthropology based on this awareness would be one that is problematically universalizing a notion of the agent that cannot be known in its entirety.

    In this paper I will present a philosophical anthropology that rests on some notions that provide meaning to the self-reflective human agent, and yet I am not seeking to reify or universalize any one of them. The nodes of meaning I present result from the fact that I am located, and have been conditioned by my education, culture, upbringing, religious beliefs, and place in history. I continue to maintain, however, that within our globalizing society it is important to bridge the differences between human beings. This is my attempt to provide some meaning to human agency, in the hope that it may allow for points of convergence to arise between individuals as they speak of what it means to be human. It should be noted, however, that my attempt at addressing human subjectivity is not an effort to promote a universal claim about human nature as such, for I am in agreement with the postmodern stance on epistemic distance, and the limitations placed upon individuals as social agents who are embedded, yet not limited by language.

    The philosophical anthropology I will present in this paper promotes a notion of agency that is inspired by Judith Butler’s magnum opus: Gender Trouble.2

    It is in her problematizing of what is taken for granted that enables her to fully address who qualifies as being human insofar as how the concept of the human individual has been constructed, and how what is said invokes a normalization of the formulation of human desires and language. For Butler if one fails to take into account the linguistic horizon one operates within when considering what it means to be human, then this inevitably “leads to an enormous parochialism”, and fails to cope with the marginalized differences that are not considered within the matrix of intelligibility that our language works within.4 By exposing the way in which this gender binary is appropriated by classifying a subject as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’, Butler is successful in undermining the category of ‘sex’ that is exercised in ordinary language.

    Butler addresses the feminist strategy of utilizing the category of ‘female’ to critique the peremptory claims of a masculinist signifying economy through a process of deconstruction to expose the hidden other that lies within it. This approach illuminates the problem that arises when attempting to represent a given entity, for there is always an other that remains undisclosed. By specifying the ‘male’ as the oppressor, and the ‘female’ as the victim, feminists advocate an essentialist approach that ultimately excludes those bodies that differ from the reserved norms consisting within the gender binary that corresponds with their matrix of intelligibility.

    Throughout this work Butler seeks to expose the limitations of language, and this revelation only occurs when the multiple comes into view, and gender categories are revealed as false or illusive. In describing her aim, she states:

    It would be wrong to assume in advance that there is a category of ‘women’ that simply needs to be filled in with various components of race, class, age, ethnicity, and sexuality in order to become complete. The assumption of its essential incompleteness permits that category to serve as a permanently available site of contested meanings. The definitional incompleteness of the category might then serve as a normative ideal relieved of coercive force.6 In this article she reveals how gendered identities are produced, and continues to pursue her critique of the feminist reliance on the male—female binary. She refers to the production of the gender binary as taking place

    … through the various ways in which bodies are acted in relationship to the deeply entrenched or sedimented expectations of gendered existence. Consider that there is a sedimentation of gender norms that produces the peculiar phenomenon of a natural sex, or a real woman, or any number of prevalent and compelling social fictions, and that this is a sedimentation that over time has produced a set of corporeal styles which, in reified form, appear as the natural configuration of bodies into sexes which exist in a binary relation to one another.8

    In this case, what Butler defines as ‘the real’ are the lived bodies that are being described by these gender characterizations. The category of gender becomes an illusive term, and the problematic constructs within our language are revealed.

    By exposing the lack of origin for gender categories, Butler is successful at breaking apart these constructs. In the concluding chapter of Gender Trouble she defines gender as

    …the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being.10She concludes her critique of gender by speaking of how the body has been styled, describing that it is

    … never fully self-styled, for styles have a history, and those histories condition and limit the possibilities. Consider gender, for instance, as a corporeal style, an ‘act,’ as it were, which is both intentional and performative, where ‘performative’ suggests a dramatic and contingent construction of meaning.12

    The phallogocentric law that dominates society, and the view we have towards human bodies, limits and oppresses by concealing the construction of gender. Gender has been construed as a stable identity, and in this way it has masked its process of signification through observing repeated performances of the body. By limiting the body to its social inscription, gender is only further substantialized. Butler completely redefines gender roles as comprised of sedimented performances, rather than referring to any ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ essence.

    Butler upholds that the subject lacks any real essence in light of the epistemic distance between the subject and what can be conveyed through discourse. This negative notion of the self in Butler derives from her observance of the thought of Lacan and Žižek. She describes in The Judith Butler Reader that it was in reading Lacan that she became more cognizant of the lack of self-understanding that is gained for any subject, and

    …that there would be no way to recover one’s origins or to understand oneself fully; that one would be, to the extent that one is a subject, always at a distance from oneself, from one’s origin, from one’s history; that some part of that origin, some part of that history, some part of that sexuality would always be at a radical distance….the subject is born into a network of language and uses language but is also used by it; it speaks language, but language speaks it.14

    For Žižek as well as Butler, there seems to be no way out of the agent-as-signified-state. It is in this way that Butler’s notion of subjectivity incurs some problems, for though the subject is never outside of signification, there is a dissonance that can occur in one’s performance.

    Agency for Butler consists in what she defines as a “double-movement”, where the subject is constituted by signification, and then the subject correspondingly repeats the norms of the signifier.16

    Within her notion of agency there is a double movement involved in invoking the category of identity, and at the same time contesting it, by somehow existing beyond the socially inscribed norms that define it.

    It is possible to read Butler and fail to see a repeater who is performing the repeated acts, and yet her political agenda requires such an agent in order to fulfill her site of protest for the oppressive socially-inscribed norms that are placed on the body. In her own words, Butler states:

    I would oppose the notion that my agency is nothing but a mockery of agency. I don’t go that far…. I am trying to say that while we are constituted socially in limited ways and through certain kinds of limitations, exclusions and foreclosures, we are not constituted for all time in that way; it is possible to undergo an alteration of the subject that permits new possibilities that would have been thought psychotic or ‘too dangerous’ in an earlier phase of life.18Through the act of reading this literature the reader is able to escape to a place in their imagination that Beah creates, allowing some aspects of the human experience to be revealed to them in the form of literary symbolism. The nuances that appear to the reader when reading and reflecting on such graphic non-fiction invokes a sense of meaning for them when reflecting on the intensity of violence that perhaps they had never considered was humanly possible prior to an encounter with this memoir.

    An alternative to literature are narratives told to us; some taking mythical form. Religious texts have relied upon such myths in order to speak to humans as they live, and enable the imagination to take hold and teach them that these stories have relevance to their lives. Other forms of artistic expression such as visual artistry and music, present meaning as portrayed through images and sounds, which speak to physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural aspects of the human experience that perhaps cannot be expressed via spoken language. Our imagination enables us to express important aspects of what it means to be human, and this brings both the subtle and poignant moments of our experiences to light.

    B. Reflecting on One’s Mortal Body

    An alternative to the Butlerian perspective on the body, is how the awareness of mortality plays a role in the human experience. Our eventual death is an aspect of the human condition that affects every one of us. Ernest Becker assesses this very point throughout his book on The Denial of Death, maintaining that

    … the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.20The fear of death plays a major role in our ways of acting in the world, and reflecting on the limitation to one’s mortality provides some meaning to the existing subject.

    In his biological approach to the study of the human being, Richard Dawkins grounds his anthropology in the survival of the gene. From his biological perspective, all that humans amount to are “machines created by our genes”, and the more selfish our genes are the more chance they have for survival in the world.22 For Tillich, “ultimate concern” describes the aspect in each individual that yearns for something in an ultimate way. The truth of one’s concern reaches its height in the relative life of the individual, and that is all that can be said.

    For Tillich, the concern for the ultimate is not only what is particular to the human situation, but it is also a necessary component for the individual. The truth of one’s faith in a particular ultimate is entirely subjective, and yet has the ability to be made objective “if its content is the really ultimate.”24 In his cosmology one’s purpose cannot attain fulfillment in this life, but only when one is granted wholeness by God. Failing to incorporate such a worldview does not provide any meaning for the secular individual, who perhaps rests solely on one’s purposes as far as family and nation are concerned for one’s existence.

    The difference in meaning within this example of reflecting on one’s purpose can be universalized for all individuals when considering any instantiation of an example that can provide meaning to one’s sense of humanhood. The milieu of experiences a particular individual incurs is only understood via reflection and the attempt to make sense of one’s involvement in the world. These three examples were meant to invoke some reflection as to what provides meaning to the mode of agency as such, and none of which should be universalized as an anthropology in itself. My purpose is not to make light of the figures I utilized, but to impart an awareness as to the ways in which one can gain meaning, that lends itself to presenting an opaque picture of the self, insofar as what can be known and what provides meaning to one’s existence.

    IV. Conclusion

    This attempt to provide a philosophical anthropology in light of the agent as performer questions Judith Butler’s notion of social inscription on the body as necessarily oppressive. I am not seeking to discount the relevance of her work and the incredible analysis she provides of the ways in which the body invoked by language operates and is limited by the heterosexual matrix of intelligibility that imparts normative behavior in society. As I have made clear, however, Butler only accounts for an agent that is wholly submerged and unable to reach the surface to extend beyond language constructs. Though we exist amid phallogocentric discourse, this does not limit the agent to feel the need to perform in a way that disrupts the repeated norms as they are inscribed.

    The performing agent for Butler is what can be understood as similar to a “mystical” notion of the self, insofar as the self can be known through self-reflection. The self that can be known is epistemically distant, and is always existing in the infinite horizon of existence that cannot be accounted for via language. It is through the act of meditation on various aspects of how humans live and what ultimately concerns us that the subject is allowed a sense of meaning to the human experience as it can be understood.

    We live in a world with others, and it is crucial that we communicate in a way that is aware of the lack of normativity in the repeated performances of the subject. Though we are signified by the social forces that have been responsible for dominating the conversation about the body as such, we still have the freedom to invoke change in the world. There cannot be any commonly-known agent nor any commonly-held human experience, because experience is entirely subjective and unique. In this sense, it is epistemically problematic to uphold a philosophical anthropology that seeks to unify the bodies that it is attempting to provide meaning for. It is because of this epistemic distance between the social and the unique human experience that agency can only be inconclusively known through language.

    In this paper I hope to have provided a sense of what it means to be a human being acting in the world, and this meaning can only be gained by actively reflecting on one’s experiences. I question Butler’s reliance on the problem of language insofar as how much relevance this methodology has when considering the task of making sense of human personhood. I maintain that there can be something said of the creators of the language which she finds fault with. This is provided for by her political agenda that relies on a divergence in the repetition of acts that compose one’s performance.

    Throughout this analysis of the human experience, I hope to have left the reader open to their own interpretation of what it means to be human. This is the only methodology I feel that speaks to a real philosophical anthropology. Providing meaning to the human experience is an endeavor that must remain active and open to the ever-changing possibilities presented to us in each moment. Some may say that their anthropology has remained constant, but I feel that one’s unique position on the issue must be in dialogue with others who are situated in entirely different frameworks. My perspective on philosophical anthropology is undoubtedly a unique one, but I will continue to argue that uniqueness is not something that will go away in the practice of reflecting on what it means to be human. Instead, I am advocating an active awareness of what Emmanuel Lévinas has uncovered in his philosophy, that the other is infinitely other.1 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, First Edition Routledge Classics (New York: Routledge, 2006).

3 Ibid., 356.

5 Ibid., 20-21.

7 Ibid., 158.

9 Ibid.

11 Ibid., 190.

13 Butler, The Judith Butler Reader, 332.

15 Ibid., 220.

17 Butler, The Judith Butler Reader, 333-334

19 Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997), xvii.

21 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 30th Anniversary Edition. (New York: Oxford University Press 2006),2.

23 Ibid., 110.

25 See Emmanuel Lévinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, translated by Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press 1969).

In this paper, I will present a philosophical anthropology that rests on some notions that provide meaning to the self-reflective human agent, and yet, I am not seeking to reify or universalize any one of them. The nodes of meaning I present result from the fact that I am located, and have been conditioned by my education, culture, upbringing, religious beliefs, and place in history. I continue to maintain, however, that within our globalizing society it is important to bridge the differences between human beings. This is my attempt to provide some meaning to human agency in the hope that it may allow for points of convergence to arise between individuals as they speak of what it means to be human. It should be noted, however, that my attempt at addressing human subjectivity is not an effort to promote a universal claim about human nature as such, for I am in agreement with the postmodern stance on epistemic distance, and the limitations placed upon individuals as social agents who are embedded, yet not limited by language.

The philosophical anthropology I will present in this paper promotes a notion of agency that is inspired by Judith Butler’s magnum opus: Gender Trouble.1 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, First Edition Routledge Classics (New York: Routledge, 2006).5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10493 Peaceful Co-Existence of Various Cultures and Religions: An Islamic Perspective with Special Reference to Spain

Mankind is yearning for global peace. During the twentieth century a number of international treatises were signed declaring war as illegal in the settlement of disputes like the Covenant of the League of Nations, the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War and the Charter of United Nations. Despite these conventions, there have been wars and we have not seen the peace which was intended and agreed by the nations signatory to these conventions. These conventions failed to achieve the desired goal, because these human laws lack that moral and spiritual force which is essential for achievement of comprehensive peace. Without divine guidance and revealed truth, human laws lack force of conviction. Only divine moral laws can lead to universal peace and mould human conduct for international brotherhood and love. Those moral laws can be recognized by human minds only if those minds are untarnished of all pride and prejudice.

Within this context, we shall describe the Islamic principles for unity of mankind and mutual peaceful co-existence of different cultures and faiths. Among them the most important is common origin of mankind according to which all human beings have been “created of a single soul” (Qur’‚n 4:1), and that all descended from the same parents (Quran 49:13), so there should not be any discrimination based on clan, creed or race. The Quran negates distinction on the basis of racial, linguistic and national grounds and it also identifies diversity as a sign of God and hence to be respected. Different identities are for recognition – not for pride – and hence necessary and it should not lead to any conflict. Promoting divisiveness and hatred based on religious and cultural differences is absolutely against Islam.

The Holy Quran makes it clear leaving no room for any doubt that the Muslims have to regard the Torah, Psalms and the Gospel as book of God revealed to Moses, David and Jesus(may God send His blessings on them) respectively and should believe in these and in all books of God without any exception. They should believe in all prophets like Prophet Muhammad. The Holy Quran refers repeatedly to the previous scriptures, Torah andthe Gospels, and claims that its message does not differ from them. Instead, it claims to confirm and clarify the messages delivered through earlier prophets, and to correct misinterpretations of those messages made by the followers of the prophets who delivered them .The same din, the monotheistic religion, therefore, was accurately revealed before , the Quran affirms , but those communities who received messages prior to the time of Muhammad became “doubtful and disconcerted” (Quran 42: 13) about it. Some deliberately ignored or abandoned the din (religion), others distorted it. The confirmation and the clarification of divine message was the mission of the prophet Muhammad. So Muhammad (peace be upon him)did not bring anew din but came to reestablish and confirmthe prototype of Abraham religion, monotheism. Many Quranic verses and sayings of the prophet Muhammad are quoted to authenticate that fact.

“And who turns away from the religion of Abraham but such as debase their souls with folly? Him We chose and rendered pure in this world: and he will be in the Hereafter in the ranks of the righteous”. (2:130)

They say: “Become Jews or Christians if ye would be guided (to salvation).” Say thou: “Nay! (I would rather) the religion of Abraham, the true and he joined not gods with Allah.” Say ye: “We believe in Allah and the revelation given to us and to Abraham Isma`il, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes and that given to Moses and Jesus and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord we make no difference between one and another of them and we bow to Allah (2: 135-136 ),

Say: “Allah speaks the truth: follow the religion of Abraham the sane in faith; he was not of the pagans.(3: 95) ; Who can be better in religion than one who submits his whole self to Allah, does good and follows the way of Abraham the true in faith? For Allah did take Abraham for a friend. (4: 125)

Prophet Abraham is the fountainhead of the present monotheistic tradition, the Patriarch of the prophetic line, and is revered alike by Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Say: “Verily my Lord hath guided me to a way that is straight, a religion of right the path (trod) by Abraham the true in faith and he (certainly) joined not gods with Allah.” Say: “Truly my prayer and my service of sacrifice my life and my death are (all) for Allah the Cherisher of the Worlds: No partner hath He: this am I commanded and I am the first of those who bow to His will. (6:162-163)

Values and Beliefs shared by the People of the Book and Muslims

Besides Abrahim as the common ancestor of all believers and among prophets respected by all, there are many beliefs and values which are common in Muslims and the People of the Book (Ahli Kitab). In the Quran , God enjoins Muslims to say to the people of the Book:

“We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our God and your God is one, and unto Him we surrender”. (29: 46)

All the true followers of these great religions believe that God has created the entire universe out of nothing and that He dominates all that exists with His omnipotence; believe that God is the originator and creator of man and all living things and that man posses a spirit infused by God; believe in the life -after-death, heavens and hell and angels ; and that God has created humans with certain destiny and purpose; believe that besides Jesus, Moses or Muhammad , God sent many prophets and messengers as Noah, Abraham, Joseph, David, Salmon throughout history and they love all these prophets. In many verses of the Quran , Muslims are advised not to make any division or distinction among prophets :

“Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the Prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered” (2: 136)

“The Messenger believes in what has been sent down to him by his Lord, and so do the believers. Each one believes in God and His angels and His Books and His Messengers. We do not differentiate between any of His Messengers. They say, “We hear and we obey. Forgive us, our Lord! You are our journey’s end.” (2: 285)

Special respect and reverence has been shown in the Quran for righteous people of the Book :

“They are not all alike. Among the People of the Book there is an upright community who recites the revelation of God during the night and fall prostrate before Him. They believe in God and the Last Day, enjoin what is right and forbid what is evil, and vie with one another in good works. They are of the righteous. And whatever good they do, its reward will not be denied them. God knows those who fear [Him]”. (3:113-115)

The Quran also says that:

“the closest and the most affectionate towards the Muslims are those who say: “We are Christians:” because amongst them there are priests and monks and because they are not arrogant. When they listen to that which has been revealed to the messenger (Muhammad), you see their eyes overflow with tears because of their recognition of the Truth. They say: Our Lord, we believe. So count usamong the witnesses.” (5: 82-83)

Muslimslove Jesus, believe in all his miracles and noble morality and believe in his ascension, and have faith that he will come back to the world again to save humanity . The Quran is definite in its assertion that Jesus is alive and that he will come back again to this world. Prophet Mohammed, Peace be upon him,announced in great detail that Jesus would come back to the earth miraculously in the last days and bring peace, justice and happiness by uniting Christians and Muslims in a common religion and morality. This is God’s great and wonderful promise and no doubt it will be fulfilled.

This fact is also stated several times in the New Testament that Jesus will return to earth.

“So Christ …will appear a second time… to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” (Heb. 9: 28)

In the holy Quran Jesus is not mentioned as Son of God but he is called as he was , that is, the Prophet created miraculously by God without father; he is the “word of God”. Allah says in the Quran:

“O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not “Three”. Cease! (It is) better for you! Allah is only One God” (4: 171)

The Quran instructs Muslims to respect Jewish and Christian places of worship, monasteries, churches and synagogues,

“if God had not driven some people back by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, where God’s name is mentioned much, would have been pulled down and destroyed. God will certainly help those who help Him – God is All-Strong, Almighty.” (Qur’an, 22:40 )

As the People of the Book have moral sense and know what is lawful and what is not. For this reason, meals prepared by the people of book are lawful for Muslims to eat. In the same way, permission has been given to Muslims to marry women of People of the Book. On this subject Quransays:

“Today all good things have been made lawful for you. And the food of those given the Book is also lawful for you and your food is lawful for them. So are chaste women from among the believers and chaste women among the People of the Book , once you have given them their dowries in marriage, not in fornication or taking them as lovers (without marriage). But as for anyone who disbelieve, his actions will come to nothing and in the hereafter he will be among the losers.” (5: 5)

What does Islam Mean?

The very word Islam etymologically refers to peace and submission to the will of God. In that sense Islam is the same as salam, which is the same as the Hebrew shalom, meaning peace, with the special connotation of soundness andwholesomeness. Peace is so dear to Islam that every Muslim is ordered to greet other person on meeting “peace be upon you”(Assalam-o- alaikum). In the Quran God refers to Himself as as-Salam or Peace , so as a Muslim , the yearning for peace is nothing but yearning for God. For Muslim , the idea of living at peace while denying God is totally absurd , because only God can put the chaos and strife within human soul in order, and when there is no peace within , there will be no peace without. Islamic teachings guarantee peace in every sphere of life. They contain many injunctions for settling disputes between people and nations with the aim of establishing peace . The highest goal of Islam is to lead the soul to the “Abode of Peace” by guiding to live a virtuous life and to establish inner harmony with the help of Heaven. Islam has been reminding its followers over the ages that there is no possibility of peace on earth without peace with Heaven, and today it is called upon to also assert that peace with Heaven requires , as never before , peace between messages that , through divine Wisdom, have descended from heaven over the ages2.

When speaking of peace , one should never forget the famous Quranic verse , He it is who made the Divine peace ( al- sakinah) to descend in the hearts of believers” (48: 4). Whether one speaks of sakinah, or the Hebrew equivalent shekinah or for that matter pacem or shanty , the reality emphasized by Islam remains that the source of peace is God who is Himself peace and without Whom there can be no peace on earth 4.

Similarly the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) gave full freedom to the Christians of Najran to offer prayers in their own way in the Mosque – Masjid-i- Nabawi in Madinah ( ah sallo salata hum) 6.

After quoting such examples from the life of prophet Muhammad (PBUH), We can say , in the words of Munazir Ahsan Gilani :

We cannot even imagine that how one of the greatest benefactors of humanity dedicated his whole-being and energies for unifying fragmented and suffering humanity 8

The best testimony to the toleration of the early Muslim government is furnished by the Christian themselves . In the reign of Osman ( the third caliph of Islam ) , the Christians patriarch of Merv addressed the bishop of Fars , named Simeon, in the following terms: the Arabs who been given by god the kingdom do not attack the Christians faith; on the contrary they help us in our religion; they respect our god and our saints , and bestow gifts on our churches and monasteries 10.

W. Montgomery Watt acknowledges:

“On the whole there was more genuine toleration of non-Muslims under Islam than there was of non-Christians in Medieval Christians states” 12.

In Persia three hundred years after Muslim rule much of the country was still Zoroastrian, and the province of Minazandaran by the Caspian Sea did not embrace Islam until the tenth century. In most areas the Islamization was a gradual process. The history of Islam, like that of Judaism and Hinduism , according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, is intertwined with a sacred epic , but that does not mean that Islam is any more or less the ‘religion of sword’ or the religion of peace than any other religion…. Furthermore , Islam has sought to limit war by legislating conditions pertaining to it, (as will be discussed in the next section of this paper), and succeeded during the fourteen centuries of its history in reaching the goal of creating inner peace to a remarkable degree , while in the creation of outward peace it was certainly not less successful than any of the major traditional civilizations such as the Japanese , Chinese , Hindu , or Christian 14

The True Meaning of Jihad and Q ital

This last section of the paper would focus on the true concept of Jihad in Islam.

Jihad is the most misunderstood and wrongly construed doctrine of Islam in the West. It is usually supposed to be the main hurdle in world peace.That misconception is due to the lack of understanding of the true concept of jihad.

In Islamic perspective Jihad is persistent struggle against forces of darkness both within and without. It is to tame the animal in man – individually and collectively. Qital (war) is only wrongly construed fragment of the immense picture of eternal struggle for reform against atrocities by eradicating corruption, persecution and lawlessness.

Literally “Jihad” means “to strive ” or “to exert efforts” . Thus, in Islam, “to carry out jihad” is “to show effort, to struggle” in the path of God. Jihad consists of two dimensions: the inner jihad that seeks to curb negative and self-destructive forces within; and the external jihad which is a struggle against violence and tyranny by means of words and actions. The Prophet Muhammad explained that “the greatest jihad is the one a person carries out against his lower soul”. “lower soul” here means selfish desires and ambitions. On another occasion, the Messenger of God addressed his companions, saying: “We are now returning from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad 16.

Apart from spiritual meanings, struggle in the physical sense is also considered as “jihad” for which the exact word is Qital. However, the holy Quran lays down strictprinciples of Qital (war) in its various verses. The war can be waged only for lawful purpose:

  1. In defensewhen oneis attacked, or
     
  2. To eradicate corruption from the earth,or
     
  3. For elimination of persecution, or
     
  4. For getting moral, religious and physical freedom for oppressed people.

If for these purposes Jihad is waged , it will be in the way of Allah, which is a just war for sacred cause. For achieving such noble cause, the Muslims are ordained to observe certain rules during the war. When Islam forbids the old cruel and barbaric practices in war, it makes its own rules for the conduct of hostilities which are:

 

  1. Non-combatants are not to be made to suffer on account of war.
     
  2. Even against the combatants, one can use only that much force which is necessary to achieve the purpose of just war but not going beyond the limits. God does not love those who go beyond the limits. (Quran, 2:190).
     
  3. If the enemy offers peace, one has no choice but to accept, and stop all hostilities.
     
  4. One can not commit excesses or cruelties during the actual conduct of hostilities and war.
     
  5. Arson and pillage are prohibited.
     
  6. Destruction of properties, plants and crops is forbidden
     
  7. Killing of prisoners of war is prohibited. On the other hand generous treatment with the prisoners is ordained.
     
  8. Women, children , aged ones, and handicapped should not be killed.
     
  9. All the terms of treaties and other agreements have to be strictly adhered to18. Now compare the number of the people killed during world war I and World war II; 10 million during the World war I and 20 million during the World War II 20.

    this comparison is made to point out the fact that although Islam permits Jihad but under strict conditions, not for personal aggrandizement or for any worldly gain but for defense purpose and to eradicate corruption and persecution from the society for the welfare of humanity. So Jihad should be understood in its true perspective and should not be confused with other wars of the world. Islam considers the killing of an innocent person tantamount to the killing of whole humanity. The Holy Quran says:

    If someone kills another person – unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth – it is as if he had murdered all mankind. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he has given life to all mankind. Our Messengers came to them with clear signs, but even after that many of them commit outrages in the earth (5:32).


    References & Notes:

     

    2Rumi : Mathnawi 2, V.593 , quoted in The Heart of Islam , p.221.

    4Harun Yahya: Islam Denounces Terrorism ( New York : Tehrike Tarsile Quran, Inc, 2002) , pp. 94-95 ; also available on line www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com.

    6Syed Ameer Ali: The Spirit of Islam (Lahore : Progressive Books),p.69.

    8Syed Ameer Ali, op.cit. p.234-35.

    10Ghulam Haider Aasi : Muslim Understanding of Other Religions ( Islamabad: International Institute of Islamic thought and Islamic research Institute, 1999), p.27.

    12Muhammad Asad: The Message of the Quran ( Gibralter: Dar Al –Andalus,1980),p.58.

    14Ishtiaq H. Qureshi :The Religion of Peace( Karachi: Royal Book company,1989), P. 102.

    16Seyyed Hossein Nasr, op.cit; p.261.

    18Dr. Hameed Ullah : The battlefields of the Prophet’s Age -Ahdi Nabwi ka Madani Jang – (Lahore : Islami Academy) p. 7, According to Dr. Hameedullah about 120 Muslims were martyred during the ten years of Madani period and about 150 Non-Muslims were killed.

    20 Report of Opinion Research Business, UK, January 2008, quoted in Daily Pakistan , Lahore , March 19, 2008.

     

    Mankind is yearning for global peace. During the twentieth century, a number of international treatises were signed declaring war as illegal in the settlement of disputes like the Covenant of the League of Nations, the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War and the Charter of the United Nations. Despite these conventions, there have been wars, and we have not seen the peace which was intended and agreed by the nation’s signatory to these conventions. These conventions failed to achieve the desired goal, because these human laws lack that moral and spiritual force which is essential for achievement of comprehensive peace. Without divine guidance and revealed truth, human laws lack force of conviction. Only divine moral laws can lead to universal peace and mould human conduct for international brotherhood and love. Those moral laws can be recognized by human minds only if those minds are untarnished of all pride and prejudice.

    Within this context, we shall describe the Islamic principles for mutual peaceful co-existence of different cultures and faiths. Among them, the most important is common origin of mankind according to which all human beings have been “created of a single soul” (Quran 4:1); and that all descended from the same parents (Quran 49:13) so there should not be any discrimination based on clan, creed or race. The Quran negates distinction on the basis of racial, linguistic and national grounds and it also identifies diversity as a sign of God and hence to be respected. Different identities are for recognition—not for pride—and hence necessary and it should not lead to any conflict.

    The Holy Quran makes it clear, leaving no room for any doubt, that the Muslims have to regard the Torah, Psalmsand the Gospel as the book of Godrevealed to Moses, David and Jesus (May God send His blessings on them) respectively and should believe in these and in all books of God without any exception. They should believe in all prophets like Prophet Muhammad. The Holy Quran refers repeatedly to the previous scriptures and insists that its message does not differ from them. Instead, it claims toconfirm and clarify the messages delivered through earlier prophets, and to correct misinterpretationsof those messages made by the followers ofthe prophets who delivered them. Muhammad (peace be upon him)did not bring anew din but came to reestablish and confirmthe prototype of Abraham religion, monotheism. Islam does not confine salvation to any particular religion or teachings of a particular prophet, but it is based on some basic principles—belief in all prophets and books of God including Prophet Muhammad and the Quran.

    Islam etymologically refers to peace and submission to the will of God. In that sense, Islam is the same as salam, which is the same as the Hebrew shalom, meaning peace. Its teachings guarantee peace in every sphere of life. Islamic history shows that Muslims and non-Muslims existed in peace in Medina (first Islamic State) and in the successive states especially the Muslim Spain. Muslim Spain furnishes one of the most excellent examples of peaceful co-existence of various cultures and religions. It sets an example for contemporary Muslims how to live peacefully with non- Muslims. On their arrival on the soil of Spain, the Muslims published an edict assuring to the subject races, without any difference of race, or creed, the most ample liberty. They guaranteed to both Christians and Jews the full exercise of their religions, the free uses of their places of worship, and perfect security of person and property.

    The forceful conversion will be dealt with in some detail, mentioning especially that the Quran does not allow its followers to use force as an instrument for the spread of Islam. Islam is not a ‘religion of sword’ as it is blamed by some Western scholars. It declares, “There is no compulsion in matters of faith. Surely the right now became distinct from wrong” (2: 256), and free choice is given in case of religion. The last section of the paper would focus on the misunderstood concept of Jihad. In Islamic perspective, Jihad is a persistent struggle against forces of darkness both within and without. It is to tame the animal in man—individually and collectively. Qital (war) is only a wrongly construed fragment of the immense picture of eternal struggle for reform against atrocities by eradicating corruption, persecution and lawlessness. The Muslims are ordained to strictly observe certain rules and all old cruel and barbaric practices are forbidden during war. Women, children, aged ones, handicapped and prisoners of war should not be killed. Destruction of properties, plants and crops is forbidden. Places of worship are to be spared and protected. Peace is so important in Islam that even during Qital, if the enemy offers peace, one has no choice but to accept and stop all hostilities. Islam respects life in all its forms and manifestations and considers the killing of an innocent person tantamount to the killing of whole humanity (5:32).

    5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10494 The Relational Nature of the Physical World as a Foundation for the Conscious Mind

    I present here a non reductionistic ontological framework that aims at providing a neutral foundation both for the mental and the physical aspects of reality. The framework should be able to account for a theory of levels of reality. Is the physical world relational? Is the physical world devoid of qualities? The most common answer to both questions is negative. A widespread tradition defends a not relational physical and quality-free world. Yet we experience qualities. Qualities are an empirical fact. At the same time, it has been observed that our mental states are relational. The picture is made more difficult by the unclear relation between the qualitative and the relational aspect of the mind. And yet, is the physical world really not relational and quality free? I will argue that we should not necessarily answer positively to this question. This paper is principally an attempt to argue that the physical is relational.

    5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10495 Holistic Concepts of Soul in the Ancient Mediterranean World

    This paper will deliver a fresh approach to holistic concepts of the soul in the Ancient Mediterranean World, with special focuses on Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew and Greek sources. In order to gain a differentiated view a short survey of Ancient literal and iconographic material that supports non-holistic concepts will also be given as a sort of contrast folio.

    “We are accustomed to speak of the human being as consisting of body and soul, that is to say, that man has a mortal, material body which is subject to growth and development, to injury and disease, to deterioration and to death. This body has weight and extension, it is located at one place at a time. In many respects it resembles the bodies of the higher animals. We also believe that man has an immortal soul which is not material, not subject to growth and development, not subject to physical injury or disease, will not deteriorate and cannot die. It has no weight or extension, is not limited by time and space in the same manner as the body, but during the lifetime of the individual on earth is intimately connected with the body. In fact, it is the soul which gives life to the body. When the soul is separated from the body, the body dies, that is, it ceases to function as it should and begins to disintegrate…

    I suppose that most of us have always regarded man as consisting of body and soul, and would unhesitatingly say that this is what Scripture teaches concerning man from cover to cover. Today, however, there are those who call these self-evident facts into question. Proceeding from the standpoint of the Evolutionist who regards man as a very highly developed animal many so-called theologians today believe that religious thought too has developed from very simple beginnings to the complex religious systems we have today. They contend that in earlier ages man did not have this concept of a human soul which we today have. If that is the case, then there must be a development of this concept which can be traced in history, yes, which can be traced in Biblical literature…

    The practical value of a study such as this lies in the consequences or deductions which may be drawn from these various aspects of the concept of the soul.”
    (Vogel 1963, 1)

    The body-soul-dualism seems to be widespread in religion and philosophy. The Gnostic Christian Valentinus (ca. 100 – ca. 160 CE) conceived the human being even as a triple entity, consisting of body (Greek: soma, hyle), soul (Greek: psyche) and spirit (Greek: pneuma). According to a series of scholars this trichotomism equates to the division they find in Paul’s Epistles (e.g. in 1 Thessalonians 5:23), and therefore also in concepts of Christian anthropology. But only a minority of theologians argue that human beings are made up of three distinct components: body/flesh, soul, and spirit. Traditional Christian anthropologies are rather concepts of a body-soul-dichotomy, distinguishing between material (body/flesh) and spiritual elements (soul/spirit). At death the soul/spirit departs from the body, being reunited with the body at the resurrection.

    “Modern theologians increasingly hold to the view that the human being is an indissoluble unity. This is known as holism or monism. The body and soul are not considered separate components of a person, but rather as two facets of a united whole. It is argued that this more accurately represents Hebrew thought, whereas body-soul dualism is more characteristic of Greek philosophy and Platonic thought. Monism also appears to be more consistent with modern neuroscience, which has revealed that the so-called ‘higher functions’ of the mind are emergent from the brain, rather than being based in an immaterial soul as was previously thought” (wikipedia “Christian Anthropology”).

    The Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 484 BC–ca. 425 BC) wrote that the Egyptians have been the first who stated the immortality of the human soul, and its leaving of human corpses after death. An overview over Ancient Egyptian concepts of the soul, including iconographic developments of the so called “soul bird” from early beginnings (see PowerPoint presentation in Madrid, e.g. Hinterhuber 2001, 26-27), shows the complexity of Ancient Egyptian anthropology. They distinguish different types of the soul and the body.

    Assmann (2001, 156ff) tried to outline a systematic structure behind the Ancient Egyptian terms: A person lives in a bodily sphere as well as in a social sphere (in this world and also in the underworld). Each sphere is constituted by two aspects: the body and the soul. In the bodily sphere of a person we can identify the ha as the body (occasionally a plural haw, meaning approximately sum of bodily parts) and the sheut (shadow) and the ba (personality) as the soul, whereas in the social sphere sch (mummy dignity) stands for the body and ka (life force) and ren (name) for the soul.

    So the Ancient Egyptian concepts seem to provide a double dualistic structure: bodily and social sphere, body and soul. It is striking that there is also a double dichotomy concerning the soul: on the one hand sheut (shadow) and ba (personality), on the other hand ka (life force) and ren (name). Ancient Egyptians probably conceived not only of a body-soul-dualism, but furthermore also of a dual soul in each of the two spheres. So they could distinguish four types of the soul at least.

    In contrast to the body-soul-dualism in Ancient Egyptian thought we can find holistic (or monistic) concepts of living beings in the Hebrew Bible and in its Greek version, the Septuagint.

    The most important keyword for concepts of soul in the Hebrew Bible is nephesh (mostly translated with the Greek term psyche in the Septuagint). References of nephesh in the Hebrew Bible are originally related to the concept of breath (resembling the Hebrew term ruah and similar to the Pre-Socratic use of psyche), e.g. Genesis 1:30; 2:7; Jeremiah 2:24. The literal meaning of nephesh is “throat, gorge” (e.g. Isaiah 5:14; Proverbs 10:3; 13:25) and then “breath” or “breathing being”, in some cases “appetite, hunger” (e.g. Deuteronomy 23:25; Hosea 9:4;), but also “desire”, “cupidity” or “lust” (e.g. Genesis 34:4.8). The term nephesh designates the person as a whole (e.g. Genesis 12:13; 19:19-20; 1 Kings 20:32). In some cases it means “life” or “living” as such (e.g. Proverbs 8:35-36). Occasionally nephesh is also combined with dam, the Hebrew term for “blood” (e.g. Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:23). It is possible that nephesh serves as a personal pronoun, and it can describe the “vital self”, e.g. Psalm 103:1.2.22; 104:1.35. Nevertheless, nephesh does not denote an incorporeal part of a living being surviving death of the body.

    The Hebrew Bible provides us with concepts of the soul that do not separate it from the body. In later Jewish writings, especially in the Hellenistic period after Alexander’s conquest (333/332 BC), the idea of the soul was developed further (including dualistic concepts, e.g. Sapientia Salomonis 9:15, explicitly dealt with later, see below).

    In most parts of the Septuagint (LXX) we can also find holistic anthropological concepts. The semantic domain of „soul” in the Septuagint is based on the Greek psyche. In 680 of 754 possible cases it serves as the translation of Hebrew nephesh. (the other Hebrew terms are isch “human being”; chajjah “life, living being”; leb, lebab “heart” and ruach “breath, spirit”, see Lys 1966). It adopts the variety of meanings that are tied to nephesh in the Hebrew Bible (Lys 1966, 228).

    This observation corresponds to concepts of soul that are proposed by Pre-Socratic philosophers and authors (e.g. Aischylos, Antiphon, Aristides, Euripides, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophokles) as well as by the post-Platonic philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), especially in his De Anima. The works of Aristotle had a great influence on the holistic concept of the soul that the Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 –1274 CE) developed in his Summa Theologica.

    In Pre-Socratic texts psyche is connoted with the following meanings:

    • breath of animals (e.g. Job 41:13 LXX) and human beings, e.g. in Euripides and Pindar (Bratsiotis 1966, 63 fn. 8 and 9),
    • base or bearer of life (e.g. Genesis 9:5; Leviticus 24:17 LXX), e.g. in Antiphon and Aristides (Bratsiotis 1966, 64 fn. 8 and 65 fn. 1),
    • also explicitly for the life of animals, e.g. inHesiod and Pindar (Bratsiotis 1966, 64 fn. 8 and 65 fn. 1),
    • base of feeling, perception, sensation (e.g. Isaiah 29:8; Psalm 105:9 LXX), e.g. inAischylos, Persai 840ff, and Sophokles, Elektra 902-903 (Bratsiotis 1966, 66 fn. 11.14 and 67 fn. 4.8).

    Like Hebrew nephesh Greek psyche can be combined with the term “blood” (Greek haima), e.g. in Aristophanes and Sophokles, Elektra 784ff (Bratsiotis 1966, 68 fn. 9 and 10).

     

    Most parts of the Septuagint provide us with concepts of the soul that do not separate it from the body, similar to concepts of Pre-Socratic authors and philosophers. Only in Jewish writings of the late Hellenistic period we find dualistic concepts. Very prominent is the concept of the soul in the apocryphal/deuterocanonical book Sapientia Salomonis (“Wisdom of Solomon”). The book is probably written in Alexandria in the 1st Century BC.

    For many Biblical scholars SapSal 9:15 states clearly a body-soul-dualism: “9:14 For the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are likely to fail; 15 for a perishable body weighs down the soul and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind” (NRSV). But this dualistic concept can only be understood in the horizon of questions about God’s justice (like the parallel development of concepts of immortality and resurrection).

    As SapSal 3:1-9 points it out: “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. 2 In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, 3 and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace. 4 For though in the sight of others they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. 5 Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself …”

    The Destiny of the Ungodly is described in SapSal 3:10-13:

    “10 But the ungodly will be punished as their reasoning deserves, those who disregarded the righteous and rebelled against the Lord; 11 for those who despise wisdom and instruction are miserable. Their hope is vain, their labors are unprofitable, and their works are useless. 12 Their wives are foolish, and their children evil; 13 their offspring are accursed. For blessed is the barren woman who is undefiled, who has not entered into a sinful union; she will have fruit when God examines souls.” (RSNV)

    In the scriptures of Philo of Alexandria, (20 BC – 50 CE) we can also find traces of a body-soul-dualism (see gig. 14), e.g. the doctrine of the body as the source of all evil and the concept of the soul as a divine emanation (logos), similar to Plato’s nous.

    Philo used allegory in order to harmonize Greek philosophy (especially their ideas about physis “nature”) and Judaism (especially its torah, nomos “law”). He formed the term nomos physeos “natural law” (Koester 2007). Yet, his work was not widely accepted among Greeks and Jews in Antiquity. Nevertheless, some early Christian theologians, like Origen of Alexandria (185 – ca. 254 CE), picked up Philo’s ideas.

    Philo’s concept of the soul was similar to that of Plato. For the Platonic school, the soul was an immaterial and incorporeal substance. Plato (see “soul”, wikipedia) considered the soul as the essence of a person. He considered this essence as an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. As bodies die, the soul is continually reborn in subsequent bodies. The Platonic soul comprises three parts: logos (mind, nous, or reason), thymos (emotion, or spiritedness), and eros (appetitive, or desire). Each of these has a function in a balanced and peaceful soul.

    Aristotle (see “soul”, wikipedia) stated that the soul was a form inseparable from the body. He defined the soul as the core essence of a being, but argued against its having a separate existence. For instance, if a knife had a soul, the act of cutting would be that soul, because ‘cutting’ is the essence of what it is to be a knife. Unlike Plato and some religious traditions, Aristotle did not consider the soul as some kind of separate, ghostly occupant of the body (just as we cannot separate the activity of cutting from the knife). As the soul, in Aristotle’s view, is an actuality of a living body, it cannot be immortal (when a knife is destroyed, the cutting stops). More precisely, the soul is the “first actuality” of a naturally organized body. This is a state, or a potential for actual, or ‘second’, activity. “The axe has an edge for cutting” was, for Aristotle, analogous to “humans have bodies for rational activity,” and the potential for rational activity thus constituted the essence of a human soul. Aristotle used his concept of the soul in many of his works; especially in De Anima (On the Soul).

    Most parts of the New Testament follow the terminology of the Septuagint, and use the word psyche with the holistic Hebrew semantic domain and not the dualistic Platonic.

    Towards the end of the 2nd century CE some Christian Theologians understood psyche in more a Greek than a Hebrew way, contrasting it with the body. In the 3rd century CE, influenced by Origen of Alexandria (185 – ca. 254 CE), the doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul and its divine nature was established.

    In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas returned to Aristotle’s concept of the soul as a motivating principle of the body, independent but requiring the substance of the body to make an individual.

    The central point Aquinas makes is that the individuation of a human being, say Homer, is a specific substantial form of a human being; and a substantial form of a material entity such as Homer is this specific substantial form in virtue of the fact that it configures the matter of this determinate material entity. For Aquinas the soul is, we might say, an individual “configurer of matter” which in its turn was configured by God.

    The traditional talk about the soul should thus be re-interpreted in a dialogic and communicative way. In short, it is God constituting and guaranteeing our identity by entering in a process of communication with us. As true as such statements may be, we are still confronted with the question how our diachronic identity has to be conceived.

    It is helpful to explore non-naturalistic concepts of the human person which are at the same time non-dualistic. The background is the Aristotelian concept of the soul. In the Aristotelian context the soul was considered to be the particular “forma substantialis” of a living organism. “Forma” refers to the nature of an individual determining its identity-, continuity-, and existence-conditions and identifying its typical powers and capacities.

    In the field of (neuro-) biological descriptions there are findings which seem to fit well into a Biblical and Aristotelian framework. These findings stress the importance of the organizational and functional structure of the human organism for an adequate conception of human identity. “No component remains the same for very long, and most of the cells and tissues that constitute our bodies today are not the same we owned when we entered college. What remains the same, in good parts, is the constitution plan for our organism structure and the set points for the operation of its parts.” (Damasio 1999, 144)

    Although we change permanently throughout life, the structure and functional principle of our organism remains largely unchanged. Bodily processes are grounded in a unifying principle, which persists soundly from the beginning to the end of our life (see also De Presster, Knockaert 2005). Because of these scientific data we consider the Biblical and Aristotelian concept of the soul superior to the concept of self. The notion of the soul refers to functional organisation as well as to biological and cognitive capacities of the human person and their mutual interdependence. The notion of self, instead, is traditionally bound to cognitive processes alone.

    The explanatory gain of the concept of soul becomes obvious in cases of dramatic personality changes: Even if a person suffers from multiple personality disorder, it can still be claimed that this person is identical with him/herself because he/she still has the same soul. Hence, the challenge can be met that while there are situations which dissolve the conscious appraisal of one’s personal identity into a loose sequence of psychological states or even the loss of psychological activity altogether, this does not preclude us from accepting the diachronic identity of persons themselves. Taking the concept of soul as starting point of our argumentation, we do not have to claim that psychological states constitute a person and her identity. Psychological states reveal an essential characteristic of human nature under suitable circumstances.

    We take the soul to be a useful concept for conceiving the human being as psycho-physical unity. There is just one subject – the animate organism – which in virtue of its nature is able to do the things a living being of this specific kind typically does (if circumstances permit).

    Spelling out how such a concept of personal identity has to be thought can be undertaken only in an interdisciplinary endeavour. Natural sciences are able to tell about the physical conditions which are to be met for our identity, as the reference to Damasio’s work has shown. Natural sciences give us concepts that tie the concept of the soul to our concrete existence in the here and now. Philosophy is important because it is the discipline which analyses concepts of personal identity and the ontological commitments coming along with them. Theology and religious sciences study Biblical anthropology, God’s relation to mankind and how these creeds developed and changed over time our notions and concepts of the soul.

    I appreciate the discussions with my colleagues and friends, Josef Quitterer, Georg Gasser and Mathias Stefan, Institute of Christian Philosophy, University of Innsbruck (Austria), and I am grateful for their support concerning my knowledge about Aristotle’s and Aquinas` concept of the soul and the consequences for the dialogue with natural sciences, especially neuroscience.


    References

    Aristotle (1957): On the Soul (De Anima) et al. With an English translation by W. S. Hett. Loeb Classical Library 288 (Aristotle VIII). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, revised edition.

    Assmann, J. (2001): Tod und Jenseits im Alten ƒgypten. M¸nchen: Beck Verlag.

    Bratsiotis, N. P. (1966): Nephesh-psychË. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Sprache und der Theologie der Septuaginta, in: G. W. Andersen et al. (eds): Congress volume 5, GenËve 1965. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 15. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 58-89.

    Corcoran, K. J. [ed] (2001): Soul, body, and survival. Essays on the metaphysics of human persons. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.

    Damasio, A. R. (1999): The Feeling of What Happens. Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace.

    De Presster, H., Knockaert, V. [eds] (2005): Body Image and Body Schema. Interdisciplinary perspectives on the body. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Hinterhuber, H. (2001): Die Seele. Natur- und Kulturgeschichte von Psyche, Geist und Bewusstsein. Wien, New York: Springer-Verlag.

    Janowski, B. (2006): Konfliktgespr‰che mit Gott. Eine Anthropologie der Psalmen. Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag; 2nd revised and expanded edition.

    Lints, R. et al. [ed] (2006): Personal Identity in Theological Perspective. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

    Lys, D. (1966): The Israelite Soul According to the LXX, Vetus Testamentum 16, 181-228.

    Merricks, T. (2001): Realism about Personal Identity over Time, Philosophical Perspectives 15.

    Koester, H. (2007): Natural Law (nomos physeos) in Greek Thought, in: H. Koester, Paul and His World. Interpreting the New Testament in its Context. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 126-142.

    Nickelsburg, G. W. E. (2006): Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Christianity. Harvard Theological Studies 56, Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press, expanded edition.

    Quitterer, J. (2003): Unser Selbst im Spannungsfeld von Alltagsintuition und Wissenschaft, in: G. Rager, J. Quitterer, E. Runggaldier (eds): Unser Selbst. Identit‰t im Wandel neuronaler Prozesse. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schˆningh, 2nd corrected edition, 61-142.

    Runggaldier, E. (2003): Deutungen menschlicher Grunderfahrungen im Hinblick auf unser Selbst, in: G. Rager, J. Quitterer, E. Runggaldier (eds): Unser Selbst. Identit‰t im Wandel neuronaler Prozesse. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schˆningh, 2nd corrected edition, 143-221.

    Schroer, S, Staubli, T. (2005): Die Kˆrpersymbolik der Bibel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft; 2nd revised edition.

    Stendahl, K. (1963): The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West. Harvard Theological Review 56, 199-214.

    Stump, E. (2006): Resurrection, Reassembly, and Reconstitution; in: B. Niederbacher, E. Runggaldier (eds): Die menschliche Seele. Brauchen wir den Dualismus? Frankfurt a. M.: ontos, 153-174.

    Vogel, H. J. (1963): The Old Testament Concept of the Soul. Lectures read at the Pastors’ Institute held at Dr. Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minnesota, July 8–12 1963 (see www.wlsessays.net/authors/V/VogelOTSoul/VogelOTSoul.pdf).

    Wagner, A. (2006): Art. „Mensch“ (Altes Testament), in: M. Bauks, K. Koenen (eds, Alttestamentlicher Teil) Das wissenschaftliche Bibellexikon im Internet (www.wibilex.de), Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.

    Wagner, A., [ed] (forthcoming): Aufbr¸che. Alttestamentliche Menschenkonzepte und anthropologische Positionen und Methoden. Forschungen zum Alten Testament. T¸bingen: Mohr Siebeck.

    Wolff, H. W. (2002): Anthropologie des Alten Testaments. G¸tersloh: G¸tersloher Verlagshaus; 7th edition.

    This paper will deliver a fresh approach to holistic concepts of the soul in the Ancient Mediterranean World, with special focuses on Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew and Greek sources. In order to gain a differentiated view, a short survey of Ancient literal and iconographic material that supports non-holistic concepts will also be given as a sort of contrast folio.

    In the Western World, the body-soul dualism seems to be widespread. The Gnostic Christian Valentinus (ca. 100 – ca. 160 CE) conceived the human being even as a triple entity, consisting of body (Greek: soma, hyle), soul (Greek: psyche), and spirit (Greek: pneuma). According to a series of scholars, this equates to the division they find in St. Paul’s Epistles (e.g. the Epistle to Thessalonians) and therefore also in various concepts of Christian anthropology. Some authors also try to trace back the origins of that concept to the philosophy of Plato (428/427 BC – 348/347 BC). The Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 484 BC–ca. 425 BC) wrote that the Egyptians have been the first who stated the immortality of the human soul and its leaving of human corpses after death. This observation would fit perfectly to the traditional view that (Christian) Gnosis and Gnosticism has its roots in Egypt, combining Platonic and Old Egyptian traditions.

    An overview of Ancient Egyptian concepts of the soul (including iconographic developments of the so called “soul bird” from early beginnings) will show the complexity of Ancient Egyptian anthropology. A person lives in a bodily sphere as well as in a social sphere. Each sphere is constituted by two aspects: the body and the soul. In the bodily sphere of a person, we can identify the ha (occasionally a plural haw, meaning approximately sum of bodily parts) as the body and the sheut (shadow) and the ba (personality) as the soul, whereas in the social sphere sch (mummy dignity) stands for the body and ka (life force) and ren (name) for the soul. So the Ancient Egyptian concepts seem to provide a double dualistic structure.

    However, in the Hebrew Bible as well as in its Greek version, the Septuagint, we can find holistic concepts of living beings. The most important keyword of these concepts is soul (Hebrew: nephesh; Greek: psyche). This observation corresponds to concepts of soul that are proposed by pre-Socratic philosophers and authors (e.g. Aischylos, Antiphon, Aristides, Euripides, Hesiod, Pindar, Sophokles) as well as by the post-Platonic philosopher Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), especially in his De Anima (On the soul). The works of Aristotle had a great influence on the concept of the soul that the Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225 –1274 CE) developed in his Summa Theologica.

    5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10496 Understanding Levels: Redefining Science in an Emergentist World View

    An emergentist world view sets certain challenges to our notion of science and of the kinds of explanations of our world that it seeks. A first is to identify different emergent levels of reality, the living from the non living, the conscious from the non conscious, and within consciousness itself the distinctive emergence of the creative powers of the mind and the freedom of decision making. A scientific explanation of levels will entail an analysis of what is distinctive about the properties and activities on the different levels, the worlds that they operate in and the upward and downward causal relations involved with other levels. All of these feed into a transdisciplinary approach to personhood.

    I

    In his DNA, The Secret of Life James Watson formulated his reductionist creed for molecular biology: ‘Life is just a matter of physics and chemistry, albeit exquisitely organized chemistry.’2 By 1966 it became known that it is involved in the synthesis of the 20 amino acids which in turn manufacture proteins. The genetic code according to Watson brings DNA to life! Red blood cells are produced in the bone marrow by stem cells at the rate of around two and a half million per second. Following Crick and Watson this was interpreted in terms of the active agent DNA synthesizing the haemoglobin in the cells in a most complex and precisely timed switching process. But this basic reductionist strategy of attributing agency to genes, which after all are only chemical molecules, is now being critiqued by some as ontologically and ontogenetically misguided. Alternatively it can be proposed that in the regular manner and precise timing in which we find DNA exquisitely organized in protein synthesis by the cell or more generally the organism we can identify properly biological laws at work. Perhaps Watson in his above remarks is, without recognising it, undermining his very reductionism.

    What is distinctive about emergent biological laws is that they are developmental, they are involved in the development of organic life from a single cell to the myriad of body designs and related life cycles that we find in the genera and species of our world. So as well as housekeeping genes involved in protein synthesis there are also to be found in the animal (but not the plant level) the Hox genes that have a fundamental role to play in the development of the emerging body design of the organism, be it a fish, frog, bird or human. These are distributed in a spatial sequence along the chromosome and their switching on and off is precisely synchronised with the development of the body shape along the parallel spatiality of the head to tail body axis. Mutate Hox genes and in many instances you mutate body design. This can lead to the reductionist conclusion that the adult human organism is simply the product of the cumulative switching on and off of the appropriate Hox genes (or more generally the genome) at the appropriate time in the process of development.

    But is there not much more to development and evolution than can be learnt by focusing on genes and genomes? Is it not the case that no part of any living unity and no single process of any complex activity can be fully understood in isolation from the structure and activities of the organism as a whole? This leads Jason Roberts in his Embryology, Epigenesis and Evolution, Taking Development Seriously to question why organisms are still ‘so often portrayed as basically or ultimately the product of genes.’4 In a debate about dreams at The Science of Consciousness Conference in Tucson in 2006 a neuroscientist was adamant that dreams were just neural noise, a Freudian, that they had all the meaning and significance in a person’s life of Freud’s interpretative analysis. Are the dreams caused by accidental neural processes or does the organism manipulate the neural basis for the dream out of the life context? As biological organisms can manipulate their chemistry why should the stresses and strains of the psychological processes of an organism not be able through their proper autonomy and laws to manipulate the neural structures and processes in the production of dreams? As Lonergan puts it, in the drama of our lives with others can there not occur a ‘subordination of neural processes to psychic determinations.’6 The memories so evoked were disjointed, hallucinatory, and difficult to analyse. This posed for him the question: how and from where in the brain did the concert pianist transform that crude action into the subtle, dextrous movements of a Mozart piano concerto? Or a ballerina transform the crude cortical reflex into the graceful points and pirouettes of the Nutcracker Suite? It is significant that he poses the question in terms of the pianist being the agent of transformation. Reductionists would rephrase the question as: how does the brain produce the concert pianist and ballerina?

    Similarly in the context of learning a new language as spoken with an extensive vocabulary to be learned and used in everyday and technical situations the question arises: does the brain produce the language user or the language learner transform (subordinate) brain processes in the course of becoming a competent linguist? Clearly we can agree with Jackendoff that the brain will be involved at the speaking/phonetic level in learning a language, and at the sensory motor level in becoming a dancer or pianist.8

    In this excerpt we can see the problems of the relation between the neural and phonetic/symbolic levels in reading and speaking and the further level of intelligence in which there enters the issue of the relation, central to what language is, between thought, word and reality, the world of the language user. To overlook the thought-reality-world relation and concentrate on the neural and the qualia/phonetic levels of language learning and use is to rob language of its core. It is because of the instrumental nature of the sign that our thoughts can be expressed in enormously different symbol systems.

    In this context Crick, like Watson, also adds, for him, a quite problematic remark: ‘Our wonder and appreciation (of the explanatory quest) will come from our insights into the marvellous complexities of our brains, complexities we can only glimpse today.’10 What is also interesting is that in very many case studies of great scientific insights there is identified an element of the presentation by the imagination of the elements of the unsolved problem to our mental striving. As Watson cannot answer and avoids the question as to how the chemistry of life is so exquisitely organized, so Crick and Pinker are left with a conscious mental residue, the wonder and leap of insight of the discovery process which will resolve and clarify all that is confused and incomprehensible in consciousness studies at the moment.

    But once that admission has been made about the source of the breakthrough it brings with it some unpalatable consequences for reductionists. It involves the recognition that there is a distinct form of first person consciousness, the scientific form of consciousness that studies the neural correlates of the visual consciousness of others. Called simply human intelligence it can be argued that that form of consciousness does not reduce to anything else but explains everything else. It is fundamentally accessed, not through fMRI scans or the like but through narratives of scientific discovery. Until such narratives of discovery have been composed the insight experiences involved in the discovery process remain in the dark, unknown. Once such narratives of discovery have been recognized for what they are, objectifications of the first person consciousness of the research scientists exploring a particular domain, a reductionist world view is undermined.

    II

    David Chalmers has forcibly argued that the qualia of the experiential, the awareness of purple or the sound of the spoken words, are irreducibly different from the correlative neural processes in the brain.12

    I would now like to suggest that Chalmers has not gone far enough with his assertion of the irreducibility of the dual properties of the neural and qualia. Effectively it overlooks further components in consciousness, notably the performance of problem solving and resolution by means of insights, aha or moments when something clicks and one can go on with things, around which exactly the same arguments can be made. Such insight experiences are now slowly being recognized as foundational for creative mathematics and science. In can also be argued that there is an even greater irreducible qualitative difference between the wonder and moments of breakthrough that come in insight problem solving, and experiential visual experiences and their imaginative counterparts in and through which the elements of the problem to be solved are presented.

    James Watson’ book, The Double Helix is not directly about the molecular biology of the cell but, as the subtitle of the book makes clear, it is ‘A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA.’ Among others, two things are happening in Watson’s narrative of discovery. Firstly, there is an account of the actual problem content. There the emphasis is on the chemical properties of DNA. It would eventually find its objectification in the short paper sent to Nature in April 1953. Secondly, there is an emphasis on how those properties were discovered. There the emphasis is on the first person consciousness of the scientific researcher which finds its objectification in his 1968 book. It is addressing, not the question about the hereditary code in the cell but about how he, with Crick and others as human beings, discovered it. Clearly there is the dramatic interaction of the small group of scientists involved in the process which, rightly, has fascinated many. Our present focus brackets that drama to address the question: What does the narrative of discovery teach us about the mental powers or processes which make the breakthrough? Where and from what sources and emergent levels in us do scientific discoveries come?

    In his early years Watson was influenced by his reading of Schrˆdinger’s What is Life in which it is speculated that the key to hereditary processes are locked up in an aperiodic molecule. In 1944 Avery identified DNA as the possible molecule involved. Watson became excited when Maurice Wilkins introduced him to an X-ray diffraction picture of DNA and the discovery that genes could form crystals. This was followed by an introduction to the alpha-helix by Linus Pauling from Jean Weigle. His first approaches to Max Perutz about joining him in Cambridge were unsuccessful but Watson persisted. There followed, in the fateful collaboration with Francis Crick, an at times painful period of learning from his mistakes. Early in 1953 after, yet again, his scheme had been torn to shreds, this time by the American crystallographer Jerry Donohue, he found himself forced to take on board the corrections. He was so fearful at this time that they would lead him, yet again, to another cul-de-sac, that he put the required steps on hold until the following day.

    When I got to our still empty office the following morning, I quickly cleared away the papers from my desk top so that I would have a large flat surface on which to form the pairs of bases held together by hydrogen bonds. Though I initially went back to my like-with-like prejudices, I saw all too well that they led nowhere. When Jerry came in I looked up, saw that it was not Francis, and begin sifting the bases in and out of various other pairing possibilities. Suddenly I became aware that an adenine-thymine pair held together by two hydrogen bonds was identical in shape to a guanine-cytosine pair held together by at least two hydrogen bonds. All the hydrogen bonds seemed to form naturally; no fudging was required to make the two types of pair bases identical in shape. Quickly I called Jerry over to ask him whether this time he had any objection to my new base pairs.14 What the event teaches us is that once the correct imaginative presentation of the elements of the problem of the base relations is in place the image causes the insight. The fact that the base structures as he now understood them were spatially complementary meant that they could hold together a two chain helix with no irregularities in it. The unzipping and re-zipping of that double helix could in turn be the ground of the hereditary mechanism which they were in search of. After many false starts and oversights Watson now communicated the content of his insight to Crick, and later the staff of the Cavendish and King’s College, inviting them to test it and see if they could find any flaws. Although Crick would not give his approval to the overall structure of DNA until the 1980s the base structure stood up to the test. None were forthcoming.

    The content of insights, of eureka moments or discoveries in this sense are always communicable. When the peer group associated with the problem shares an understanding of what conditions a solution must fulfill then the content moves out of its solitary genesis and becomes a part of the understanding of the group. In many cases a new insight can require an intellectual conversion, that is to say a difficult change in ways of thinking about the problem in the group. Still, the communicative nature of the formulations of insights and its rapid entry through the revisions of text books into the educational process reveals that the cultural activity and collaboration that is scientific research and its communication breaks free of the slow process of biological evolution and adaptation. In this sense insight events are at the heart of cultural evolution.

    Towards the end of the 1950s three French researchers, Jacques Monod, FranÁois Jacob and Arthur Pardee, found themselves drawn into an intriguing puzzle concerning the genetics of cell metabolism. In the course of nurturing the bacterium Escherichia coli on a mixture of two sugars, glucose and lactose, it was found that it stopped growing for about an hour and then resumed, absorbing the lactose. As the growth rate differed from the sum of the individual growth rates it was clear that the organism was digesting them sequentially. Monod, Jacob and Pardee would meet in Monod’s office each day ‘thinking up hypotheses, possible regulatory mechanisms, and inferring from them the results we could expect from the projected experiment.’16

    There follows in Jacob’s memoir The Inner Statue a wonderful account of the distinction between what he terms day science and night science. Day science is the science of the organized textbook such as we find in Essential Genetics: A Genomics Perspective by Daniel Hart and Elizabeth Jones. It has the majestic arrangement of a Bach fugue or French garden. Night science, on the other hand, ‘wanders blindly. It hesitates, stumbles, falls back, sweats, wakes with a start. … At the mercy of chance, the mind frets in a labyrinth, deluged with messages, in quest of a sign, of a wink, of an unforeseen connection. Like a prisoner in a cell, it paces about looking for a way out, a glimmer of light.’18

    His wife discerns that he has had enough of the film and they leave and on the boulevard Montparnasse he tells her that he thinks he has grasped something of significance. Later, in their house, he tries to no avail to communicate the importance of the moment.

    Only in September does he get to discuss it with Monod, the two faces of whose character he etches with artistry, the charming and the dogmatic/domineering. There follows over time a long conversation between them, Jacob trying to change Monod’s ideas, a task that he admits was not easy. Jacob liked his hypothesis, not just because of its simplicity but for a ‘crazier reason,’ effectively the imaginative source of his insight.

    Some weeks earlier, I had observed my son Pierre playing with a model electric train. The train had no rheostat. Nevertheless, Pierre could vary the speed of the train by manipulating the switch, making it oscillate faster or slower between start and stop. Then why not a similar mechanism in the synthesis of proteins?20

    Volkin and Astrachen has shown that their RNA, unlike ribosomal RNA had the same composition as DNA and quickly renewed itself. This clearly suggested its relevance for protein synthesis. Crick later described the impact of the moment.

    It is difficult to convey two things. One is the sudden flash of enlightenment when the idea was first glimpsed. It was so memorable that I can recall just where Sydney, FranÁois, and I were sitting in the room when it happened. The other is the way it cleared away so many of our difficulties. Just a single wrong assumption (that the ribosomal RNA was the messenger RNA) had completely messed up our thinking, so that it appeared as if we were wandering in a dense fog. I woke up that morning with only a set of confused ideas about the overall control of protein synthesis. When I went to bed all our difficulties had resolved and the shining answers stood clearly before us. Of course, it would take months and years of work to establish these new ideas, but we no longer felt lost in the jungle. We could survey the one plain and clearly see the mountains in the distance. … The new ideas opened the way for some of the key experiments used to crack the genetic code ….22 The consensus was that there was a high likelihood of it failing. Mullis had a somewhat similar experience.

    Insights such as those illustrated are not just isolated moments. Rather they are prepared by a long pre-history involving a mastery of the problem as problem and which usually involves the making of many mistakes. Neither are they marginal or peripheral to science but are definitive in their content of the core of molecular biology. Once they have emerged their consequences for future science and the future manipulation of the world they make known become enormous. In this sense they are not like qualia at all, the immediate empirical/sensible presentations of the elements of the problem. They grasp intelligibility in those sensible presentations, the mechanism of hereditary transmission by means of a four letter code in the base structure of a double helix molecule in human chromosomes or the triplet code by means of which DNA is involved in the production of proteins. In this they have properties which distinguish them from qualia. There follows a need to open up Chalmer’s property dualism to include further irreducible properties such as the creative moments of insight of the human mind and their scientific significance.

    Only recently is the importance of these emergent eureka moments in scientific research and problem solving beginning, minimally, to be acknowledged. Related is a growing increase in the use of the word ‘insight’ in scientific literature.24

    In an emergentist definition of science, the consciousness that does original and creative science or mathematics, Jacob’s night science, will then be more significant than that which does day science. This is in line with the remarks in the ‘Preface to the Series’ at the start of Crick’s memoir, What Mad Pursuit. In contrast with the technical and in many instances mathematical based knowledge accumulated by science in its historical evolution, the doing of science itself is an enterprise

    conducted by men and women who are stimulated by hopes and purposes that are universal, rewarded by occasional successes, and distressed by setbacks. Science is an enterprise with its own rules and customs, but an understanding of that enterprise is accessible, for it is quintessentially human. And an understanding of the nature of the enterprise inevitably brings with it insights into the nature of its products.26An emergentist view of science will of its nature give the importance that it deserves to the human dimension of this hugely creative and self-revelatory enterprise.

    III

    A further emergent feature and associated level of the consciousness that does science as portrayed in narratives of discovery is the element of emergent choices, in particular those concerned with choosing a life career. In the life narratives of Darwin, Crick and Venter there is an early period when they have little idea as to where their life is going and leading them. Still with hindsight in many cases there can be discerned in those early periods an extraordinary process of unplanned preparation for the life that is to follow. This is certainly the case for Darwin up to the voyage of the Beagle. Such an early phase comes to a head in a period when there is involved a self conscious decision to pursue a research career in science, and within that career specific problems.

    In a chapter entitled ‘The Gossip Test’ Francis Crick describes how he came freely to make decisions about becoming a research scientist and about the creative scientific research which he wished to devote himself to in the course of his adult life. After his wartime experience he found himself at the dangerous age of thirty exploring his life options. Some of his friends even thought that he should go into journalism. He had an ability to turn his hand to new things and was sure that he wanted to do fundamental research, but was unsure of his abilities. On consulting Kreisel about the matter he got the reply: ‘I’ve known a lot of people more stupid than you who’ve made a success of it.’28

    With some help from his family and a studentship from the MRC he spent two years at Strangeways. A fateful meeting with Mellanby resulted in his being transferred to the Cavendish to work with Sir Lawrence Bragg. It was the subsequent arrival of James Watson in the Cavendish that resulted in Crick, with Watson as a collaborator, working on the problem of the structure of DNA, even though it was not his allotted research.

    From our present perspective the important thing is the impact of a life career choice on a life story. Crick’s root decision in his early 30s to become a research scientist would effectively direct the unfolding of the rest of his life until his dying day. After working on DNA there was a follow up dealing with the related problem of the genetic code which was resolved in 1966. At this point he and Sydney Brenner felt they needed to move into new fields, initially embryology and developmental biology. But a move to the Salk Institute in 1976 brought with it a more radical change in direction. After several years of detaching himself from his old interests he began to focus on the workings of the brain.

    I decided that my main long-term interest was in the problem of consciousness, though I realized that it would be foolish to start with this. ..  My next problem was to choose some particular aspect of the mammalian brain. How can one study vision in man by working on monkeys? …  I decided that, at least at first, I would not attempt to do experiments. … Having decided that I could learn about the mammalian visual system, my next problem was to select which aspect to study first. …..  Looking back, I can recall now how very strange I found this new field.30The decision led to him eventually setting up the largest gene sequencing laboratory in the world. The rest of his research life to date has flowed out of that decision. In this sense decisions have flexible causal consequences on all the lower levels in the unfolding of a human life. The life grows organically rather than mechanically out of them.

    From our present viewpoint decisions are concerned with what the person considers worthwhile doing with their life. In this case the pursuit was not of manufacturing commodities or infrastructure, but of knowledge of specific genomes, of a solution of a currently unsolved research problem as a value. As there are the neural correlates of visual consciousness so also there are the intellectual correlates of decision making. One can only make such decisions on the basis of one’s understanding, however slight, of some of the details and importance of the unsolved problems. Secondly, decisions are not isolated events in an unfolding life. They have causal consequences; they introduce a direction in a life where previously there was an element of drift. That directing presence can operate almost unnoticed for great time spans. This in turn poses questions about the very difficult problem currently being opened up of upward and downward causation.

    IV

    The different levels of reality and their worlds, the molecular, biological-organic, sensory-imaginative-qualia, the insightful, and decision making that have been identified pose the challenge, how are we to understand their relationships? Philip Clayton’s discussion in his Mind and Emergence of the problem of explaining the relation between levels in terms of upward and downward causality brings a focus into the problem.32 In that moment she fell in love with the cello; it had caused her heart’s desire to awaken. For the great majority listening to music causes a state of enjoyment or peace or calm in our self awareness. The causality involved in du PrÈ’s experience included that and more. The additional causality involved in the awakening of a core human desire is more like the fertilization of a seed or the initiation of a quest than the more straightforward causality involved in switching off a light or in causing enjoyment.

    Because of the musical environment in her family du PrÈ, at such a young age, would have had a necessary and a sufficient initial understanding of what she recognized to be an awakening of her heart’s desire in order to choose to pursue it. Such understanding is a lower level correlate of decision making. There is in this experience a clear-cut example of upward causation both of the awakening of the desire and of the subsequent decision. What is also important about it is how it clearly indicates that our core activity of decision making is not isolated from our understanding of the empirical and material world but causally inserted in it. Du PrÈ’s decision was about what she wanted to do and who she wanted to become in the world. Ending the discernment process the emergence of the decision is also the emergence and establishment of a principle of downward causality in the lifestory. Du PrÈ’s training began soon after and with it the earlier upward causation of the event gave way to a form of downward and even interactive downward and upward causation.

    The causality of mind-world relations is of great interest to Clayton. Whereas du PrÈ’s desire was to become a musician, the desire of the mind of great creative scientists such as Einstein or Darwin is to understand and master a known unknown in the world. Darwin’s eventual desire became that of understanding the transmutation of species. After an intense period of exploration Einstein’s desire eventually focused on the problem of resolving the contradictions between the mechanics of Newton and Maxell’s electromagnetism that were posed by the velocity of light. In his autobiography he comments time and again how basic schooling stifled his native curiosity, the potential in the desire of his mind to find and be fertilized by a problem in the world that suitably stimulated him. In and through his reading and his highly imaginative familiarity with certain empirical aspects of the issue the problem came to him. After an experiential period of confusion groping with a topic the problem in the world suddenly begins to come into focus and draws the inquirer into it. The causality of that beginning is not of an isolated episode separated from what precedes and follows it, but of the initiation of a quest.

    It seems from this that the desire of the mind is not internally self starting but needs, causally, to be awakened from its slumbers by external stimulation from the world. Does that subsequent desire interrogate the world as a distant external object from across a chasm which excludes any causal interaction? Is the causal relation purely downward so that the higher level is never moved by the lower? Are the causal relations two-way, so that there can be both an upward and a downward causality in the growth of the problem? Do some anomalous features in the world in an upward manner directly cause the desire to further awaken, and does it respond by initiating an investigation of them? In the subsequent response to the awakening can there be indentified in the story a complex upward and downward interaction as in one phase the desire to know directs the process and in another phase is redirected by the unexpected results of conducted experiments.

    There are in many narratives of discovery accounts of how it is through creative moments of insight that we come to understand the workings of the world. This holds true from basic physics, through chemistry – Mendeleyev and KekulÈ, the biology of the cell, organisms and their growth, as well as the neural structure of the brain. There is no short-circuiting the discovery process of night science in the emergence of such knowledge. As there is a causal complex associated with the awakening of the desire of the mind in an investigation, is there also one associated with moments of insight? The two most contrasting accounts in the literature of the mental causality involved in understanding are those of Kant and Aristotle. In Kant’s philosophical system strictly understood, our understanding is not in any direct manner, causal or otherwise, related to the empirical world. Although knowledge is a unity of the sensible and the conceptual, it is through sensible intuition alone that our minds are connected with the phenomenal world. The noumenal world is unknowable.

    The contrast with Aristotle’s theorem in the De Anima of the identity of the agent and patient, of the to be known and the knower in a mind-world interaction could not be greater. When the bell sounds – as sounding it is an agent cause of the hearing of the sound in the ‘patient,’ that is to say the human subject who hears the sound.  There is an identity in the relation: what sounds in the agent causes the hearing in the patient.

    Aristotle holds that the same identity holds true for human understanding. Moments of insight are not isolated uncaused inner mental events. Combined with the formed questioning of the investigator in relation to the data of the problem in the world, the insight in which a solution becomes revealed is caused by the correct arrangement of the imaginative presentations of the problem. When Watson brings together in the model building the correct proportions and relations of the base structure, the insight is caused in him by what those imaginative presentations represent. The same is true of the insights of Mendeleyev and Kekule. In this sense there are imaginative correlates of insights, different imaginative presentations causing different insights.34 After the insight has occurred what previously was coincidental is now intelligible. This shift in relations from coincidental to intelligible, where the intelligibility can be of many different kinds, is at the heart of the problem of emergence. Lonergan speculates that this emergent relation of the insight in relation to the image is a prototype of all emergences. There is a likeness in it of other forms of emergence but not an identity. Once one has grasped it one has a lever, so to speak, from which to access problems of emergence and of upward and downward causality in disciplines from physics to consciousness. A reason for this is that it is only through our insights into the imaginative presentations that we have access to the solutions to the problems posed by scientists working in all of those disciplines. It is a highly speculative suggestion which needs to be opened up and tested.

    When the solution to a problem in the world has come to you then you can in a sense regularly control and manipulate that problem situation. In discovering PCR Mullis discovered that a particular algorithmic-like sequence of events solved a particular problem. It now became possible on that basis for PCR machines to be manufactured which could then take their place in the biology laboratories of the world. When Venter solved the problem of the mechanics of genome sequencing it again became possible to mechanize it and install such machines throughout the world. Out of the unintelligible randomness of the elements of the problem in the pre-solution stage there emerge at different sites in the world the facilities for solving the same problem as the need arises. The problem could now be solved regularly.

    From the viewpoint of chemistry the controlled timing and production of red blood cells in the bone marrow and related proteins is just a happy but also unintelligible coincidence. From the viewpoint of biology it is understood as one aspect of the solution to the problem of living in an environment. From this perspective the aggregate of chemical activities and their imaginative representations stand to the solution as, more generally, the image stands to the insight. Speculatively it can be suggested that this is a relation that holds true all along the line, from simple protein synthesis to the complex gene switching that takes place in the growth of an organism. In those emergent and regular recurrences of what from the chemical standpoint are surprising coincidences there can be understood through insight the irreducible laws of the higher science of biology. The secret of life does not exist in the chemistry but in the exquisite manner in which it is organized.

    There are possible resonances here with Watson’s remark that ‘life is exquisitely organized physics and chemistry.’ Without the existence of primitive living things, the chemical environment is quite different. Introduce living things and there emerges the regular occurrence of sequences of chemical activities that from the lower viewpoint would be coincidences. As far as the laws of chemistry are concerned it is a mere coincidence that fertilization, cell division, protein synthesis and metabolism, regularly emerge and recur in living things. There has emerged in the living organisms an ability to render regular at the appropriate occasion and time certain sequences of chemical processes. In them solutions have emerged to the problem of living on this level and of the transmission of such life.

    Along these lines it can be speculated that the secret of consciousness does not reside only in its neural correlates but largely in their exquisite organization in the course of such activities as learning a language with its spoken words and their meanings, acquiring musical skills or the skills involved in various sports. Those skills are not biological but meaningful, concerned with living in the properly human world.

    Neuroscientists are now beginning to accept the possibility of programming and reprogramming one’s neurocircuits in learning a language or controlling one’s anxieties.1 DNA: the Secret of Life, (London: Heinemann 2003) 61.

    3 Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 130.

    5Bernard Lonergan, Insight, A Study of Human Understanding, (London: Longmans, 1957) 189. Chapter 6 is concerned with the psycho-neural, 7 with the psycho-social.

    7 Ray Jackendoff, Language, Consciousness and Culture, Essays on Mental Structure, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2007) 80 where Jackendoff asks: ‘What aspects of linguistic structure correspond most closely to the character of awareness – as a it were when one is experiencing speech? On page 83 he puts forward as Hypothesis 3: ‘The form of thought itself is always unconscious.’ Ayn Rand in her The Art of Nonfiction, A Guide for Writers and Readers, (New York: Penguin, 2001) 58 provides a much more acceptable position.

    9 The Astonishing Hypothesis 261.

    11 David Chalmers, ‘Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness,’ Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3): 200-29, 1995 and ‘Moving Forward on the Problem of Consciousness’, Journal of Consciousness Studies 4(1): 3-46. What seems to be missed in this is the significance of emotions/ feelings and the relation between the ego, id and superego.

    13 The Double Helix 152.

    15 FranÁois Jacob, The Statue Within, An Autobiography, (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988) 292.

    17 Ibid., 296.

    19 Ibid., 302.

    21 Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, 120.

    23 To take one of many possible sources, Eric R. Kandel, well known for his reductionism, uses the word with great frequency in his In Search of Memory, The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, (New York: Norton, 2006) xiii, 9, 67, 75, 83-5, 93, 182, 194, 218-20, 228, 236-7, 241, 246, 268, 273, 275, 279, 281-2, 300-1, 306, 319, 324, 333, 339, 357, to pick out a few.

    25 Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, ix.

    27 What Mad Pursuit, 16.

    29 What Mad Pursuit, 151, 162.

    31 Philip Clayton, Mind and Emergence, From Quantum to Consciousness, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

    33 Related is the work of Robert Stickgold who found if students went to sleep shortly after engaging in problem solving with the game Tetris the dreams that occurred in the first hour were concerned with transforming their imagination based on the demands of the problem. http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/10.26/01-sleep.html

    35 Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman, Transforming Anxiety, (Oakland CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2006) xiii where it is suggested that changing your thought patterns can change the physical structure of the brain.

    An emergentist world view challenges us clearly to identify different emergent levels of reality. These include the emergence of the living from the non living, the conscious from the non-conscious, and within consciousness itself the distinctive emergence of the creative powers of the mind and its insights, and of the will and its freedom in decision making. All of these feed into a transdisciplinary approach to personhood.

    The paper will open with some reflections on the molecular and biological levels. In addressing the relation between the non-living and the living, the significance of Watson’s remark that ‘life is exquisitely organized chemistry’ will be explored. The debate in evolutionary developmental biology about whether the developing organism is the product of its genes or genome or their organizer will illustrate the complexity of the problem. The field of neuro-linguistics opens up the problem of the distinction between the neural, the sensory—qualia involved in phonetics, and the intellectual—involved in sense and meaning. This will lead to the conclusion that Chalmers’ thesis that there is an irreducible property dualism involved in the neural and experiential (qualia) levels, does not take the issue far enough. To them, there needs to be added the further irreducible levels and their properties of creative insights, and finally of decision-making.

    Moments of insight and decision-making are largely articulated in narratives of discovery. The middle part of the paper will engage with accounts of such moments in the memoirs of Crick, Watson, FranÁois Jacob and, more briefly, Kary Mullis and Craig J. Venter. It will establish the core foundational role of such moments of insight in the scientific enterprise. It will suggest that the properties of such insight events are not reducible to the experiential (qualia). It will point towards the importance of this further and much neglected level of reality involved in the first person consciousness that does science. It will further engage with such narratives in order to open up the level of decision-making and freedom in that consciousness.

    The final part of the paper will move from description to explanation. A scientific explanation of levels will entail an analysis of what is distinctive about the properties and activities on the different levels, the worlds that they operate in, and the upward and downward causal relations involved with other levels. The upward openness of the higher levels of consciousness to the transcendent will be suggested.

    5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10497 The Singularity of Self in the Later Foucault: Reconsidering the End(s) of Poststructuralist Thought

    IntroductionMurillo'sInternational Philosophical Quarterly27 (1987): 365-380.

    44 Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?”, 128-131.

    46 Foucault, “Society Must be Defended”: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-1976 (London: Allen Lane, 2003), 7-9.

    48 Foucault, “Different Spaces”, in Essential Works of Foucault. Volume 2. Ed. James D. Faubian (London and New York: Penguin, 2000), 175-185.

    50 See Foucault, “La vérité et les formes juridiques” (1974), in Dits et Écrits I, 1421, 1493-149

    Recent years have seen influential ‘left’ theorists such as Alain Badiou, and Slavoj éiûek argue that poststructuralism’s particular form of privileging the other and difference leads to the ‘dispersion’ of the self as ethical agent, as well as to resignation and cynicism concerning politics and the political. Inspired by Lacan and precipitating a growing crisis of poststructuralism, they variously call for a renewed attention to the ‘singularity’ of the self and of events in a ‘return of the Real’ capable of adequately engaging the contemporary socio-political situation.

    This paper considers the later of work of French post-structuralist Michel Foucault against this backdrop—proposing that, at least with regard to his work, the announcement of the incipient eclipse, or end, of poststructuralism may prove premature. Foucault’s work, it argues, engages with such questions of singularity and the real in ways that challenge the trajectories of Badiou and éiûek, even as their critique challenges poststructuralism to re-examine its ends and to re-position its concerns with the other and difference within an altered situation.

    In particular, the paper examines how Foucault in his later analysis of ancient Greek (and Roman) practices of care of the self situates the poststructuralist drive toward ‘becoming other’ in relation to a historically-constituted (if inaccessible) singularity of the self. While Foucault describes this relation to self in uncompromisingly aesthetic and subjective terms, it is shown how this analysis of care of the self performs a re-imagining and critical extension of his earlier conception of his work as ‘fictions’, rooted in specific experiences of exclusion or marginalization, which become true in the new relations to truth that they enable people to develop. As such, the care of the self is enmeshed within Foucault’s broader aracheologico-genealogical framework of thought—a framework that presupposes a sophisticated, if often under-elaborated, evental quality to reality. In this framework, experiences of exclusion and marginalization constitute approximately what Badiou and éiûek would term encounters with the Real.

    The paper concludes by comparing the conception of singularity of self, event and the Real operative in Foucault’s work with those conceptualized by Badiou and éiûek. It argues that the critical point is that Foucault’s work—that is to say, his later work—less lacks attention to the Real than it elaborates a different ‘economy’ of the Real, exemplified by his conception of the singularity of the self and the political ambiguity he ascribes to events. Even as Badiou and éiûek challenge those writing after Foucault to eradicate all traces of a postmodern celebration of difference from the ongoing deployment of his work, Foucault’s work invites a debate about those modes of singularity of the Real, the event and the self that are adequate to the challenges and complexities of the present.

    Foucault’s work…engages with such questions of singularity and the real in ways that challenge the trajectories of Badiou and éiûek, even as their critique challenges poststructuralism to re-examine its ends and to re-position its concerns with the other and difference within an altered situation. This paper was prepared for “Subject, Self, and Soul: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personhood”, July 13-17, 2008, in Madrid, Spain, a program of the Metanexus Institute. 5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10498 Toledo When It Was the Center of the World

    Toledo survives as adazzling miniature of some of the most remarkable aspects of the history of medieval Spain. Through its history we are able to glimpse the panoramic dramas of political changes in the peninsula, as Toledo shifts from Visigothic capital to important city during the Umayyad centuries, and from brilliant city-state during the Taifa years of the eleventh century to new capital of the expanding Castilians. Central to Toledo’s heritage, and still partially visible today, are the traditions of cultural synthesis that are part of what made it the intellectual capital of Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and what makes this chapter of western history so compelling today.

    5/27/2008 05/27/2008 10499 Personhood, Logos and Artificial Intelligence

    Y a-t-il un homme si stupide qui n’invente au moins quelque signe pour se faire entendre? Y a-t-il une bÍte si rusÈe, qui ait jamais trouvÈ? Et qui ne sait que la moindre des inventions est d’ordre supÈrieur ‡ tout ce qui ne fait que suivre?”
    Jacques Benigne Bossuet: De la Connoissance de Dieu et de Soi-mÍme (pg. 103)

    “En arche en o Logos”. This sentence is the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John. The tradition of Christianity has always translated this sentence as “In principio erat verbum” , “In the beginning was the Word”, where the term “Logos” corresponds to “Word”; this translation is accepted today by all the scholars. But the Greek term “logos” is polysemic, i.e. can be translated in Latin as “verbum” or as “ratio”. As an example, the usual translation of Aristotle’s definition of man (human being) in Metaphysics (Z12, 1037b13-14) ”zoon logikon” is “rational animal”, where, in this case, the root “logos”, in the adjective form logikon, has been translated as “ratio” instead of “verbum”. Had the Stagirite translator used the same meaning as the Gospel according to St. John, we human beings would be defined as “verbal animals” instead of rational animals.

    This possible mistranslation of Aristotle can be seen as a remote origin of the concept of intelligence as self awareness, but this equivalence (intelligence = self awareness) can be shown not to be the case, as Ludwig Wittgenstein did; we present below an abstract of Wittgenstein’s point of view.

    The philosopher who mainly contributed to this misunderstanding was almost certainly the Frenchman RenÈ Descartes. Among the multiple merits of Descartes is the fact that he was the first philosopher that explicitly studied epistemological problems, putting aside or devoting less interest to the ontological problems that had been, up to then, the main subject of study amongst philosophy scholars.

    From our own point of view, those epistemological problems started in the Renaissance with the discovery of the certainty provided by the mathematization of the sciences of nature after centuries of acceptance of so called “first principles” as self-evident, without any further investigation. This discovery drove philosophers to try to find a similar degree of certainty in the sciences of spirit. It is possible to summarize briefly three possible solutions to this problem. Let us list them from the most recent to the oldest.

    The commonest solution today of the problem of how to find certainty in the sciences of spirit is that of being able to give a sense to a text; this philosophical school is called hermeneutic. It was originated by the “hermeneutic turn” of the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger.

    An older solution to the problem we are studying is the one that denies any possibility of certainty, reducing it to the sciences of nature, only to what can be measured, counted, verified experimentally; this philosophical school is called positivism and it is particularly important in the logical positivism school typically characterized by the Vienna Circle.

    But the oldest solution to the problem was rationalism, root and origin of the other solutions, and this school was pioneered by RenÈ Descartes.

    The philosophical problem created by rationalism was not the question of the quest for certainty in the sciences of spirit, but Descartes’ answer. Looking for a certainty criterion of apodictic value, he found that he could be sure of the truth of a statement when it was a clear and distinct idea (“idÈe claire et distincte”).

    Descartes, as is well known, started from a universal doubt about everything, or so he thought, even if Wittgenstein showed, centuries afterwards, that this was not the case. The flaw discovered by Wittgenstein at the end of his life is precisely related to language. The Viennese professor at Cambridge emphasized the fact that the Frenchman never doubted the meaning of language: he, like everybody else, needed to found doubts on some certainty, i.e. total scepticism, even if methodical, is impossible, leads to nonsense [see 7,8 for further precisions]. Once more, we find that the verbal aspect of the epistemological problem has been neglected.

    The escape for Descartes’ skeptical method was, as is well known, the “cogito ergo sum” insight. This sentence was felt as absolutely true without any possibility of doubt. It was seen as an “idÈe claire et distincte”, a clear and distinct  idea. Generalizing afterwards on this subject, he arrived at the conclusion that every such clear idea should always be certain beyond any doubt.

    This is an “internalist” criterion and therefore impossible to validate objectively, but the main problem with it is that it leads to the principle that certainty, capacity of attaining truth, intelligence in a word, is essentially the ability of being perfectly aware of his own mind (self- awareness).

    In fact, this philosophical position led to a kind of contamination between certainty and personhood. Using the (implicit) criteria that only persons could attain certainty, it follows that personhood must be identified with the ability of having these “idÈes claires et distinctes”, that’s to say, self-awareness.

    The impact of this new (in the XVII century) idea was enormous, not only among professional philosophers, but also among the general public. Descartes translated his own works from Latin to French and achieved a very large diffusion of his ideas in Europe. Suffice to read the “MÈditations CartÈsiennes” of Edmund Husserl (1929) to see that Cartesian points of view are at the origin of Phenomenology and with it, of all the “continental” philosophy up to the most recent years, up to the hermeneutical turn. Incidentally, the “MÈditations CartÈsiennes” were a set of speeches given in Paris in the Descartes Hall of the University.

     As we said, this is not only the case with professional philosophers, but also with the general public; open any newspaper and on any page you will find, explicitly or -more often- implicitly, the equivalence between intelligence and self-awareness. Consult, for example, the International Herald Tribune of February 25, 2008, on killing elephants in South Africa to end overpopulation, to read:

    The announcement follows months of impassioned debate, with some conservationists arguing for elephant killings to protect the ecosystem, and animal welfare groups outraged at the prospect of slaughtering one of the planet’s most intelligent and self-aware creatures.

    The non-continental (Anglo-Saxon) analytical philosophy, and particularly Ludwig Wittgenstein, has pointed out how flawed is the Cartesian way of seeing intelligence. To defeat his very general statement, it suffices to show a counter example, and this can easily be taken from everyday life. How many times were we sure of knowing something, for instance a subject matter before an examination, just to find afterwards that our idea, even if clear and distinct, was wrong? But to quote a famous, more illustrious, example, we transcribe from St. Augustine’s Confessionum libri XIII, liber XI, caput XIV: “Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio” i. e. “What is time? If nobody asks me, I know; if I want to explain it, I don’t”. Is there a more eloquent objection, stated eleven centuries earlier, to the “IdÈes claires et distinctes” Cartesian thesis? Intelligence can often go along with self awareness, but the real discriminatory criterion between intelligence and non-intelligence, must be found elsewhere, maybe translating the Greek word “Logos” into “Verbum” and not into “Ratio”.

    Even the very motto of this Metanexus conference, again from St. Augustine, “Mihi question factus sum”, implies a self awareness far from being “claire et distincte” and needs words to formulate it: one can be aware of hunger, fear or joy without terms, as a dog often does, but a question cannot be thought, let alone formulated, without words. (Philosophische Untersuchungen Part II, I; Part I, nº 250)

    The explicit refutation of the Cartesian point of view, without naming Descartes himself, came from the Viennese philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein when teaching at Cambridge University (Philosophische Untersuchungen Part I, nº 311 and ff.). His argument is just the one in the preceding paragraph: a dog can show joy knowing that his master is present, this action (even this action of communication with tail movements, jumps etc.) needs no language; but to manifest joy knowing that his master will be present tomorrow at the same time is impossible without the aid of some language similar to the human one.

    One of the “side effects” of Wittgenstein’s philosophical position is related to language (and therefore personhood) as something depending on a collection of individuals. In fact it is well known that Wittgenstein emphasized that language, apart from being a creation of a group of people, must belong to a collectivity: private languages, as Wittgenstein called them, are impossible (Philosophische Untersuchungen nº 243, 258). But, if a person is a verbal animal, then our very personhood, which depends on language, depends also, therefore, on the group to which we belong.

    The bibliographic reference [9] discusses this point, but we can also, in a more pleasant way, remember Lewis Carol in [13]:

    “When I use a word” Humpty Dumpty said… “it means what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”
    “The question is” said Alice “whether you can make words mean so many different things

    This opinion of personhood depending upon the human community through language is shared with the Systemic School (also called Palo Alto School) of psychiatry. This school sees personhood as a “picture” depicted in words, that must constantly be contrasted with the images reflected on other individuals, also in words [see12, no. 3 – 33]

    Some of Wittgenstein’s disciples remarked that the refutation of Cartesian ideas allowed philosophers to put again on the table the work of some older philosophers that had been much neglected after the XVII century, particularly medieval scholars, and mainly Thomas Aquinas. This movement of Wittgenstein’s disciples is known today as “Analytical Thomism”. To put it in the words of one of them, Anthony Kenny:

    …Wittgenstein’s importance in the history of philosophy lies especially in his criticism of the Cartesian framework within which philosophy has been conducted through the modern era, well beyond the critique of Kant. One side effect of Wittgenstein liberation is that it enables us to read the writings of pre-Cartesian philosophers, and in particular of medieval scholastics.

    This is important , because it allows us to define again “mind” as a handful of possibilities, just as medieval philosophers defined the soul as a set of capacities, denoted in latin by the term “potentiae”, possibilities, power to do something. In fact, mastering language is the possibility to effectively speak, and even small (or unborn) children have the ability to acquire such an ability, a second degree capacity or “meta-potentia”, i.e. an ability to get an ability, either by growing or by maturation (learning).

    I think that the authors that best treated the problem of the inner mental world, the pretended “mind theatre”, as it is often called, are Jacques Bouveresse [15] and particularly Gilbert Ryle (see his chapter titled “Self awareness”, and particularly pg. 181 – 184 in [14]). But for the sake of simplicity, let me explain the ideas of both philosophers with a personal anecdote.

    Last autumn, I was preparing a course on this subject one afternoon on the top of a lookout in southern Spain. Going down the hill back home, a man looking like a beggar tried to sell me some tropical fruits. I rejected the offer, suspecting a dubious origin of the fruits, when the man asked me about the book I was holding in my hands. I explained that the book served me to prepare a lecture at the university.

    “Do you lecture at the university? That’s fascinating! Which subject are you going to talk about?”

    “Listen” I told him “I am going to explain it in simple words. Let’s take an example: where must you look to see that boat?”

    “That’s a silly question” answered the man, “I must look at the sea, of course” And he pointed his finger in the right direction.

    “I can read in your face that you are afraid that you will not understand what I’m going to tell you. Is that right?”

    “Yes, I must confess I have a little apprehension.”

    “And where must you look, to see that you have a little apprehension?”

    “That’s an even sillier question” he answered quickly. “I know it, that’s all. I need not look anywhere to see that! It is like a tooth that hurts, I know it hurts, I needn’t look anywhere!”

    “OK, you are a clever man. You understand everything on my subject.” I emphasized. “You need not attend my lecture.”

    That man understood clearly that introspection is not a kind of inner perception [14]; that is the commonest mistake that philosophers as well as non-philosophers make after Descartes, as Jacques Bouveresse and Gilbert Ryle explain in their books.

    * * * *

    One field in which defining intelligence is crucial, is precisely the one called (perhaps improperly) “Artificial Intelligence”.

    In fact, before one can answer the question about the possibility of such a thing as “artificial intelligence”, the term “intelligence” itself should be defined. But, obviously an “internalist” definition like the Cartesian one (self-awareness) would not do, because it would be useless to check if a machine shows self-awareness or not. Nothing simpler than programming a computer to say: “Yes, I am perfectly self-aware”. This not only useless and even inappropriate, but just flat nonsense.

    Is ability to add up two numbers an intelligent operation? Certainly! But we cannot say that the adding machine devised by Blaise Pascal in 1645 was an “intelligent machine”, it was just a product of Monsieur Pascal’s intelligence. The same can be said of the really wonderful multiplying machine of Leibniz, the Analytical Engine of Babbage or the programmes that play chess at grandmaster level today. Personhood implies the ability to do all these things, or the ability to learn to do all these things, but not the other way around: by themselves alone those abilities cannot be said to define intelligent behaviour, they are tools created and used by intelligent people. When we use one of these machines it is its creator who solves the problem, via the previous solution of a meta-problem, but the machine does not solve anything; in the same way as a hammer doesn’t pound a nail, but it is the user of the hammer who does it. The same concept is true, speaking about a more complicated tool such as a computer.

    The most accepted criterion for ascertaining if a device succeeds in showing artificial (or even natural) intelligence is the Turing test, called that way because it was first proposed by Alan M. Turing in his article “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” published in “Mind” in 1950.

    To perform the Turing test, some judges are connected via some appropriate devices to a human being and to a machine. Both are allowed to chat with the judges and, if the judges are unable to distinguish the machine from the human being, the machine is said to have passed the Turing test and is considered to be artificially intelligent. This seems to be an application of the Leibniz principle of identity as indistinguishability.

    Let me say immediately that no machine, computer or programme has ever passed this test. As a matter of fact, a contest is performed every year (Loebner Prize in collaboration with the Cambridge Centre for Behavioural Studies, in a little more sophisticated manner than the one described) and a significant amount of money will be awarded to the first machine able to cheat its judges. A dozen human beings and a dozen computer programmes are made ready to “talk” via a screen and a keyboard and some judges should decide if they are chatting to a machine or to a person; as we say, no programme has ever succeeded in cheating any judge. To render things more likely (and perhaps more interesting) a “restricted Turing Test” is used. In its restricted way, only a particular subject (for example soccer, quantum dynamics or Shakespeare works) is permitted in the exchanges between judges and programmes, instead of just general unrestricted chat, making things easier for the programmes. In spite of this simplification, no programme has succeeded either. [The interested reader can easily consult the transcripts of these conversations in the appropriate internet site].

    But, again, mastering language doesn’t mean just the ability to chat like a person, as Turing seemed to tell us. As we say above, the ability to speak (“potentia”) should allow us to acquire other abilities, as we did in primary school. How did we learn arithmetic? By being told, as we learnt practically every other ability, even nonverbal ones (riding a bicycle, for example). But a machine able to pass the Turing test will not in principle be able to learn by being told, it will not be really intelligent in the same sense as a person is. Some attempts were made in the 60’s to do so: a programme called “Eliza” by Weizenbaum, was able to learn a little “foreign language” (he primarily talks only English) but not in a way to be confused with a human being.

    Another important consideration in this subject is that it is at least as important as being “verbal” to be “animal”, in order to be intelligent, to be a person, as Aristotle told us.

    This assertion looks a little strange at the first sight, but a minute reflection will show that personhood, even in the general non-technical sense, implies something more than pure verbal intelligence.

    A few months ago, I was attending a meeting in which poems were read by a poetess. This woman artist lives, as is usual in these cases, a different life from everybody else. She spends most of her time reading, writing or just thinking, instead of watching TV like everybody else, and this behaviour leads people to consider her as “a brain on two legs”, as an inhuman body.

    After the reading of her poems, somebody approached her saying “I am happy to see that you are, after all, human too. That you suffer, expect, feel depressed etc.”. This utterance deeply struck me as paradoxical. After all, considering inhuman a person just because she thinks all the time looks strange, because thinking is, of course, a typically human action. Moreover, considering her human because she shared feelings also found in animals (joy, fear, worry, sadness etc.) was adding one paradox onto another.

    But some thinking about this fact made me remember the Aristotelian definition of personhood: rational animal! And I realized that we have some tendency to forget the “animal” part of the definition.

    Aquinas defines the human soul as intellect plus will, and people sometimes call “inhuman” certain, perhaps very intelligent, people lacking human feelings, unable to be generous, or insensible to other people’s sufferings etc. This goes in the same direction as Aquinas when he says that man differs from other animals, not only in intellect, but in the most sophisticated internal senses, even -he adds – if sometimes external senses are less perfect in persons than in animals. (Summa Theologiae I pars, questio 78)

    Conclusions:

    1. It seems more appropriate to define personhood as “verbal animal” than as “rational animal” as has traditionally been done.
    2. In this line of thought, the Turing test is appropriate to define a kind of intelligence in a machine, putting emphasis on verbal abilities and being “externalist” and, therefore, objectively checkable.
    3. The Turing test seems to be incomplete, as it fails to show the ability of learning by being told.
    4. The “animal” part in the “verbal animal” definition of personhood is an essential one. Fear, joy, pain and even hunger, thirst, and sexual drive, have a specific way of being in human personhood.


    Bibliography:

    The gospel according to St. John. Trilingual version (on the net)

    Aristotle: Metaphysics

    Aurelius Augustinus: Confessionum liber XIII; http://www.sant-agostino.it/latino/confessioni/index2.htm

    Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae (I pars, q 75-90); http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth1075.html

    RenÈ Descartes: MÈditations MÈtaphysiques GF Flamarion

    Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen Editorial CrÌtica, Barcelone

    Ludwig Wittgenstein: ‹ber Gewissheit, Suhrkamp Verlag KG

    Anthony Kenny: Wittgenstein, Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1973

    Saul Kripke: Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

    Edmund Husserl: MÈditations CartÈsiennes, Vrin 1992

    Alan M. Turing: Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind 1950

    P. Watzlawick et al. Pragmatics of human communication, W.W.Norton & Co. 1967

    Lewis Carol: Through the looking glass, Penguin Classics

    Gilbert Ryle: The Concept of Mind, Penguin Books

    Jacques Bouveresse: Le mythe de l’InterioritÈ,

    The term “Logos” can be translated as “verbum” or as “ratio.” Had the Aristotle translator used the meaning “verbum,” we human beings would be defined as “verbal animals.” This can be seen as a remote origin of the concept of intelligence as self-awareness, but this can be shown not to be the case as Ludwig Wittgenstein did. RenÈ Descartes was the main contributor to this misunderstanding.

    The non-continental (Anglo-Saxon) analytical philosophy has pointed out how flawed this way is of seeing intelligence. As St. Augustine says, “What is time? If nobody asks me, I know; if I want to explain it, I don’t.” This is an eloquent objection to Cartesian thesis. Developing these Ideas, the author arrives to the following conclusions:

    1. It seems more appropriate to define personhood as “verbal animal” than as “rational animal.”
    2. The Turing test is appropriate to define a kind of intelligence in a machine, putting emphasis on verbal abilities and being objectively checkable.
    3. The Turing test seems to be incomplete as it fails to show the ability of learning by being told.
    4. The “animal” part in the “verbal animal” definition of personhood is an essential one.

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10500 Getting Scientific With Religion: A Darwinian Solution . . . Or Not?

    The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.
    ~Einstein

    Introduction

    During the “Intelligent Design” saga explanations of religious phenomena as more or less direct products of Darwinian evolution became popular (e.g. Dennet, 2006; Wolpert, 2006). In contrast, this article argues that a core feature of religion, spiritual experience2.

    My first assumption is that mind has an evolutionary history although I am not concerned about how long this history is (Panksepp 1998, p. 15). There is sufficient evidence that the mind has been finely shaped by natural selection (Dunbar et al., 2005). My second assumption is the attribution of a causal role to motivations of desire and aversion in the Darwinian scheme of things (Panksepp 1998, p. 14). This “folk psychology” belief in the causal efficacy of emotions rests squarely upon a philosophical tradition which includes Aristotle and Hume and is most recently articulated by Mele (Mele, 2003).

    Darwinian Mind/Self

    An entity I’ll call the physical self was born when life began because as soon as a living entity however simple, has needs where needs are defined as conditions which must be fulfilled to ensure reproductive survival, the entity stands as separate (self-other) from the environment providing these needs. At some point the physical self acquired consciousness (embodied mind) and we can clearly see the mark of Darwinian evolution on consciousness or mind: mental representations of physical stimuli are through the process of natural selection programmed to evoke an adaptive motivational or emotional response of desire for stimuli which promote reproductive survival and aversion for stimuli which threaten it. There is abundant behavioural and neurobiological evidence for a binary (+/-) value system in the vertebrate brain which controls behavioural responses in a global fashion (Seymour et al., 2007; Reid Montague & Berns, 2002; Konorski 1967). Leknes and Tracey (2008) review the evidence for extensive overlap in the neural correlates of pleasure and pain and describe a Motivation-Decision model wherein anything more important to reproductive survival than pain inhibits pain (be it a greater threat or the possibility of a reward) and anything more important than reward (such as an even greater reward or a threat for which action is needed) inhibits desire, thus facilitating adaptive avoidance or approach behaviours. There is good evidence that the Ï-opioid and mesolimbic dopamine systems mediate the motivational and hedonic aspects of  both pleasure and pain as well as the reciprocal pain-pleasure inhibition described by the Motivation-Decision model.

    Therefore, to the extent that an animal’s behaviour is causally motivated by adaptive feelings of desire and aversion one can conclude that its mind has been so shaped through the process of natural selection and one can call such a mind Darwinian mind4.

    Primordial, Nonaptive, Non-Darwinian Mind.

    The mappings described in Figure 1 are for the most part “hard-wired” by natural selection as evidenced by the fact that every species (to the extent that its behaviour is causally driven by motivations) likes and seeks what is good for it and dislikes and avoids what is bad for it. These mappings are under the influence of many genes and for all the right (i.e. adaptive) mutations to accrue takes time. It is therefore highly unlikely that primordial mind comprised such a chain of adaptive mappings. It is more likely that primordial mind was nonaptive, comprising a form of subjective awareness which does not necessarily resemble any of the kinds of adaptive awareness or motivational states occurring within Darwinian mind (eg. visual awareness, temperature awareness, hunger awareness, loving or hating awareness etc. which are all of clear functional ecological or social importance). Nonetheless primordial mind must have had some property which when coopted in a particular way added fitness thereby constituting an exaptation. Thereafter the action of natural selection further shaped this exaptation to adaptively connect sensory input to motor output via motivations of desire and aversion thereby creating self-serving (i.e. self-sustaining and self-reproducing) Darwinian mind.

    Escaping/Transcending Darwinian Mind

    Organisms incapable of rational thinking are locked into their desire/aversion mappings, into their Darwinian minds. However humans to varying degrees, are able to exercise a rational point of view, a meta-self capable of seeing Darwinian mind/self for what it is, i.e. a mental program constantly generating emotions of desire/aversion which drag, pull and push the individual hither and thither for adaptive ends. The meta-self corresponds to Mele’s discussion of “human action par excellence” which encompasses a desire to act for superior reasons, high rationality, high self-control, etc. (Mele, 2003, p. 231) and is defined here as that part of the mind which is able to choose how strongly to identify with Darwinian mind/self.

    Turning now to religion, we observe that genuine selflessness is a hallmark of spiritual advancement across all major religions (Armstrong, 2006; Ellis, 2000). Renunciation of self-interests and the placing of others’ needs above one’s own is arguably the sine qua non of serious commitment to the spiritual path. So repeatedly insistent are the various scriptures with teachings of selflessness in its various forms of forgiveness, charity, self-sacrifice for others and self-sacrifice for God that its central importance to attaining and maintaining spiritual states of mind is unmistakable:

    In the Old Testament God tested Abraham’s devotion and obedience by instructing Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, his only Darwinian hope:

    “Take your son,” God said, “your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much and…  …offer him as a sacrifice to me.”(Genesis 22)

    And God’s gift to Abraham for being prepared to sacrifice his Darwinian future was spectacular Darwinian success:

    “…as many descendants as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore…” and Abraham’s “…descendants would conquer their enemies”.

    From the Quran:

     “He who pardons (the evil done to him) and reforms himself, will receive his reward from God.” (42/40)

    And Jesus (famously) taught:

    “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap you on the left cheek too.”  (Matthew 5. 38)

    …emphasising that the self- centred “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” response of revenge only reinforces the Darwinian self.

    Furthermore, the following two teachings of Jesus are a direct transgression of the two most fundamental priorities of Darwinian evolution, viz. ensuring one’s own survival and the survival of one’s offspring:

    “Whoever tries to gain his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.” (Matthew 10, 39)

    “Whoever loves his son or daughter more than me is not fit to be my disciple.” (Matthew 10. 37)

    Nor did the Buddha mince his words:

    “Even if bandits were to sever you savagely with a two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate towards them would not be carrying out my teaching.”(Kakacupama Sutra 9)

    Such extreme teachings of self-sacrifice are simply not reconcilable with evolutionary theories of unselfishness or with Darwinian mind/self. There is nothing in these statements or vignettes which satisfy the requirements of kin selection, reciprocal altruism or group selection. It is therefore proposed that the nonaptive mental territory beyond the borders of Darwinian mind/self, beyond the rule of natural selection is the province of spirituality, but not as will soon be discussed necessarily the home of religion.

    A Model of the Mind

    It is now possible to formulate an idealised model of human mental space in terms of five zones which in practice are in flux and overlap one another:

    Figure 2

    A five zone model of the mind showing differences between Darwinian and non-Darwinian mind in terms of objective factors (second row) and subjective factors (third row). The different categories of morality are shown in the bottom row. See text for details.

    Darwinian  Mind

     

    Transition from Darwinian Mind
    to
    non-Darwinian Mind

     

    Non-Darwinian Mind

     

    ‚bobj > c

    Self-Interested

     

    ‚bobj < c

    Other-Interested

     

    ‚bobj < c

    Relative Kenosis

     

    ‚bobj << c

    Absolute Kenosis

     

    Zone 1
    ‚bsubj > c

    Selfishness

     

    Zone 2
    ‚bsubj < c

    “Unselfishness”

     

    Zone 3
    ‚bsubj < c

    Unselfishness

     

    Zone 4
    ‚bsubj < c

    Relative
    Selflessness

     

    Zone 5

     

    Absolute
    Selflessness

     

     

    Evolved Morality

     

    Transcendent Kenotic Morality

     

    Transcended Amoral

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    In Figure 2, Zone 3 represents the best-case scenario where subjectively and objectively unselfish behaviour can evolve via Darwinian processes. Darwinian Zone 3 and non-Darwinian Zone 4 therefore seem identical, i.e. ‚bobj < c and ‚bsubj < c in both cases. There is however a fundamental subjective difference. In Zone 3 subjectively unselfish motivations born from Darwinian processes are present and although objective self-interest is absent (‚bsubj < c, ‚bobj < c) these unselfish motivations still reference Darwinian self, (e.g. “I try to be a good person”) and are therefore associated with Darwinian mind. However in Zone 4 these motivations are part and parcel of an attitude of relative selflessness and are therefore associated with a transition to non-Darwinian mind and spiritual advancement. In short, there is a moral watershed dividing Zones 3 and 4. In Zone 3, when push comes to shove most individuals will make a left-shift to Zone 2 whereas Zone 4 defines either those rare individuals whose commitment to selflessness enables them to resist overwhelming motivations of self-interest which competitive/threatening situations evoke, or it defines those who are sufficiently liberated from the self so as not to even feel overwhelming motivations of self-interest. Such people, each in their own unique way, are experiencing or have experienced a reality which transcends the self, perhaps as a peak experience of ‘the Truth’, Nirvana or The Kingdom of Heaven or perhaps as a less dramatic but more enduring form of spiritual intuition, or perhaps as both. Experience or knowledge of this spiritual truth with its concomitant selflessness constitutes a potent non-Darwinian motivational pull in direct opposition to the self-preserving motivations of Darwinian mind.

    But Darwinian mind does not give up so easily and the boundary between Zones 3 and 4 must be crossed more than once. In short, the subject is pulled towards Zone 3 by the adaptive Darwinian desires and aversions of the self and towards Zone 4 by the non-Darwinian epiphany of non-self. But each time the subject holds its ground and does not fall back into Zone 3, it progresses from left to right across Zone 4. Each of these instances is accompanied by deeper ‘realisations’ which strengthen devotion towards non-self and sap the strength of desire/aversion. Ultimately the subject may transcend Zone 4 to Zone 5 where it is totally beyond the reaches of Darwinian mind.

    Thus while Zone 3 is characterised by unselfishness and in the seeker by a top-down cognitive attitude of self-renunciation, the distinctive feature of Zone 4 is the spontaneous bottom-up realisation of relative selflessness. Each bottom-up real experience of relative selflessness is a potent basis for intensified top-down self-renunciation, for further de-identification with Darwinian mind/self. The implications of this practical and theoretical distinction for the understanding of morality are next discussed .

    Kenosis and Morality

    Spiritually motivated suspension of desire/aversion cannot take the form of rejecting the objects of desire/aversion or even of rejecting desire/aversion per se’ because this itself is aversion. Instead the emphasis is on the other side of the coin, on the subject rather than the object and entails neutral-minded disengagement from desire/aversion through self-sacrifice, through de-identifying with Darwinian self. The ancient Greek term for this was kenosis, meaning “emptying of the self” (Armstrong, 2006). Kenosis begins at the junction between Zones 3 and 4 where it is zero and increases towards its maximum in Zone 5. Furthermore, within the current model the spiritual purpose of renunciation of desire/aversion is not because these motivations in and of themselves are “bad” but because their undisciplined presence sustains the Darwinian self and its domination of the mind. Similarly, the spiritual purpose of practising genuine unselfishness is not because it is “good” but to undermine the iron grip of selfish Darwinian self on the mind. In short, the selfish, “unselfish” and unselfish aspects of the self (Zones 1, 2 and 3 respectively) are all self-referencing and hence self-reinforcing. Ultimately however, the spiritual journey ends in liberation from all aspects of the self because spirituality in its fully fledged form is here proposed to be the state of complete selflessnessor “no self”6.

    To summarise, Darwinian processes can only go so far. To move rightwards beyond Zone 3 prosocial motivations must be coupled with deep kenosis. When this happens, Darwinian morality segues into non-Darwinian kenotic morality.  Failure to appreciate the subtle shift in emphasis from Darwinian unselfishness to non-Darwinian selflessness which distinguishes Zones 3 and 4 has been a major obstacle in understanding the nature of morality and its relationship to science and religion. To return to the question of religious altruism, in contrast to Green’s finding, religion can lay claim to Zone 4, there can be non-Darwinian religious morality, but only to the extent that religion encourages both morality and kenosis. George Ellis for example, sees room for more kenosis in “all religious traditions… …with a strong element of self-sacrifice as an essential ingredient” (Ellis, 2000). In keeping with the distinction between Darwinian morality and kenotic morality, stronger kenosis is for Ellis inextricably related to deeper religious ethics (Ellis, 2000; Ellis & Ellis, 1997), deeper that is than the ‚b > c religious altruism discussed by Green above.

    Nevertheless, kenotic morality is in a sense merely a means to an end, a necessary station on the spiritual journey from Darwinian mind to nonaptive non-Darwinian mind. The absolute kenosis or selflessness of Zone 5 is amoral, beyond any good or bad because where there is no self there can be no morality/immorality. Any moral or immoral motivations will instantly reference the self and constitute a leftwards shift to Zones 1, 2, 3 or 4.

    A Neural Disinhibition Hypothesis for the Qualities of Spiritual Morality.

    Turning to the biological level, the neural correlates of selfish and “unselfish” Darwinian mind are here hypothesized to reciprocally inhibit each other (Tankersley et al., 2007), with the neural correlates of selfish Darwinian mind usually dominating but allowing the neural substrates of “unselfish” Darwinian mind to dominate whenever there are opportunities which satisfy bb > c. At the psychological level, inhibition of the neural substrates of selfish Darwinian mind as may occur through sustained kenosis is therefore expected to result in the powerful expression of a range of prosocial urges stemming from the now disinhibited neural substrates of “unselfish” and unselfish Darwinian mind. In this non-Darwinian state (Zone 4) the mind is flooded with abnormally intense unopposed thoughts and motivations of moral purity such as charity, forgiveness and self-sacrifice such as are only associated with advanced spiritual states. Another aspect of disinhibition is seen in that Darwinian prosocial transactions require trust/faith to counter doubts/fears thereby tilting the individual towards making a cooperative investment. Disinhibited non-Darwinian mind is therefore expected to be suffused with intense unopposed trust/faith offering an explanation for the sense of unshakeable conviction or belief encountered during spiritual experiences and in people for whom spirituality matters.

    There is an impressive amount of recent evidence showing that moral emotions and motivations such as trust and the willingness to cooperate are readily up- or down-regulated by biological and social factors. Most convincing perhaps is the now famous study of Kosfeld et al. (2005) in which a single dose of the ‘female’ neuropeptide oxytocin increased trusting behaviour in an economic game played by men. Almost half (45%) of the subjects in the oxytocin group showed maximum trust, whereas in the placebo group maximum trust was observed in only 21% of the subjects. The “inhibited Darwinian mind – disinhibited non-Darwinian mind” regulatory mechanism therefore constitutes a general hypothesis accounting for the intense prosocial motivations expressed by spiritually awakened individuals representative of Zone 4 across all traditions8 response as well (Hart, 1987).

    The Darwinian self takes itself and its motivations of desire/aversion very seriously. Refusal to do so amounts to self-negation or self-sacrifice which does not come naturally, is very hard to do and may even be fatally dangerous under conditions where the subject’s life is threatened. But the spiritual seeker must endure this difficulty and risk this danger which are in fact only meaningful within the Darwinian context. Within nonaptive greater mind, the subject has no difficulties or issues of life and death. Arguably, it is only the interpretation of sensations by Darwinian self in terms of desire and aversion with their adaptive life and death consequences that imbues them with their motivational force. Outside the Darwinian framework sensations do not necessarily impinge upon the non-Darwinian subject with the same seemingly inescapable motivational quality as they do on the Darwinian self. The hugely subjective nature of pain perception supports this idea (Beauregard, 2007; Villemure & Bushnell, 2002; Chen, 2001).

    Conclusion

    The spiritual journey requires crossing from mundane Darwinian mind/self (‚bobj > c, possibly sometimes ‚bobj < c) to sacred selfless non-Darwinian mind (‚bobj << c). But Darwinian mind/self and motivations of desire/aversion are two sides of the same coin. Therefore, spiritual progress towards selfless nonaptive mind requires disengagement from desire/aversion but Darwinian morality alone cannot achieve this, non-Darwinian self-sacrifice or kenosis is necessary. However autoregulatory Darwinian mind/self tenaciously repels kenosis by ramping up potent motivations of desire/aversion. This dynamic tension accounts for the ever present yet ever elusive spiritual dimension of the human psyche and hence for the persistence of religion.

    Acknowledgements

    I gratefully acknowledge the following people for their invaluable comments and encouragement during the past three years: Kit Vaughan, Mike Berger, Jack van Honk, Jaak Panksepp, George Ellis and most of all Jos Thorne. I am also especially grateful to the late Stephen Jay Gould and Elizabeth Vrba for their unstinting theoretical rigour. The author was supported by a University of Cape Town Harry Crossley Postdoctoral Scholarship (2006 and 2007) and he is currently the beneficiary of a DST/MRC PDP grant.


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    Endnotes

    2 The construct of unconscious mind is validated by a wealth of evidence in humans showing that non-conscious information processing is pervasive and that such information processing exerts a direct, powerful and constant influence on current and future conscious and non-conscious information processing, as well as on current and future conscious and non-conscious behaviour (Ohman et al. 2007; Solms & Turnbull 200?; Van Honk & Schutter 2007)

    4 Given this allowance it might be more objective to characterise Darwinian mind/self as self-centred rather than selfish but since ultimately unselfish behaviour is rare at best and ultimately selfish behaviour common it seems reasonable to leave the terminology unchanged.

    6 Jonathan Haidt (Haidt 2007) discusses the self as the “main obstacle to spiritual advancement” even going as far as to speak of the “Satanic self”. pp. 207.

    8 The term instinct is here defined as a behavioural or mental activity which arises spontaneously within its natural biological context and is refractory to ordinary learning processes.

    Introducing the non-Darwinian mind as a nonaptation (raw materials of evolution), I argue that the Darwinian mind evolved from the non-Darwinian mind through the evolution of desire and aversion. The subject position within the Darwinian mind is Darwinian self and is inherently selfish. However, the cathexis whereby the subject prioritizes motivations of desire and aversion is not assumed to be an inherent property of mind. Instead, it is proposed to be an adaptation, a predisposition to respond to pleasant/unpleasant sensations with desire/aversion. This explains why self-sacrifice and disengagement from desire/aversion are the sine qua non of serious commitment to the spiritual path, i.e. Darwinian self and desire/aversion are two sides of the same coin and erosion of one is erosion of the other. Thus, through self-renunciation and suspension of desire/aversion the seeker passes from the adaptive selfish Darwinian mind towards greater nonaptive selfless non-Darwinian mind. Nonaptive selfless non-Darwinian mind is greater, because it is not constrained by Darwinian reproductive-survival imperatives and therefore has more degrees of freedom. But the Darwinian mind automatically resists this transcendence by intensifying motivations of desire/aversion thereby explaining the extreme difficulties of the spiritual path. Nevertheless, a model derived from thoroughly Darwinian ideas of how sociality and prosocial emotions evolved is presented which highlights the role of Darwinian processes in facilitating human spiritual experience. Adding the ancient Greek notion of kenosis (emptying of the self) to this model makes it possible to discern a fundamental distinction between evolved Darwinian morality (unselfishness) and kenotic non-Darwinian morality (selflessness). This makes it easy to disentangle scientific and religious jurisdictions on morality with important implications for both religious ethics and for the scientific understanding of spirituality. Lastly, in combination with neurobiological evidence, the model generates a testable “neural disinhibition” hypothesis for understanding the prosocial qualities of spiritual experience. All in all, the nonaptive theory of spiritual mind offers a parsimonious solution to age-old problems which, until now, have been awkwardly shifting this way and that in the interstices between biology, psychology, theology and philosophy.

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10501 Nonreductive Physicalism and Free Will

    1 Introduction

    First I wish to extend my thanks to the Metanexus Institute for planning this conference, for locating it in my favorite European country, and in particular for inviting me to be on the program with the person I’ve long believed to be the most sophisticated scholar writing on the free-will problem.

    In this presentation I shall first briefly outline the history of Christian scholarship arguing against dualism and in favor of a physicalist anthropology, along with even more abbreviated comments on issues in Judaism and Islam. Then I turn to the distinction between reductionist and anti-reductionist forms of physicalism. I claim that reductionism in general has been one of the most significant assumptions of the modern worldview; we are only in this generation working out suitable nonreductive understandings of complex phenomena. The developments here involve definitions of downward causation and of emergence, and the development of a new set of concepts for describing complex dynamical systems.

    The major focus of the paper will be on the most difficult aspect of distinguishing nonreductive from reductive physicalism, that of free will. While I shall not be able to provide here a full treatment of free will, I shall argue, first, that there is no such thing as the free-will problem; it is an anachronistic reading of philosophical history to assume that there is a single problem. What many of the assorted free-will problems do have in common is the opposition of free will to determinism—of some sort or another. The sort of determinism that is of particular interest to physicalists is neurobiological determinism.

    I shall argue, however, that neurobiological determinism is only a worry if neurobiological reductionism is true. The latter decidedly is not true, as I shall attempt to show in the brief time allotted. In making my argument I shall note briefly the contrast between my approach that that of Robert Kane in his influential book, The Significance of Free Will.2 Later translators read dualism back into the texts by employing, first, Greek anthropological terms, and then later translating these Greek terms into modern languages as they had been understood by Greek philosophers. By the middle of the twentieth century is was commonplace to argue that New Testament authors also presupposed a monistic and physicalist account of human nature. Nonetheless, already in the second century, dualism began to appear in Christian teaching. The Epistle to Diognetus (written in approximately 130) described humans as possessing an immortal soul. By the time of Augustine, in the early fifth century, dualism of a modified Platonic sort was taken as the orthodox position.

    Contemporary Jewish scholars appear to be divided on the question of dualism versus physicalism. A persuasive book, though, is Neil Gillman’s The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought.4 What all religious believers need to worry about, however, is the extent to which a physicalist ontology is believed to entail a reductionistic account of human life. In the (in)famous words of Francis Crick: “You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”6

    Now, I want to try to shake up this stalemate in two ways: first, by calling into question the general determinist thesis. There is now no consensus on what the concept of determinism amounts to. For the Epicureans, determinism was in nature itself. After the invention of the concept of laws of nature we have to distinguish between claims that things or events in nature determine subsequent events and the claim that the laws of nature are deterministic. But much has changed during the modern period. The concept of a law of nature began as a metaphor: God has laws for human behavior and for non-human nature. While it was thought that nature always obeyed God’s laws, God presumably could change or override his own laws. By Laplace’s day the laws of nature were thought to be necessary. But today with multiple-universe cosmologies and reflection on the anthropic issue there is much room, again, to imagine that the laws of our universe are contingent: It can be asked why the universe has laws and constants, from within a vast range of possibilities, that belong to a very small set that permit the evolution of life.

    Jeremy Butterfield argues that the only clear sense to be made of determinist theses is to ask whether significant scientific theories are deterministic. This is more difficult than it first appears, however. It may appear that the determinism of a set of equations is simply the mathematical necessity in their transformations and their use in predictions of future states of the system. One problem, though, is that “there are many examples of a set of differential equations which can be interpreted as a deterministic theory, or as an indeterminate theory, depending on the notion of state used to interpret the equations.”8

    So the general claim that all natural events (apart from quantum events) have deterministic causes is too vague to play the role that it so often has in the free-will literature. It is necessary so specify what is supposed to be determined by what. And a legitimate worry is that human thought and behavior are determined by neurobiological processes or laws. For instance, the Hodgkin-Huxley laws that describe the transmission of nerve impulses are strict (deterministic) laws.

    We can see that one obvious route to escape neurobiological determinism would be to show that indeterministic quantum events play a role in neural processes. This is what Kane did so elegantly in his Significance of Free Will. But at this point I have chosen to take a different route. I shall argue that the worry about neurological determinism is misplaced. Rather, what we need to worry about is neurobiological reductionism, and the antidote to reductionism, in general, is the recognition of what has been called in the literature downward causation or whole-part constraint. Causal reductionism presupposes the notion of the hierarchy of complex systems, such that higher-level systems are composed of lower-level parts. Causal reductionism, then, is the thesis that all causation is “bottom-up”—from part to whole. Downward causation is so called because it represents the claim that the whole has reciprocal effects or constraints on its parts.

    4 Downward Causation

    My argument, in brief, will be the following: Neurobiological determinism is only a threat to free will if neurobiological reductionism is true—that is, if our thoughts and behavior are entirely determined by neurobiological processes (or biological processes more generally). This would be an instance of bottom-up causation. However, causal reductionism in general has been called into question by philosophers and scientists in the past generation. The most cogent arguments against causal reductionism are those showing that in many complex systems the whole has reciprocal effects on its constituents. If it can be shown that organisms, in general, impose downward constraints on their own parts, including their neural systems, then the reductionist threat to free will is defused. However, more will need to be said about the differences between genuine human free will and the partial causal autonomy of other complex organisms.

    I believe I can take it for granted that this audience is familiar with arguments for downward causation, largely because of Arthur Peacocke’s work. Thus, I shall be rather brief. First I want to show why causal reductionism seemed unavoidable in early modern physics. But when we recognize that all of those early assumptions have been called into question the reductionist dogma loses some of its grip on the imagination. Next I shall present some recent developments in the understanding of downward causation.

    Reductionism was the apparently necessary outcome of combining the atomism that early modern physicists such as Pierre Gassendi took over from the Epicureans with the notion of deterministic laws of physics. Early modern atomism consisted of the following theses: First, the essential elements of reality are the atoms. Second, atoms are unaffected by their interaction with other atoms or by the composites of which they are a part. Third, the atoms are the source of all motion and change. Fourth, insofar as the atoms behave deterministically (the Epicureans countenanced spontaneous “swerves,” but Laplace and his followers did not) they determine the behavior of all complex entities. Finally, in consequence, complex entities are not, ultimately, causes in their own right.

    When modern scientists added Newton’s laws of motion it was then reasonable to assume that these deterministic laws governed the behavior of all physical processes. In our terms, all causation is bottom-up (causal reductionism) and all physical processes are deterministic because the ultimate causal players (the atoms) obey deterministic laws. The determinism at the bottom of the hierarchy of the sciences is transmitted to all higher levels.

    The tidy Laplacean worldview has fallen apart in more ways than I can catalogue here. Atoms modeled as tiny solar systems have given way to a plethora of smaller constituents whose ‘particle-ness’ is problematic. It is unknown whether these will turn out to be composed of even stranger parts such as strings. The original assumption that the elementary particles are unaffected by their interactions has certainly been challenged by the peculiar phenomenon of quantum nonlocality. Particles that have once interacted continue to behave in coordinated ways even when they are too far apart for any known causal interaction in the time available. Thus, measuring or otherwise tampering with one particle affects its partner, wherever it happens to be. The thesis of this section of my paper is that when we consider parts from levels of complexity above the atomic and sub-atomic, the possibilities for the whole to effect changes are dramatic, and the notion of a part shifts from that of a component thing to a component process or function.

    Scientific ideas about the ultimate source of motion and change have gone through a complex history of changes. For the Epicureans, atoms alone were the source of motion. An important development was Newton’s concept of inertia: a body will remain at rest or continue in uniform motion unless acted upon by a force. In Newton’s system, initial movement could only be from a first cause, God, and the relation of the force of gravity to divine action remained for him a problem. Eventually three other forces, elecrtromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, were added to the picture. Big-bang cosmology played a role, too. The force of the initial explosion plays a significant part in the causes of motion, and it is very much an open question whether there can be an explanation of that singularity.

    And finally, there is the problem mentioned above, that we no longer know how to define determinism. So we might say that the assumption of complete bottom-up determinism has had the rug pulled out from under it.

    Now I shall give just a brief overview of familiar work on downward causation and then add a few recent developments. Donald Campbell and Roger Sperry both used the term “downward causation” in the 1970s. Sperry often spoke of the properties of the higher-level entity or system overpowering the causal forces of the component entities.10

    While downward causation is often invoked in current literature in psychology and related fields, until recently it received little attention in philosophy after Campbell’s essay was published in 1974. In 1995 Robert Van Gulick has spelled out in more detail an account based on selection. The reductionist’s claim is that the causal roles associated with special-science classifications are entirely derivative from the causal roles of the underlying physical constituents. Van Gulick replies that even though the events and objects picked out by the special sciences are composites of physical constituents, the causal powers of such an object are not determined solely by the physical properties of its constituents and the laws of physics. They are also determined by the organization of those constituents within the composite. And it is just such patterns of organization that are picked out by the predicates of the special sciences. These patterns have downward causal efficacy in that they can affect which causal powers of their constituents are activated. “A given physical constituent may have many causal powers, but only some subsets of them will be active in a given situation. The larger context (i.e. the pattern) of which it is a part may affect which of its causal powers get activated. . . . Thus the whole is not any simple function of its parts, since the whole at least partially determines what contributions are made by its parts.”12

    A likely objection to be raised to Van Gulick’s account is this: The reductionist will ask how the larger system affects the behavior of its constituents. To affect it must be to cause it to do something different than it would have done otherwise. Either this is causation by the usual physical means or it is something spooky. If it is by the usual physical means, then those interactions must be governed by ordinary physical laws, and thus all causation is bottom-up after all.

    The next (and I believe the most significant) development in the concept of downward causation is in the work of Alicia Juarrero.14

    She addresses the crucial question of how to understand the causal effect of the system on its components. Her answer is that the system constrains the behavior of its component processes. The concept of a constraint in science suggests “not an external force that pushes, but a thing’s connections to something else by rods . . . and the like as well as to the setting in which the object is situated.”16

    Alwyn Scott, a specialist in nonlinear mathematics, states that a paradigm change (in Thomas Kuhn’s sense) has occurred in science beginning in the 1970s. He describes nonlinear science as a meta-science, based on recognition of patterns in kinds of phenomena in diverse fields. This paradigm shift amounts to a new conception of the very nature of causality.18by adopting Alasdair MacIntyre’s account of morally responsible action, and arguing that if one has the capacities MacIntyre describes for moral responsibility, this is the equivalent of having free will. Of course, definitions are debatable, and we are open to having our work dismissed on the grounds that we have simply side-stepped the issue. Nonetheless, allow me to present our position.

    MacIntyre describes the capacity for morally responsible action as the ability to evaluate that which moves one to action in light of a concept of the good. Spelling this out more fully, MacIntyre says:

    as a practical reasoner I have to be able to imagine different possible futures for me, to imagine myself moving forward from the starting point of the present in different directions. For different or alternative futures present me with different and alternative sets of goods to be achieved, with different possible modes of flourishing. And it is important that I should be able to envisage both nearer and more distant futures and to attach probabilities, even if only in a rough and ready way, to the future results of acting in one way rather than another. For this both knowledge and imagination are necessary.20This concept arises early in life, but becomes more complex through maturation.

    Michael Lewis distinguishes between implicit and explicit self-awareness. The former he refers to as the biological “machinery of self,” the latter as “the idea of me.” The machinery of self is shared with other organisms; it is the ability to distinguish self from non-self and to recognize conservation of self over time.22

    Lewis describes two stages in the origination of the idea of me, that is, of what he calls explicit self-consciousness. The first is physical self-recognition, which generally appears around 18 months of age. It is tested by putting a spot on the child’s nose to see if the child reacts to it in a mirror. Chimpanzees also have this ability. A more advanced form of self-awareness appears during the third year of life and is measured by the ability to engage in pretend play and also by the use of personal pronouns. This capacity is closely linked to the development of a theory of mind, that is, the ability to attribute thoughts and feelings to others.24

    Leslie Brothers reports on research showing that we come well equipped neurobiologically to develop and use what she calls the person concept—that is, to distinguish persons from objects. The perception of a person is a higher-order perception of bodies, a perception that endows them with mental life. In normally developing children this perception becomes automatic.26

    Brothers hypothesizes that our ancestors began with a brain system specialized for perceiving and responding to bodies and their gestures, and that slight modifications of the system have enabled us to generate the concepts of person and mind. For example, we have remarkable abilities to recognize faces. We also have neurons that specialize in detecting bodily motions such as hand movements and direction of gaze that indicate other actors’ intentions.28

    Terrence Deacon emphasizes the essential role of language in the development of this symbolic self-concept:

    Consciousness of self in this way implicitly includes consciousness of other selves, and other consciousnesses can only be represented through the virtual reference created by symbols. The self that is the source of one’s experience of intentionality, the self that is judged by itself as well as by others for its moral choices, the self that worries about its impending departure from the world, this self is a symbolic self.30

    As already noted, there is not time to look at all of the other cognitive capacities needed for free will. However, one requirement must be mentioned because it is prerequisite for nearly all distinctively human abilities—this is the ability to use symbolic language. As Deacon and Brothers point out, it is essential for recognizing our embeddedness in the social order. It also extends our sense of time beyond the immediate past and future, creating our capacity for autobiographical memory which allows us to take responsibility for previous actions and to conceive of our current actions as having distant consequences. It allows for imagining much more complex possibilities for action and in predicting their likely outcomes. Consider, for example, the symbolic capacities needed for planning financial investments. Finally, it is essential for formulating any sort of moral concept.

    Although animals can learn to associate words with objects, genuine symbolic language requires the ability to situate words within complex, hierarchically structured semantic networks. Neuroscience is only beginning to describe all of the brain structures, systems, and processes involved in such classificatory abilities and in the additional tasks of recognizing language and producing it ourselves. Early work focused on the greater size of the human neo-cortex, but more recently Terrence Deacon has emphasized the massive rewiring of the entire brain that seems to have occurred with the development of symbolic language.1 Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 1998).

    3 Neil Gillman, The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1997).

    5 Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), 3.

    7 Jeremy Butterfield, “Determinism,” in Edward Craig, ed., Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998) 3:33-39; 38.

    9Roger W. Sperry, Science and Moral Priority: Merging Mind, Brain, and Human Values (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 117.

    11 Robert Van Gulick, “Who’s in Charge Here? And Who’s Doing All the Work?” in John Heil and Alfred Mele, eds., Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 233-256, quotation 251.

    13 Alicia Juarrero, Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).

    15 Ibid, 132.

    17 Alwyn Scott, “A Brief History of Nonlinear Science,” Revista del Nuovo Cimento 27, nos. 10-11 (2004): 1-115.

    19 Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago: Open Court, 1999), 74-75.

    21Michael Lewis, “The Emergence of Consciousness and Its Role in Human Development,” in Joseph LeDoux, Jacek Debiec, and Henry Moss, eds., The Self: From Soul to Brain, annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1001 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 2003), 104-133.

    23 Lewis, “The Emergence of Consciousness.”

    25Leslie A. Brothers, Friday’s Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 4.

    27Ibid, chap. 3.

    29 Terrence W. Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1997), 452.

    31Deacon, Symbolic Species.

    In my paper, I shall first briefly outline the history of Christian scholarship arguing against dualist and in favor of physicalist anthropology, along with even more abbreviated comments on issues in Judaism and Islam. Then I turn to the distinction between reductionist and anti-reductionist forms of physicalism. I claim that reductionism, in general, has been one of the most significant assumptions of the modern worldview; we are only in this generation working out suitable nonreductive understandings of complex phenomena. The developments here involve definitions of downward causation and of emergence, and the development of a new set of concepts for describing complex dynamical systems.

    The major focus of the paper will be the most difficult aspect of distinguishing nonreductive from reductive physicalism, that of free will. While I shall not be able to provide here a full treatment of free will, I shall argue, first, that there is no such thing as the free-will problem; it is anachronistic reading of philosophical history to assume that there is a single problem. What many of the individual free-will problems do have in common is the opposition of free will to determinism—of some sort or another. The sort of determinism that is of particular interest to physicalists is neurobiological determinism.

    I shall argue, however, that neurobiological determinism is only a worry if neurobiological reductionism is true. The latter decidedly is not true, as I shall attempt to show in the brief time allotted. In making my argument, I shall be aided by reference to points of agreement and contrast between my approach and the approach of Robert Kane in his influential book, The Significance of Free Will.

    The major focus of the paper will be on the most difficult aspect of distinguishing nonreductive from reductive physicalism, that of free will. While I shall not be able to provide here a full treatment of free will, I shall argue, first, that there is no such thing as the free-will problem; it is an anachronistic reading of philosophical history to assume that there is a single problem. 5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10502 The Idea of Levels of Reality and its Relevance for Non-Reduction and Personhood

    1. Introduction – Problems of terminology

    The words “reduction” and “reductionism” are extremely ambiguous. Different authors use different meanings and definitions and therefore extremely unproductive polemics could be generated.

    For example, philosophers understand by “reduction” replacing one theory by a newer more encompassing theory, while scientists understand by the same word exactly the opposite operation. In other words, philosophers reduce the simpler to the more complex while scientists reduce the more complex to the simpler, understood as “more fundamental”. In physics, for example, one reduces everything to superstrings or membranes, by hoping to arrive at a “Theory of Everything”.

    In fact, there are many other meanings given to the word “reduction”: in chemistry, in linguistics, in cooking, in physiology, in orthopedic surgery, etc.

    In order to avoid any confusion, we will adopt here the general scientific meaning: one reduces A to B, B to C, C to D, etc. till we arrive at what is believed to be the most fundamental level. Human thought follows, in fact, the same process of reduction. Reduction is, in many ways, a natural process for thought and there is nothing wrong about it. The only problem is to understand what we find at the end of the reduction chain: is the chain circular and, if not, what how do we justify the concept of “end” at the end of the chain?

    In any case, we have to distinguish “reduction” from “reductionism”. There are many types of reductionisms and there is a real danger in confusing them.

    Sometimes “reductionism” is defined through the assertion that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts. One has to distinguish between:

    1. methodological reductionism: reduce the explanation to the simpler possible entities.
    2. theoretical reductionism: reduce all theories to a single unified theory.
    3. ontological reductionism: reduce all of reality to a minimum number of entities.

    In the literature one finds other kinds of reductionisms: for example, Daniel Dennett defines the “Greedy reductionism”2 (there is an hierarchy of complex organizational systems, every entity on one level being reducible to one level down in the hierarchy). The appearance of both these types of reductionisms serves as a criticism of the extreme forms of reductionism. However, the very fact that there are so many varieties of reductionisms signals a situation of crisis of reductionism itself.

    To avoid any confusion, we will accept, in this talk, scientific reductionism as meaning the explanation of complex spiritual processes in terms of psychic processes, which in turn are explained through biological processes, which in their turn are explained in terms of physical processes. In other words, a typical scientist reduces spirituality to materiality. Philosophical reductionism will correspond to the inverse chain: reducing materiality to spirituality. Both types belong to what can be called mono-reductionism. Some philosophers accept a dualistic approach: materiality as radically distinct from spirituality. The dualistic approach is a variant of “philosophical reductionism”: it corresponds to a multi-reductionism. One can even see, especially in the New Age type of literature, forms of what can be called an inter-reductionism: i. e. transferring of some material aspects to spiritual entities or, vice versa, transferring of some spiritual features to physical entities.

    Non-reductionism is expressed through “holism” (meaning that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and determines how the parts behave) and “emergentism” (meaning that novel structures, patterns or properties arise from relatively simple interactions, resulting in layers arranged in terms of increased complexity). Holism and emergentism have their own difficulties: they have to explain from where novelty comes, without giving ad hoc explanations.

    As we will see, the notion of levels of reality is crucial in conciliating reductionism (so useful in scientific explanations) and anti-reductionism (so clearly needed in complex systems). But before looking at that, we have to acknowledge the extreme ambiguity of the expression “level of reality”. A fast look at Google shows to us more than 1,400,000 entries! A true Babel Tower. This simply means that the words “reality” and “level” are not well defined and everybody uses them in a non-rigorous way. In philosophical literature one finds many types of levels: levels of organization, levels of integration, levels of language, levels of representation, levels of interpretation, levels of complexity, levels of organization, levels of knowledge, and even levels of being. Why do we need a new concept – “levels of Reality”?

    Dictionaries tell us that “reality” means4. This definition puts the accent on causality, but one has to define what type of causality is here involved.

    In order to avoid any ambiguity, I will define “reality” in a sense which is used by scientists, namely in terms of “resistance”6. The last law, postulating that the different levels do not develop continuously, but in leaps, is particularly interesting in the context of our discussion. Roberto Poli8.

    The a philosophical thinking of Heisenberg is structured by “two directory principles: the first one is that of the division in levels of Reality, corresponding to different objectivity modes depending on the incidence of the knowledge process, and the second one is that of the progressive erasure of the role played by the ordinary concepts of space and time.” [p. 240]

    For Heisenberg, reality is “the continuous fluctuation of the experience as gathered by the conscience. In this respect, it is never wholly identifiable to an isolated system“ [p. 166]. Reality could not be reduced to substance. For the physicists of today this fact is obvious: the matter is the complexus substance-energy-space-time-information.

    As written by Catherine Chevalley, who wrote the Introduction to the French translation of Heisenberg’s book,“the semantic field of the word reality included for him everything given to us by the experience taken in its largest meaning, from the experience of the world to that of the souls modifications or of the autonomous signification of the symbols.” [p. 145]

    Heisenberg does not speak in an explicit manner about “resistance” in relation with reality, but its meaning is fully present: “the reality we can talk about – writes Heisenberg – is never the reality ‘in itself’, but only a reality about which we may have knowledge, in many cases a reality to which we have given form.” [p. 277] Reality being in constant fluctuation, all we can do is to understand partial aspects of it, thanks to our thinking, extracting processes, phenomena, and laws. In this context, it is clear that completeness is absent: “We never can arrive at an exact and complete portrait of reality” [p. 258] – wrote Heisenberg. The incompleteness of physics laws is hereby present in Heisenberg, even if he does not make any reference to Gˆdel’s theorems. For him, the reality is given as ‘textures of different kind connections’, as ‘infinite abundance’, without any ultimate fundament. Heisenberg states ceaselessly, in agreement with Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer and Cassirer (whom he knew personally), that one has to suppress any rigid distinction between Subject and Object. He also states that one has to end with the privileged reference on the outer material world and that the only approaching manner for the sense of reality is to accept its division in regions and levels.

    Heisenberg distinguishes “regions of reality” (der Bereich der Wirklichkeit) from “levels of reality” (die Schicht der Wirklichkeit).

    “We understand by “regions of reality” – writes Heisenberg – […] an ensemble of nomological connections. These regions are generated by groups of relations. They overlap, adjust, cross, always respecting the principle of non-contradiction.” The regions of reality are, in fact, strictly equivalent to the levels of organization of the systemic thinking.

    Heisenberg is conscious that the simple consideration of the existence of regions of reality is not satisfactory because they will put on the same plane classical and quantum mechanics. It is for this essential reason that leads him to regrouping these reality regions into different levels of Reality.

    Heisenberg regroups the numerous regions of reality in three distinct levels.

    “It is clear – wrote Heisenberg – that the ordering of the regions has to substitute the gross division of world into a subjective reality and an objective one and to stretch itself between these poles of subject and object in such a manner that at its inferior limit are the regions where we can completely objectify. In continuation, one has to join regions where the states of things could not be completely separated from the knowledge process during which we are identifying them. Finally, on the top, have to be the levels of Reality where the states of things are created only in connexion with the knowledge process.“ [372]

    Catherine Chevalley underlines that Heisenberg suppresses the rigid distinction between “exact sciences of the objective real world and the inexact sciences of the subjective world” and he refuses “any hierarchy founded on the privilege of certain nomological connexion forms, or on a region of the real considered more objective than the others” [p. 152].

    The first level of Reality, in the Heisenberg model, corresponds to the states of things, which are objectified independently of the knowledge process. He situates at this first level classical mechanics, electromagnetism and the two relativity theories of Einstein, in other words classical physics.

    The second level of Reality corresponds to the states of things inseparable from the knowledge process. He situates here quantum mechanics, biology and the consciousness sciences.

    Finally, the third level of Reality corresponds to the states of things created in connexion with the knowledge process. He situates on this level of Reality philosophy, art, politics, ‘God’ metaphors, religious experience and inspiration experience.

    One has to note that the religious experience and the inspiration experience are difficult to assimilate to a level of Reality. They rather correspond to the passage between different levels of Reality in the non-resistance zone.

    We have to underline, in this context, that Heisenberg proves a high respect for religion. In relation with the problem of God’s existence, he wrote: “This belief is not at all an illusion, but is only the conscious acceptance of a tension never realised in reality, tension which is objective and which advances in an independent way of the humans, that we are, and which is yet at its turn nothing but the content of our soul, transformed by our soul.” [p. 235] The expression used by Heisenberg “a tension never realised in reality” is particularly significant in the context of our discussion. It evokes what we called “Real” as distinct from “Reality”.

    For Heisenberg, world and God are indissolubly linked: “this opening to the world which is at the same time the ‘world of God’, finally also remains the highest happiness that the world could offer us: the conscience of being home.” [p. 387] He remarks that the Middle Age made the choice of religion and the 17th century made the choice of science, but today any choice or criteria for values vanished.

    “The concepts are, so to say, the privileged points where the different levels of Reality are interweaving” – wrote Heisenberg. He specifies as follows: “When one is questioning the nomological connexions of reality, these last ones are found every time inserted into a determined reality level; it could not at all be interpreted differently from the concept of reality ‘level’ (it is possible to speak about the effect of a level onto another one only by using very generally the concept of ‘effect’).

    Heisenberg also insists on the role of intuition: “Only the intuitive thinking – wrote Heisenberg – can pass over the abyss that exists between the concepts system already known and the new concepts system; the formal deduction is helpless on throwing a bridge over this abyss.” [p. 261] But Heisenberg doesn’t draw the logical conclusion that is imposed by the helplessness of the formal thinking: only the non-resistance of our experiences, representations, descriptions, images or mathematical formalisations could bring a bridge over the abyss between two zones of resistance. The non-resistance is, in fact, the key of understanding the discontinuity between two immediately neighbour levels of Reality.

    3. Towards a Unified Theory of Levels of Reality – The Transdisciplinary Approach

    Transdisciplinarity is founded upon three axioms10, we assert that the different levels of Reality of the Object are accessible to our knowledge thanks to the different levels of perception which are potentially present in our being. These levels of perception permit an increasingly general, unifying, encompassing vision of Reality, without ever entirely exhausting it. In a rigorous way, these levels of perception are, in fact, levels of Reality of the Subject.

    As in the case of levels of Reality of the Object, the coherence of levels of Reality of the Subject presupposes a zone of non-resistance to perception.

    The unity of levels of levels of Reality of the Subject and this complementary zone of non-resistance constitutes what we call the transdisciplinary Subject.

    The two zones of non-resistance of transdisciplinary Object and Subject must be identical for the transdisciplinary Subject to communicate with the transdisciplinary Object. A flow of consciousness that coherently cuts across different levels of Reality of the Subject must correspond to the flow of information coherently cutting across different levels of Reality of the Object. The two flows are interrelated because they share the same zone of non-resistance.

    Knowledge is neither exterior nor interior: it is simultaneously exterior and interior. The studies of the universe and of the human being sustain one another.

    The zone of non-resistance plays the role of a third between the Subject and the Object, an Interaction term which allows the unification of the transdisciplinary Subject and the transdisciplinary Object while preserving their difference. In the following we will call this Interaction term the Hidden Third.

    Our ternary partition { Subject, Object, Hidden Third } is, of course, different from the binary partition { Subject vs. Object } of classical metaphysics.

    The transdisciplinary Object and its levels, the transdisciplinary Subject and its levels and the Hidden Third define the transdisciplinary Reality or trans-Reality (see Fig. 1).

     src=/sites/default/files/old_site/images/10502_Fig-1.gif></p><p>The incompleteness of the general laws governing a given level of Reality signifies that, at a given moment of time, one necessarily discovers contradictions in the theory describing the respective level: one has to assert A and non-A at the same time.</p><p>It is the included middle logic<sup class=ftn><a title=11 which allows us to jump from one level of Reality to another level of Reality.

    Our understanding of the axiom of the included middle — there exists a third term T which is at the same time A and non-A — is completely clarified once the notion of “levels of Reality” is introduced.

    In order to obtain a clear image of the meaning of the included middle, let us represent the three terms of the new logic — A, non-A, and T — and the dynamics associated with them by a triangle in which one of the vertices is situated at one level of Reality and the two other vertices at another level of Reality (see Fig. 2). The included middle is in fact an included third. If one remains at a single level of Reality, all manifestation appears as a struggle between two contradictory elements. The third dynamic, that of the T-state, is exercised at another level of Reality, where that which appears to be disunited is in fact united, and that which appears contradictory is perceived as non-contradictory. In other words, the action of the logic of the included middle on the different levels of Reality is able to explore the open structure of the unity of levels of Reality.

     src=/sites/default/files/old_site/images/10502_Fig-2.gif></p><p>All levels of Reality are interconnected through complexity. From a transdisciplinary point of view, complexity is a modern form of the very ancient principle of universal interdependence. The principle of universal interdependence entails the maximum possible simplicity that the human mind could imagine, the simplicity of the interaction of all levels of reality. This simplicity can not be captured by mathematical language, but only by symbolic language.</p><p>The transdisciplinary theory of levels of Reality appears as conciliating reductionism and non-reductionism<sup class=ftn><a title=12. It is, in some aspects, a multi-reductionist theory, via the existence of multiple, discontinuous levels of Reality. However, it is also a non-reductionist theory, via the Hidden Third, which restores the continuous interconnectedness of Reality. The reductionism/non-reductionism opposition is, in fact, a result of binary thinking, based upon the excluded middle logic. The transdisciplinary theory of levels of Reality allows us to define, in such a way, a new view on Reality, which can be called trans-reductionism.

    The transdisciplinary notion of levels of Reality is incompatible with reduction of the spiritual level to the psychical level, of the psychical level to the biological level, and of the biological level to the physical level. Still these four levels are united through the Hidden Third. However, this unification can not be described by a scientific theory. By definition, science excludes non-resistance. Science, as is defined today, is limited by its own methodology.

    The transdisciplinary notion of levels of Reality leads also to a new vision of Personhood, based upon the inclusion of the Hidden Third. In the transdisciplinary approach, we are confronted with a multiple Subject, able to know a multiple Object. Unification of the Subject is performed by the action of the Hidden Third, which transforms knowledge in understanding. “Understanding” means fusion of knowledge and being. In some sense, the Hidden Third appears as the source of knowledge but, in its turn, needs the Subject in order to know the world: the Subject, the Object and the Hidden Third are inter-related. The human person appears as an interface between the Hidden Third and the world. The human being has therefore two natures: an animal nature and a divine nature, inter-related and inseparable. The erasing of the Hidden Third in knowledge signifies a one-dimensional human being, reduced to its cells, neurons, quarks and elementary particles.

    4. Opening remarks

    It is inappropriate for an opening talk to present “concluding” remarks. The event of our mini-conference is in front of us, full of expectations but unpredictable. I will therefore present just few and short opening remarks.

    It is obvious that a huge work remains to be performed in order to formulate a unified theory of levels of Reality, valid in all fields of knowledge, which involve, at the beginning of the 21st century, more than 8,000 academic disciplines, every discipline claiming its own truths and having its laws, norms and terminology.

    I believe that the transdisciplinary theory of levels of Reality is a good starting point in erasing the fragmentation of knowledge, and therefore the fragmentation of the human being. We badly need a transdisciplinary hermeneutics14.

    The theory of categories will be also certainly helpful. But one has not to be afraid about metaphysics and to clarify how trans-categorial properties could be described. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to conceive such a subtle notion as “personhood” without doing metaphysics.

    Quantum physics is also very precious because it leads a good understanding of the role of discontinuity in philosophical thinking. Heisenberg’s approach of levels of Reality is just one magnificent example on this way.

    I also have very much hope for the potential contribution to a unified theory of levels of reality of a new branch of knowledge – biosemiotics, as exposed for example, in the stimulating book Signs of Meaning in the Universe of Jesper Hoffmeyer16.We live in semiosphere, as much we live in atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The human being is the unique being in the universe able to conceive an infinite wealth of possible worlds. These “possible worlds” are certainly corresponding to different levels of Reality. Powerful concepts elaborated by biosemioticians, like semiotic freedom, could lead us to understand what “personhood” could mean. “The human being is the most perfect sign”, says Peirce.

    Biosemiotics is based upon the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), a great philosopher, logician, mathematician of the beginning of the 20th century18. He tells us that maybe there is nothing at all which corresponds to Reality. It may be just a working assumption in our desperate tentative in knowing. But if there is a Reality – tells us Peirce – it has to consist in the fact that the world lives, moves and has in itself a logic of events, which corresponds to our reason. Peirce’s view on Reality totally corresponds to the transdisciplinary view on Reality.

    Let me finally note that a unified theory of levels of Reality is crucial in building sustainable development and sustainable futures. The present considerations in these matters are based upon reductionist and binary thinking: everything is reduced to society, economy and environment. The individual level of Reality, the spiritual level of Reality and the cosmic level of Reality are completely ignored. Sustainable futures, so necessary for our survival, can only be based on a unified theory of levels of Reality. We are part of the ordered movement of Reality. Our freedom consists in entering into the movement or perturbing it. Reality depends on us. Reality is plastic. We canrespond to the movement or impose our will of power and domination.Our responsibility is to build sustainable futures in agreement with the overall movement of reality.


    Bibliography

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    Joseph E. Brenner, Logic in Reality, Springer, 2008.

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    Daniel Dennett, Darwin‘s Dangerous Idea, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995.

    Nicolai Hartmann, Der Aufbau der realen Welt. Grundriss der allgemeinen Kategorienlehre, Walter De Gruyter, Berlin, 1940.

    Werner Heisenberg, Philosophie – Le manuscrit de 1942,Paris, Seuil, 1998. Translation from German and introduction by Catherine Chevalley. The pages quoted in parenthesis are from this edition. German original edition : Ordnung der Wirklichkeit, Munich, R. Piper GmbH § KG, 1989. Published first in W. Blum, H. P. D¸rr, and H. Rechenberg (ed.), W. Heisenberg Gesammelte Werke, Vol. C-I : Physik und Erkenntnis, 1927-1955, Munich, R. Piper GmbH § KG, 1984, pp. 218-306. To my knowledge, there is no translation in English of this book.

    Jesper Hoffmeyer, Signs of Meaning in the Universe, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indianopolis, USA, 1993.

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    StÈphane Lupasco, Le principe d’antagonisme et la logique de l’Ènergie – ProlÈgomËnes ‡ une science de la contradiction, Hermann & Cie, Coll. “ActualitÈs scientifiques et industrielles”, n° 1133, Paris, 1951 ; 2nd ed.: Rocher, Monaco, 1987, foreword by Basarab Nicolescu.

    Basarab Nicolescu, Nous, la particule et le monde, Le Mail, Paris, 1985. 2nd edition: Le Rocher, Monaco, “TransdisciplinaritÈ” Series, 2002.

    Basarab Nicolescu, Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. New York: SUNY Press, 2002, translation from the French by Karen-Claire Voss; original edition: La transdisciplinaritÈ, manifeste, Monaco, Rocher, “TransdisciplinaritÈ” Series, 1996.

    Basarab Nicolescu, “Hylemorphism, Quantum Physics and Levels of Reality”, in Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou (Ed), Aristotle and Contemporary Science, New York, Peter Lang, 2000, Vol. I, pp. 173-184. Introduction by Hilary Putnam.

    Basarab Nicolescu, Towards an apophatic methodology of the dialogue between science and religion, in Science and Orthodoxy, a necessary dialogue, Curtea Veche, Bucharest, 2006, edited by Basarab Nicolescu and Magda Stavinschi, p. 19-29.

    Basarab Nicolescu (Ed), Transdisciplinarity – Theory and Practice, Hampton Press, Cresskill, New Jersey, 2008.

    Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 volumes, Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss, and Arthur Burks (Ed), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931-1958.

    Charles Sanders Peirce, Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance), edited with an introduction and notes by Philip P. Wiener, Dover Publications, New York, 1966.

    Charles Sanders Peirce, The New Elements of Mathematics, 4 volumes, C. Eisele (Ed), Mouton Humanities Press The Hague, 1976.

    Roberto Poli, “The Basic Problem of the Theory of Levels of Reality”, Axiomathes, 12:261-283, 2001.

    Roberto Poli, “Three Obstructions: Forms of Causation, Chronotopoids, and Levels of Reality”, Axiomathes 1:1-18, 2007.

    Roberto Poli, private communication, June 28, 2008.

    John van Breda, “Towards a Transdisciplinary Hermeneutics – A New Way of Going beyond the Science / Religion Debate”, Transdisciplinarity in Science and Religion, No 2, Curtea Veche Publ., Bucharest, 2007; originally presented at the 2007 Metanexus Conference “Transdisciplinarity and the Unity of Knowledge” and previously published on the Global Spiral http://www.globalspiral.com .

    G¸nther Wutzany (Ed), Biosemiotics in Transdisciplinary Contexts, Proceedings of the Gathering in Biosmiotics 6, UMWEB Publications, Finland, 2007.


    Endnotes

    2 Dawkins, 1976.

    4 Poli, 2008.

    6 Hartmann, 1940.

    8 Heisenberg, 1998.

    10 Husserl, 1966.

    12 Nicolescu (Ed), 2008.

    14 Nicolescu, 2006.

    16 Witzany (Ed), 2007.

    18 Peirce, 1976, vol. IV, p. 383-384.

    The concept of levels of Reality, formulated in 1982, is the key concept of transdisciplinarity1 Basarab Nicolescu, Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, SUNY Press, New York, 2002, translation from the French by Karen-Claire Voss.5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10503 From the Total Gift of Self to a New Relational View of Reality; From a Mystical Insight to the Foundations of Mathematics: A Transdisciplinary Approach

    The paper that we present is the fruit of the efforts of an interdisciplinary team of mathematicians: interdisciplinary within a common framework, in the sense of being mathematicians specialized in specific areas, such as logic, statistics, number analysis, mathematical physics, etc. What joins us together – besides a common general field of endeavour – is a shared spirituality based on the profound principles at the basis of a worldwide Christian Movement, the Focolare Movement2 In the significant words of the latter, he places the abandonment of Christ on the cross into the context of the eternal kenosis of the Trinity :”The kenosis of the Divinity is so profound that before the God-Man there opens up the abyss of death with the darkness of non-being, with all the intensity of the abandonment of God… The cry from the cross: ‘Elì, Elì, lama sabacthàni, is the extreme point of the extenuation of the Divinity in the annihilation of the crucifixion.’”4 Second, Chiara Lubich who through what has been recognized as an ecclesial charism came to understand and explicate the significance of the event of Christ’s abandonment in the”economy of unity,” ie. in the perspective of the fullness of communion, both between God and man and in human interpersonal relations. In the following section we will present briefly some of Chiara Lubich’s insights on this theme.

    1.1 “Jesus forsaken” and Christian oneness

    In Lubich’s descriptions one can find in the event of Christ’s abandonment, which she calls”Jesus forsaken,” the key to a radical form of interrelatedness that could be termed”dynamic oneness,” that lies at the heart of Christian anthropology and at the same time evokes the inner life of the Trinity.

    We could sum up the essential content of an authentic Christian anthropology in a few Gospel passages:”As the Father has loved me I have loved you… Love one another as I have loved you (Jn 15:9.12).””May they be one as I in you and you in me” (Gv 17:11). As Lubich comments:”When we live the new commandment, seeking to receive the gift of unity in Jesus that comes to us from the Father, the life of the Trinity is no longer lived only in the interior life of the individual person, but it flows freely among the members of the Mystical Body of Christ.”6 And over and over again as an underlying theme she repeats that unity and Jesus forsaken”are two sides of the same coin.”8 He who was God emptied himself on the cross. This event illustrates an essential attitude necessary for oneness among human beings, generated by being open to others, making room for others, even to the point of emptying oneself completely.”To welcome into ourselves the one who is everything, we must, like Jesus forsaken, become nothing … We must be nothing (Jesus forsaken) in the presence of each of our neighbors in order to embrace Jesus in him or her.”10

    Based on this example, she draws out important implications for the philosophy of being:”Jesus forsaken shows us, by his being reduced to nothing, accepted out of love for the Father to whom he re-abandons himself (‘Into your hands I commend my spirit,’ Lk. 23:46), that I am myself not when I close myself off from the other, but when I give myself, when out of love I am lost in the other.”12

    Lubich expounds on the same theme extending it to the three Persons of the Trinity, in as much as it is intrinsically connected to the concept of love:”Three form the Trinity, yet they are one because love is and is not at the same time.”14 In God, love is identical with being and simultaneously with the self-emptying that is a total gift of self. The kenosis of Christ on the cross is thus the visible emblem of the eternal mutual giving and receiving of love which is the very essence of the Trinity. In the words of Moltmann:”The ‘boundless sacrifice of love’ that the Son reveals on Golgotha, is implicitly present from all eternity in the exchange of substantial love which constitutes the divine life of the Trinity.”16

    2.1 Introductory remarks

    Two introductory remarks may be helpful. The first concerns the general question as to whether it is proper to consider a spiritual topic as a source of inspiration for a field as far removed from theology and spirituality as mathematics. This same question could be posed from the opposite point of view: has mathematics anything to offer to theology? For example, can we draw profit from attempting to employ the language of mathematics to describe the dynamic theological pattern outlined above, which goes beyond the realm of empirical science, and can of course never be fully encapsulated in human expressions?

    Let it suffice here to quote the renowned Italian mathematician Ennio De Giorgi, recipient of the prestigious Wolf Award in 1990. Deeply convinced of the possibility of a fruitful interaction among all the various branches of knowledge, which he considered to be commonly rooted in divine Wisdom, De Giorgi wrote:”Every branch of knowledge can be a source of inspiration for mathematics and vice versa. Mathematics can offer a valid contribution to every other branch of knowledge both towards understanding things which might otherwise be incomprehensible, and towards expressing with clarity intuitions which might otherwise be inexpressible.”18

    A second premise concerns the very object of our discipline which has been a source of discussion among philosophers of mathematics through the years. Although the debate is still alive, an understanding has gradually emerged that, contrary to common opinion, the object of mathematics does not consist in the abstract entities such as points, lines, numbers, or sets in themselves, but rather in the systems of relations which determine these entities or by which they are connected.20

    In the section that follows, Jesus forsaken will be the object of our investigation not in His quality of being God (which would be a source of theological or philosophical considerations), but rather as a process or event indicating a relational pattern that a mathematician can attempt to describe by way of analogy in abstract terms. So we ask: what is the relational pattern indicated in the event-Jesus forsaken and how can it be depicted in the abstract language of mathematics? Moving beyond this descriptive phase, we will also try to understand the prospects for further research in our field opened to us by the event of Christ’s abandonment considered as a total gift of self.

    2.2 Jesus forsaken the Point

    Let us take as our point of departure a passage of Lubich’s mystical intuitions describing Jesus forsaken as”the Point.”

    Love must be distilled, until it is nothing other than Holy Spirit. It is distilled by passing it through Jesus forsaken. Jesus forsaken is Nothingness, He is the point, and through the point (= Love reduced to the last extreme, having given away everything) can pass only the simplicity that is God: Love.”22

    If we want to use a formal expression to represent the sense of kenosis, the process of a total self-emptying gift, which is the essence of the event-Jesus forsaken, the idea of a fixed point will not do. A dynamic image is necessary. So if we wanted to use a point to represent this process, it would have to be a point that is dynamic, open and self-emptying, purely”direction from”.

    In section 3 we shall try to formalize this pattern using a particular abstract expression, admitting of course that various other approaches could be used. Indeed the idea of”being and not being at the same time” poses a challenge to classical logic, with its principles of non-contradiction and of the excluded middle, which underlie our discipline, and there have been abundant attempts to formulate alternative forms of logic (cf. multi-valued logic, fuzzy logic, supervaluationistic logic, intuitionistic logic, paraconsistent logic), none of which however face the question from a purely relational point of view.24 reaches the conclusion that a line”is not made up of points.”26a rather enigmatic expression that ended up being interpreted through the ages as if the line were”constituted” of its points. This is the common conviction which has come down to our times.

    In reality, as Giusti points out, in the historical context described above, this could not have been Euclid’s intention. As Aristotele clearly stated, a line cannot be thought of as being constituted of points. According to Giusti’s analysis, a solution to the question can be found in realizing that Euclid’s definitions do not refer to abstract entities but rather to concrete processes. The points Euclid speaks of in describing a straight line as a line that lies evenly with the points on itself are only the two fixed points, at the beginning and end of the act of stretching a string or rope from one location to another. What lies in between the two extremes is the line determined by the process of extension and is not thought of as”points belonging to the straight line.”28

    In the passage about the”divine atom” quoted above, Jesus forsaken is described as nothingness but also as One, the Oneness. It is evident that the One or Oneness referred to is not the number one at the basis of arithmetic, nor the one that is the neutral element for multiplication, but the oneness of God’s essence which is also, paradoxically, the essence of Jesus forsaken. It is a one which emerges from the dynamism of three co-essential relations, each of which demonstrates the same basic pattern of relation revealed in the event-Jesus forsaken.

    What we have been describing to this point has been on a theological rather than on a scientific level. However since relation is at the heart of mathematical research, the pattern which emerges opens our inquiry to the possibility of expressing the pure form of relation described heretofore in an abstract, formal language.

    3. The event-Jesus forsaken as a model for a new form of relation

    Setting all phenomenological and descriptive terms aside, we now turn to the axiomatic method proper to our discipline. The point of departure consists in the identification of one or more primitive concepts, from which an entire system can be derived using axioms to determine other elements. In our case, the entire edifice will be built on the primitive concept of relation. The intuitions that flow from the description of the event-Jesus forsaken outlined above prompted us to define a new type of relation (tr relation) capable of describing a total self giving in abstract terms. In other words, it permits a formal and non-contradictory way of defining an ontology of”being and non being at the same time.” We proceed from here to introduce a dynamic (non standard) identity (DIT – Dynamic Identity Triple) composed of three distinct co-essential tr relations.

    What we have summed up above represents the subject matter of a recently published research paper in the field of mathematics’ foundations.30

    So our attempt to describe in formal terms the underlying relational pattern of the event-Jesus forsaken leads us to examine first of all the primitive concept of relation.

    For a mathematician or logician, the concept of relation is reduced to minimum bare essentials. He or she does not discuss relations of friendship, conflict or love, as in humanistic sciences, nor a relation of attraction between bodies, or relative motion, as in physics. Rather what is examined by a logician is relation stripped of every particularity, in its nude, most fundamental reality.

    Indeed in logic or in the foundations of mathematics the concept of relation is generally considered to be a primitive concept, remaining undefined. For Aristotle relation is one of the primitive categories of substance. Intuitively, when we speak of relation it is implied that we are speaking of at least two objects that are mutually referential. In fact, the primitive idea of relation presupposes two objects or entities upon which we fix our attention and a joining entity, ie. a relation between them termed binary relation. Without difficulty, from this point of departure, we can extend the concept to ternary relations, quaternary relations, etc.

    Ennio De Giorgi et al. in a PrePrint entitled”Towards a system of axioms for 2000 in Mathematics, Logic, and Computer Science” presents”a first attempt of an axiomatic foundation very simple, clear and ‘natural’, on which it is hoped can be engrafted the various branches of mathematics mentioned in the title as well as some other fundamental concepts of other scientific and humanistic studies.”32 It can be shown that the notion of”quality” (or subset) corresponds to a primary o unary relation. Also the classical identity relation is shown to be appropriately described as a primary relation.34

    It is evident that a tr relation cannot be time or space dependent.

    It can be shown that a single given tr relation cannot be conceived of without another corresponding non-identical tr relation. It is as if a tr relation in its out-pouring generates a mirror image of itself. To distinguish between the two we use the symbols tr1 and tr2. To describe tr1 and tr2 formally, we need to introduce concepts such as unary operations and mereological parts, which are beyond the scope of this presentation. The interested reader can consult the scientific article cited previously.36 has proved to be useful in describing a great number of natural phenomena as well as in technical areas such as computer graphics.

    Applying the method used to describe the three tr relations of the dynamic identity triple, we offer a presentation of the inner dynamics of one of the simplest fractal forms, called the Cantor Set (or ternary set). Intuitively, the Cantor Set is the result of cutting or deleting the inner one-third portion of a unit segment and then repeating this process on the remaining segment pieces, and then again on the remaining sub-segments, re-iterating an infinite number of times (Figure 2). The result is seemingly a rarefied collection of points (for this reason sometimes called Cantor dust) which has been proved to have some very unusual properties. Although the points of the Cantor Set seems to be separate and distinct, since between any two of them there is always a void or hole, somehow the number of the points of the Cantor Set (technically speaking, its cardinality) is the same as that of the original segment, the cardinality of the continuum. In technical terms the Cantor Set is compact, totally disconnected, dense in itself, and nowhere dense in the original segment38


    Figure 3: The first steps of the formation of the Cantor Set
    using affine transformations.

    In this example, the type of dynamic relation which we perceived considering the kenotic event of Jesus forsaken as formulated as tr relation proved useful in considering a particular mathematical example from a new perspective. It is a very small step, to be sure. We are in fact convinced that the repercussions of the concept of tr relations and the dynamic identity, not only for mathematics but also for the various other sciences that make use of mathematical methods and language, has yet to be fathomed. We are confident however that this can come about through a fruitful interaction among the various disciplines, including the human sciences which have come to the fore in this Congress, and which can inspire and also benefit from a formal clarification of relational patterns.


    Appendix
    (some essential axioms extracted from L. OBOJSKA, Primary Relations in a New Foundational Axiomatic Framework, op.cit)

    AXIOM 4.5:

    Let us call a tr relation any primary relation ß for which
    R ß is a one-one binary relation such that:

    R ß x,y implies that x is not y (x and y are NOT the same object).

    DEFINITION 4.6:

    The dynamic identity triple DIT is composed of three tr relations: tr1, tr2, tr3.

    AXIOM 4.7:

    tr1 is described by the binary relation Rtr1 or,
    alternatively, by the unary operation Optr1 which acts in the following way:

    If Rtr1 x,y then Optr1(x)=yx

    where yx means y with x in y,
    which is to be interpreted in the mereological sense of x being an ingredient of y

    AXIOM 4.8:

    tr2 is described by the binary relation Rtr2 or,
    alternatively, by the unary operation Optr2 which acts on the
    result of Optr1 in the following way:

    Fig.

    AXIOM 4.9:

    Given tr1 and tr2, there is another tr relation tr3 such that

    Rtr3 z,tr1 iff Rtr3 z,tr2.


    Endnotes

    2 H. URS VON BALTHASAR, Teodrammatica, I-V, Milano 1980-1986; J. MOLTMANN, Der gekreuzigte Gott. Das Kreuz Christi al Grund und Kritik christlicher Theologie, Munchen 1972, S. BULGAKOV, L’Agnello di Dio, Rome 1990. For a detailed theological analysis cf. A. PELLI, L’abbandono di Gesù e il mistero del Dio uno e trino, Città Nuova, Roma, 1995.

    4 MOTHER TERESA, Come be my light, The private writings of the”Saint of Calcutta”, ed. with commentary by B Kolodiejchuk, M.C. Doubleday, New York, 2007.”Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me?.. The darkness is so dark – and I am alone. – Unwanted, forsaken…”, p. 186-187

    6 Cf. LUBICH, Essential Writings, p. 27-37.

    8 C. LUBICH,”Towards a Theology….”, p. 25.

    10 C. LUBICH,”Towards a Theology….”, p.33.

    12 H.U. VON BALTASAR, Teodrammatica, IV, Milano 1986, p. 303 (author’s translation).

    14 C. LUBICH,”Towards a Theology….”,, p. 34.

    16 Cf. P. VALORE, ed. Topics on General and Formal Ontology, which presents an abbreviated form of some of our results: L. OBOJSKA, Primary Relations and a Non-Standard Form of Identity, Polimetrica, Milano 2006, p. 53-66.

    18 R. HOWELL e W. J. BRADLEY, Mathematics in a Postmodern Age. A Christian Perspective, Eerdmans, Cambridge, 2001.

    20 Cf. E. GIUSTI, Ipotesi sulla natura degli oggetti matematici, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1999.

    22 Andre Frossard describes this same characteristic of”love which is able to be and not be in order that the other be”. Cf. A. FROSSARD, L’arte di credere, Roma 1981 (author’s translation).

    24 Fisica VI, 1, 231 b 17.

    26 Elements, I, Definition IV.

    28 Cf. C.LUBICH, The Spirituality of Unity and Trinitarian Life, Acceptance speech at the conferral of an honorary doctorate in theology by the University of Trnava, Slvakia, June 23, 2003, in New Humanity Review, No. 9, April 2004.

    30 K. MENGER, Topology without Points, Rice Institute Pamphlet 27, (1940), 80-107. In Menger’s theory of point, as in others presented by Menger, points are introduced as classes of given entities with given relations. See also C. ESCHENBACH, A Mereotopological Definition of ‘Point’, in C. Eschenbach, C.Habel and B. Smith (eds.), (1994), 63-80; A. TARSKI, Foundations of the Geometry of Solids, in Logic, Semantics and Metamathematics, trans. J.H. Woodger, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1956.

    32 Cf. H. RASIOWA, Wstęp do matematyki współczesnej (Introduction to modern mathematics), Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa, 1968.

    34 For a formal definition of tr relation, see L. OBOJSKA, Primary Relations…., Axiom 4.5.

    36 B. B. MANDELBROT, Gli oggetti frattali, Einaudi Torino, 1987 (original title: Le objects fractals); B. B. MANDELBROT, The fractal geometry of nature, Freeman, San Francisco, 1982.

    38 For a detailed explanation see OBOJSKA, op. cit.

    As mathematicians motivated by the conviction that there is a deep relation between the material dimension and the spiritual, we have attempted to convert relational patterns experienced in spiritual life into abstract formal terms.

    The first part of our paper presents some brief theological input regarding the mystery of Christ forsaken on the cross, a fundamental theme underlying the Christian discourse on unity, and which has particular bearing on the theme of this Congress, revealing that “I am myself…when out of love I am lost in the other.”

    Christ dying on the cross is the personification of total giving. In what Paul in Philippians calls kenosis, he pours out his life, human and divine. His total annihilation, to the point of no longer feeling His oneness with the Father, is expressed in His cry: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me”.

    The depth and mystery of this event has been probed by theologians and others. In particular, we present the insights of Chiara Lubich, a prominent contemporary figure, who fathoms the significance of the event of the abandonment in the “economy of unity”. In Lubich’s descriptions, Christ’s kenosis is the key to a radical form of interrelatedness that could be termed dynamic oneness, lying at the heart of Christian anthropology. “As the Father has loved me I have loved you. Love one another as I have loved you…” “May they be one as I in you and you in me.” In particular, the commandment of love is lived out and measured against Christ’s love for us, to the point of abandonment.

    Moreover, the abandonment evokes the interpersonal dynamics that lie at the very heart of the Trinity where each of the Three, being Love, is completely by not being, each mutually indwelling in an eternal self-giving.

    From this perspective, reflecting as mathematicians, we felt challenged to describe, using language and methods proper to our discipline, the abstract pattern of relatedness that we discerned in the theological discourse outlined above. The results represent the contents of a scientific article, presented in the second part of the paper.

    After reflecting on some of the still unanswered questions pertaining to the relation between point and line, we build on the primitive concept of relation to define a new type of relation (tr relation) capable of describing the kenosis in abstract terms. This results as a formal, non-contradictory expression of an ontology of “being and non being” at the same time. Finally, a dynamic identity composed of three distinct co-essential tr relations (Dynamic Identity Triple) is formulated.

    The pattern that emerges can, we maintain, contribute in a general sense to enunciating a relational view of reality, and its repercussions have yet to be studied.

    We conclude by mentioning some initial attempts to apply these results that connect back to the relation between point and line.

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10504 A Dialectical Anthropology of Concrete Totality: A Methodological Framework for Understanding the Unified Totality of the Human Person

    The conception of the person cannot be understood in isolation from the philosophical system as a whole because it is the whole system that conditions this understanding. Therefore, disputes concerning the constitutive elements of the person are also disputes concerning philosophical systems. In addition, the choice of philosophical categories employed in framing anthropology mediates the outcome of the investigation. Is there a philosophical category that provides the fullest access and adequate description of the unified totality of the internally differentiated human person? It will be argued in this paper that an anthropology viewed from the horizon of a dialectical concrete totality provides such a comprehensive access and description. To appreciate the breadth and scope of this category, I will first enumerate its philosophical foundations and justification. Second, and more importantly, I draw out the strength and importance of such a dialectical anthropology. If philosophical anthropology asks how human existence as a totality is constituted, the category of a dialectical concrete totality presents an ontology of human existence constituted in the four moments of cosmic, socio-historical, physical and personal totalities, under the horizon of the religious dimension immanent in all of human existence and unified in the human subject through action.

    A proposed dialectical anthropology of concrete totality not only intends to correct the one-sidedness of traditional anthropologies but also unifies the different constitutive moments and horizons as an internally differentiated unified totality. The important contribution of this category is especially spelled out by its very descriptors, “dialectical,” “concrete” and “totality.”

    The category of concrete totality is a comprehensive ontological concept in Hegel’s thought. Marx appropriated it to make it a comprehensive historical category. He inverts Hegel’s concrete totality and considers it to be “a product of thinking and comprehending . . . as it appears in the head” and wants to externalize it to include the material conditions of reality. Marx writes that the “subject, society, must always be envisaged therefore as the precondition of comprehension, even when the theoretical method is employed.”2 This category has been appropriated in other numerous applications.4

    Totality

    Totality does not mean a sum of constitutive dimensions existing side by side but, rather, all the dimensions related to and struggling with each other. Totality is a conceptual means for apprehending phenomena as a unity that is internally differentiated in all its interrelations, tensions, conflicts, mutual movement and development.6 Facts are the proper cognition of reality only when they are comprehended as parts of a dialectical whole.

    Using Hegelian categories, to understand totality and to look abstractly with the verstand (understanding) or vorstellen (representation) would only split reality into fixed categories without seeing their interconnections. “Understanding” and “representation” merely pays attention to the appearances of things without going into the essence of things. “Reason” (Begreifen), on the other hand, penetrates into the internal structure and interconnections of the “thing itself” to reveal the interaction of its particularities. The Hegelian totality through “reason” is a fundamental way of thinking about internal organic relations as a whole that is mediated by dialectical movements. For Hegel, the truth is the whole. Every stage or moment is partial, and, therefore, needs to be overcome in a development process that at the same time preserves the moments as elements in the structure of totality.

    The process of forming a totality provides a structure of meaning, as well as forms the objective content and meaning of its constituent parts.8 This category will be used positively here in terms of a Kantian “regulative” function. Totality can function as a regulative idea “in a sense that it contains the ideal of harmony and reconciliation in the midst of the many fragmentations and alienations of historical existence toward which the human spirit necessarily strives in order to find peace between itself and the world.”10

    The method of investigation into the dialectic involves three stages.12 The dialectic is driven by tension and conflicts between opposite ideas, and the constituting conditions of our concrete totality resisting our longing for transcendence.

    Anthropology

    One of the decisive theoretical requirements for constructing philosophy, theology or ethics is the elaboration of an adequate anthropology. After all, these are human comprehensions of reality, human reflections about God and faith, and the human study, development and prescription of what humans ought to do. These are subjective reflections that cannot bypass the historical conditioning of the personal and social location of the human observer. In addition to the subjective aspects of these reflections, the human pole is always necessarily assumed, implicitly or explicitly, as the basic horizon and reference point of philosophical, theological and ethical investigations. The human pole is always present in the relational and dialectical structure of the subject matter, for they all concern the human, both subjectively and objectively and as subjects and objects. Philosophy is always about what reality is, from the human perspective; ethics is about what humans ought to do from the human perspective. In one sense, Protagoras is right, in that man is the measure of all things. Even the study of nature, even though it is not a social category, is recognized by a cognition that is socially conditioned, and, therefore, ends up humanized. If the subjective element or the anthropological conception is compromised, this has direct consequences leading to an inadequate philosophy, theology or ethics.

    Even theology is always about God and faith filtered through the human perspective. John Calvin in the first chapter of his 1559 Institutes of the Christian Religion insisted that “without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.” Also, “without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self.”14 Philosophical problems are only formulated by humans and only humans philosophize. This is also true of theology. If one of the goals of theology is for total persons to be effectively ordered to Christ and the values of his kingdom, then an account of the totality of the dimensions of human existence must be given to know what the dimensions of human existence are and how each dimension needs salvation and transformation. More specifically, the knowledge of God in Christian theology presupposes a primordial human capacity to know, hear and obey God. The knowledge of God, whether through revelation or reason, is still human knowledge for whatever is known is known according to “the mode of the knower.”16 A dialectical concrete totality is largely, but not solely, an anthropological category. It accounts for and holds together the dialectical tensions of human life that include subjectivity and objectivity, thought and reality, transcendence and history, materiality and spirituality, finite and infinite, and the personal and the social.

    In elaborating a person in relation to his essential constitutive dimensions, man’s relationship with this concrete totality is dialectical, because this totality includes the subject of man himself, the influence of the essential dimensions on him, as well as his ability to modify this totality.18

    As a moment of our cosmic totality, we find ourselves is an already existing cosmos, nature or universe that includes the environment that we depend on for our habitat, food, water, air and resources that are transformed for human needs. Earthquakes, hurricanes, global warming, floods and natural disasters remind us of our misinformed anthropocentrism in the cosmos. We are part of and in this cosmos and not beyond or outside it. This is a reminder that even as transcendent spiritual beings, we are material beings in the world constituted by this cosmic totality.

    As a moment of our socio-historical totality, we find ourselves already situated in a particular socio-historical context characterized by difference and otherness. Conflicts, clashes and contradictions emerge out of our differences. And depending on our socio-historical contexts, there exists varying conditions of poverty, war, racism, sexism, genocide, depersonalizing inherited institutions, unequal access to education, medical care, justice and decent standards of living that are constitutive of our human existence. This immediate and familiar context is where we fight for survival and try to make a living. This social world is where we enter into numerous relationships with families, enemies, friends, economic and political institutions, each in their own particular stage of historical development. This socio-historical world manifests seven characteristics.20 Similarly, the universal phenomenon of religious experience cannot be prematurely relegated to illusion simply because scientific explanations cannot account for some evolutionary advantage for its survival. The physical sciences, while providing an essential dimension that discloses our anthropology in often direct and spectacular ways, one must always avoid the temptation to elevate this dimension as the privileged locus for anthropology. Just like our socio-historical dimension, our physical anthropology is an internal and constitutive condition of human existence that mutually conditions the other existing personal, socio-historical and cosmic totalities.

    As a moment of our personal totality, or human existence as personal existence, this dimension has historically received the most attention. Personal totalities have been explained in terms of body and soul, matter and spirit, and transcendence and history as what constitutes the universal structure of personal existence. This dimension includes analyzing particular characteristics of the human person, such as the intellect, emotions, senses, consciousness, will, imagination, ontological anxieties, instincts towards transcendence, sociality, participation as constitutive of the person and how each of these dimensions mutually condition and influence one another. What is common is to have particular characteristics and behavior singled out and elevated out of their socio-historical context and reified as the unchanging and universal expression of human nature.

    A dialectical definition of personal existence recognizes that our human nature, however this term is conceived include potentialities and abstract possibilities that can only be actualized in history and society. This is not to assume that human nature is “infinitely malleable” and devoid of particular characteristics. Rather, “such potentialities and needs are actualized only in and through the mediation of objects given in a particular society and thus receive their particularity. They do not exist in themselves, are actually only as potentialities and needs of concrete humans who are always and already situated in a particular history and society.”22 The religious dimension is immanent in that we exist and stand before God as persons in the totality of our constitutive relations that are mediated by our cosmic, social and personal interrelations.

    There is no part of our human existence that stands independently outside of religious mediation. Our experience of God is mediated by our concrete totalities, such as totalitarian structures that prohibit the freedom to worship, hyper-materialistic and consumerist conditions that diminish spiritual sensitivities, communities that practice oppressive and uncritical forms of enforced behaviors, proper religious education and personal spiritual maturity that can rise above oppressive conditions. Our concrete totalities affect our apprehension, comprehension and response to God. Even God’s demand for conversion from sin is a conversion of our concrete totality that includes the totality of the person, institutions, structures, relations that constituted human existence and not just the conversion of personal inwardness. Personal salvation must be extended to the “salvation” and “sanctification” of all the inherited structures and relations of our human existence. The religious dimension is a totalizing principle, “the transcendent ‘form’ and horizon of human existence as a concrete totality, which in turn provides the concrete historical human ‘content’ of religion.”24 Human existence ends up reduced to a combined arrangement of necessary characteristics that are unrelated. A unity may be fragmented, partial, unconscious of itself, or in process, but it nevertheless presupposes a unity aware of its own incompleteness that demands unification. The unifying principle proposed by an anthropology of concrete totality is the category of action, although, the content of action is construed somewhat differently.

    Action as a unifying principle unifies the multiplicity of dimensions and relations that constitute concrete human existence. Action constitutes the interconnection and unity of concrete totality. Action qualifies as a unifying principle by being at once totalizing, specifying, actualizing and teleological.26in the sense of holding together all the constitutive dimensions of human existence in their dialectical and mutually conditioning relationships within a concrete historical totality without being reduced to their particularities. All significant particularities in their relations must be understood and preserved in all their concrete tensions and particularities or else result in a fragmentation or a one-sided consideration of human existence. In addition, this totality demands integration in order that its disparate dimensions are held together in a differentiated unity.

    Action is specifying and humanizing in the sense that only that which is precisely human is emphasized and taken into consideration. Specifying means turning and transforming something into attributes of the human specie and nature. Action humanizes and personalizes. We recognize through action that we are neither gods nor animals, neither angels nor depersonalized objects. Human action is humanizing in that it transforms, modifies and humanizes the social world that is acted upon. It also recognizes that because every act is intrinsically social, it is simultaneously “the socialization of the personal and the personalization of the social.”28 A concrete anthropology does not abstract human nature from socio-historical realities but understands these realities as an a priori constitutive condition of human nature. This is not to reduce human nature to a function of socio-historical determinism or to deny the reality of human potentialities but to recognize that human nature cannot be separated from its concrete socio-historical existence. Human nature cannot be narrowly reified as immutable and universal but must be open to the process of actualizing development as mediated through a concrete dialectical historicity. The socio-historical is an internal and constitutive condition of human nature.

    An anthropology as a unified totality views human existence in all her essential relations as distinct moments that are mutually mediated and developed. Traditional anthropologies often highlight ideals, norms or dimensions of human existence and then absolutize those moments above every other constitutive dimension. Various attempts have been made to identify a unifying principle for anthropology, such as identified or located in our rationally informed will, reason or the intellect, subjective reason, sense perception, the transcendental unity of our constitutive consciousness, mirror of the imago Dei, embodied intersubjectivity, and our existential authenticity or feelings. These attempts tend to abstract a particular constitutive dimension, and depending on one’s central hermeneutic, absolutize that dimension over and above all the other dimensions or traits. An anthropology as a unified totality, on the other hand, views the various constitutive dimensions as moments of a concrete totality. They do not function abstractly, separately or merely alongside one another. Our reason, will, sense perception, consciousness, intersubjectivity, feelings and the apprehension of the religious dimension are all mutually mediating and intrinsically conditioned by our cosmic, socio-historical, personal and religious totalities. When any of the moments are reified from a unified totality of concrete historical existence, they become idealisms separated from concrete human persons.


    Endnotes

    2 Karel Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete: A Study on Problems of Man and World, trans. Karel Kovanda and James Schmidt, (The Netherlands, Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing, 1976).

    4 Anselm Min, “Karel Kosik, The Dialectic of the Concrete,” New Scholasticism 55, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 250.

    6 Ibid.

    8 Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete, 29.

    10 G. W. F. Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller, (New Jersey, Humanities Press International, Inc. 1997), 107.

    12 Ibid., 23.

    14 Kosik, Dialectics of the Concrete, 149.

    16 Karol Wojtyla, “The Person: Subject and Community,” 220; Karol Wojtyla, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in Man in The Human Being in Action,” in Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans and ed. Teresa Sandok (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 209. See especially Jonathan Luxmoore and Jolanta Babiuch, “John Paul’s Debt to Marxism,” The Tablet (January 2006): 4-5.

    18 See Anselm Min, “Praxis and Liberation: Toward a Theology of Concrete Totality” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1989), 74-178. I owe a great deal to Min, from whom I have heavily borrowed the category of a dialectical anthropology of concrete totality.

    20 See J Wentzel van Huyssteen, Alone in the World?, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2006), 58-60.

    22 See Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). Smart recognizes six dimensions of religious belief and worldviews as humans interact with the cosmos and express the exigencies of our own nature and existence.

    24 See discussion in Min, Praxis and Liberation, 120-150.

    26 Totalizing here does not mean the deconstructive critique against all-exhaustive, all-comprehensive interpretations and intellectual imperialisms. Rather, totalizing means to have a vision of the whole in its dialectically constituent parts.

    28 Ibid., 116.

    The conception of the person cannot be understood in isolation from the philosophical system as a whole, because it is the whole system that conditions this understanding. Therefore, disputes concerning the constitutive elements of the person are also disputes concerning philosophical systems. In addition, the choice of philosophical categories employed in framing anthropology mediates the outcome of the investigation. Is there a philosophical category that provides the fullest access and adequate description of the unified totality of the internally differentiated human person? It will be argued in this paper that an anthropology viewed from the horizon of a dialectical concrete totality provides such a comprehensive access and description. To appreciate the breadth and scope of this category, I will first enumerate its philosophical foundations and justification. Second, and more importantly, I draw out the strength and importance of such a dialectical anthropology. If philosophical anthropology asks how human existence as a totality is constituted, the category of a dialectical concrete totality presents an ontology of human existence constituted in the four moments of cosmic, socio-historical, physical and personal totalities, under the horizon of the religious dimension immanent in all of human existence and unified in the human subject through action.

    A proposed dialectical anthropology of concrete totality not only intends to correct the one-sidedness of traditional anthropologies but also unifies the different constitutive moments and horizons as an internally differentiated unified totality.

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10505 The Possibility of a Post-modern Metaphysics of the Human Person: The Thomistic-Phenomenology of Karol Wojty³a /Pope John Paul II

    It has become commonplace to talk about “The End of Metaphysics,” and “Religion after Metaphysics,” to express a sense of relief over the liberation of religion and philosophy from an oppressive and extrinsic concept. Religious thought “after metaphysics,” according to this sentiment, should not be beholden to or be dependent on ontology. Arguments for this sentiment have become more refined since Hume called for books on metaphysics to be committed to the flames. Given this sensibility, is it possible to construct a Post-modern metaphysics of the human person? It will be argued in this paper that Karol Wojty≥a has done just that in his philosophical anthropology. While much of recent philosophy has insisted that we cannot get to the truth of things, Wojty≥a has argued that we can get to metaphysics and the truth of reality through anthropology. This paper will first focus on how Wojty≥a arrives at the metaphysics of the human person through the phenomenology of experience. Second, is Wojty≥a a phenomenologist or a Thomist, or both? Third, how does Wojtyla develop and example his Post-modern metaphysics of the human person in the Papal Encyclicals?

    The Metaphysics of the Human Person through the Phenomenology of Experience

    The starting point of Wojty≥a’s philosophical anthropology is concrete human experience. This experience that man has of himself “is the richest and apparently the most complex of all experiences accessible to him.”2

    Wojty≥a reverses “I think, therefore I am,” to, “I act, therefore revealing the concrete totality of who I am.” It will be through the special moment of action that Wojty≥a “exfoliates” the person. This disclosure will not be done on the level of consciousness alone but will include the aspect of consciousness. The person is not constituted in consciousness but action, as the moment of disclosure of the person is manifested through consciousness.

    Wojty≥a makes a critical shift and reversal in the traditional conceptions of action. He achieves a significant conceptual innovation here. It has always been correctly observed that action as conceived is only attributable to a person, and that it presupposes the person as well. This has been true in ethics as well as in other disciplines. But Wojty≥a intends to reverse this relation. He does not want the person to be presupposed. Rather, “action reveals the person, and we look at the person through his action…Action gives us the best insight into the inherent essence of the person and allows us to understand the person most fully.”4 Instead of the presupposed person, his use of action reveals the person, and this is his starting point. Action is the most adequate starting point to begin understanding the dynamic nature of the human person.

    Wojty≥a writes that, foundationally, “The whole of The Acting Person is grounded on the premise that operari sequitur esse: the act of personal existence has its direct consequences in the activity of the person (i.e., in action). And so action, in turn, is the basis for disclosing and understanding the person.”6 If action depends on its being, then it is through action or operari that we discover its being. It is through operari that the subjectivity and whole dynamism of the person are disclosed. It is through this phenomenon of experienced reality, “man acts or I act,” that this lived experience will disclose the integral whole of the human person. Wojty≥a takes the concept of action and extends it beyond its traditional understanding. But he first wants to make it clear in The Acting Person where this concept comes from. His interpretation of action is “found in the philosophies of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. The interpretation is realistic and objectivistic as well as metaphysical.”8

    Wojty≥a credits metaphysics as the intellectual soil in which all domains of knowledge have their roots.10 It is this metaphysics that provides the conception and language that accounts for the dynamism inherent in being, especially the concept of action as the actualization and fulfillment of potentiality. Wojty≥a argues that there is currently no such conception or language that can account for the dynamic essence of change.12 This goes beyond the one-sided Boethian definition of a person with a rational nature. Wojty≥a’s anthropology now includes a range of actions of varying order.

    From a metaphysical point of view, the human person is a substantial being because this concept allows a person to be the causative subject and efficient cause of actions and values.14 Priority is given to the person’s beingness. “However we analyze the structure, conditions, and source of action we cannot bypass its ultimate ontological foundation…It is in the subject as a being that every dynamic structure is rooted, every acting and happening. It is given as a real, actually existing, being, the man-being that actually exists and hence also ‘really’ acts.”16

    Woznicki has pointed out that Wojty≥a, while accepting the entire metaphysics of the person as developed by Thomas, also goes beyond it.18 It is also important to note that because Wojty≥a takes Thomas’ ethics and anthropology as his point of departure, he cannot avoid Thomas’ fundamental ontology as well.

    Wojty≥a’s Methodology and Anthropology – Phenomenologist or Thomist?

    There is much debate about whether Wojty≥a is a Thomist , a Phenomenologist, or a synthesis of both. I will not enter that debate here.20

    So while Wojty≥a finds phenomenology to be a method useful for arriving at the metaphysical and ontological foundations of the person, his philosophical anthropology is not strictly phenomenological. While phenomenology is crucial in disclosing the various dimensions of human experience, it would drift into forms of solipsism if it were not grounded “in a general theory of things-as-they-are that was resolutely realistic and that could defend the capacity of human beings to get at the truth of things.”22 He also writes regarding The Acting Person, that, “Any attempt at combining these two philosophies is out of question, especially with respect to merging the philosophy of being with a philosophy of consciousness, as one that reduces all reality to the subject-consciousness and its contents. In The Acting Person, such a melding is completely out of question.”24

    Thirdly, it appears that allegiance to either system was not a priority to Wojty≥a and we find him arriving at a more nuanced synthesis of both systems. Perhaps a more accurate description would be a Hegelian Aufgehoben (sublation)of both systems that negates inadequate aspects and transcends them in a new synthesis that preserves the previously adequate into a higher unity in a dialectical process. Wojty≥a was deeply familiar with both systems and his higher interest was to develop a richer theory of the person in order to better inform his ethics.26

    Wojty≥a himself writes implicitly about this synthesis: “I wrote on the contribution which Scheler’s phenomenological type of ethical system can make to the development of moral theology. This research benefited me greatly. My previous Aristotelian-Thomistic formation was enriched by the phenomenological method.”28 Wojty≥a also critically uses the philosophy of being and consciousness “without blurring distinctions and generating an equivocal syncretism.”30

    This discussion on methodology finds an echo is his encyclical Fides et ratio. He argues in the encyclical that philosophy has its own methodology and legitimate autonomy apart from theology. But philosophy’s autonomy does not make it self-sufficient.32

    Buttiglione has noted that while the other popes that came before John Paul II were expressions of a constituted Christianity where values were largely inherited, John Paul II comes into a cultural situation where “values were largely destroyed and could only be discovered again because they were true.”34 This is because it is only in God as the “Supreme Good” and the “unshakable foundation and essential condition of morality” that the genuine complex problems of society can be overcome. It is only when morality is situated in the “truth of God” and the “truth of man” that the “authentic freedom of the person” can be secured.36

    How does Wojty≥a’s philosophical anthropology allow for the confident apprehension of moral truth and the subsequent understanding of proper human freedom? Wojty≥a, in the encyclicals, repeatedly makes a link between truth and freedom that warrants a closer examination. In short, authentic freedom depends on, and needs to be governed by, truth. This truth lies in our anthropology, humanity, and nature that directs us, as expressed in natural moral law. Our freedom to act must be governed by our respect for the truth of things, or objective truth, especially the truth about human nature, the truth about our place in the world, and the truth about our relation to God. Without this orientation to the truth, our freedom becomes arbitrary and subjective. And what is the nature of this truth? Ratzinger, in commenting on the nature of truth in Wojty≥a’s encyclicals defines truth as that which “orders our conduct, [and] lies in our very humanity. Our essence, our ‘nature,’ which comes from the Creator, is the truth which directs us. That we ourselves carry our truth in us, that our essence (our “nature”) is our truth is expressed by the term natural moral law (‘natural law’).”38 Wojty≥a would approve of Lord Acton’s maxim that freedom is “not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought,” and Polanyi’s contention that “the freedom of the subjective person to do as he pleases is overruled by the freedom of the responsible person to act as he must.”40

    Wojty≥a argues in Centesimus annus that “freedom attains its full development only by accepting the truth. In a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation and man is exposed to the violence of passion and to manipulation, both open and hidden.”42 He asks rhetorically, “Is it not freedom, obligation, and responsibility which allows us to see that not only truthfulness but also the person’s surrender to truth in judging as well as in acting constitute the real and concrete fabric of the personal life of man?”44 Without the notion of universal truth, individual consciences are granted the prerogative of independently determining the criteria for good and evil. This would eventually pit all against all without any recourse to a final court of arbitration. On the other hand, the behavioral sciences question the reality of human freedom, believing that human thoughts and actions are the result of social or psychological conditions. In sum, these contemporary conceptions lead to a relativistic conception of morality. Wojty≥a concludes, “The question of morality, to which Christ provides the answer, cannot prescind from the issue of freedom. Indeed, it considers that issue central, for there can be no morality without freedom: ‘It is only in freedom that man can turn to what is good.’” And genuine freedom recognizes “the dependence of freedom on truth.46

    Without metaphysical grounding, even ethics would be elusive. The nature of ethics demands a category for universal application. Aristotle argues that all persons seek happiness. Kant’s categorical imperative applies to all persons. Wojtyla follows suit. His philosophical anthropology argues for a personalist ethics and the personalist norm as the only systems adequate to meet the universal demands of our concrete totality and ethics for all persons everywhere. Wojty≥a’s designation of personalist is a universal category. It captures the universal nature of all persons in their totality and human dignity. Wojty≥a’s personalist designation does not only refer to utilitarian ends, the highest moral value of love, or ethics based on reason alone. Rather, Wojty≥a sublates all of these categories into a higher unity in the personalistic because the totality of the person is more than these categories and not reducible to any of them. The personalistic human being reasons, seeks after happiness in the different dimensions of existence, has a self-teleology, flourishes best under conditions that encourage and protect freedom and self-determination, pursues the common good, and preserves the dimensions proper to subjective concrete persons.

    Wojty≥a’s personalist ethics is a genuine foundation for the metaphysics of morals. This foundation is the person in his or her totality who is disclosed most fully through action. Kant’s categorical imperative is based on the “metaphysic” of pure reason as it relates to the moral experience. Knowledge of the totality of the human person cannot be reduced to the cognitive function alone. As a result, Kant’s prescriptive imperatives are formalistic. He lacks the experiential totality of the moral experience. While Kant’s ethics is radically egalitarian, it is not concrete enough because it bypasses the subjectivity of the person, who is not reducible to reason alone. Kant’s metaphysics of pure reason has no access into things as they really are or “things in themselves.” In contrast, Wojty≥a states the following:

    I do not mean to speak of metaphysics in the sense of a specific school or a particular historical current of thought. I want only to state that reality and truth do transcend the factual and the empirical, and to vindicate the human being’s capacity to know this transcendent and metaphysical dimension in a way that is true and certain, albeit imperfect and analogical. In this sense, metaphysics should not be seen as an alternative to anthropology, since it is metaphysics which makes it possible to ground the concept of personal dignity in virtue of their spiritual nature. In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with being, and hence with metaphysical enquiry.48 through the use of reason. But in Fides et ratio, Wojty≥a contends that “Modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned,” and has fostered “attitudes of widespread distrust of the human being’s great capacity for knowledge.”50 or “right reason”52 Reason, illumined by faith, has access to a fuller truth. Persons are capable of a genuinely metaphysical range that is able to transcend the empirical “in order to attain something absolute, ultimate and foundational in its search for truth . . . and in particular it is a requirement for knowing the moral good, which has its ultimate foundation in the Supreme Good, God himself.”54

    The confident apprehending of moral truth is possible for five reasons: First, an adequate understanding of human freedom depends on and is governed by truth. Second, there is rational access to the universal and immutable natural law or natural moral law that lies within the person’s structure as a measure of truth. Third, the truth of the moral law is discovered in the moral conscience of the person with the proviso that this faculty is trained and conformed towards the truth, as well as through the proper development of connaturality located in this faculty. Fourth, faith, as another faculty of the person, is able to grasp truth more fully by complementing reason. Fifth, reason is reliable in identifying moral truths and norms because of the human capacity for metaphysical enquiry.

     


    Endnotes

    2 Ibid., vii-viii.

    4 Ibid., 303.

    6 Peter Simpson, On Karol Wojtyla (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001), 23.

    8 Ibid., 26.

    10 Ibid., 25.

    12 Andrew Woznicki, A Christian Humanism: Karol Wojtyla’s Existential Personalism (New Britain, Connecticut: Mariel Publications, 1980), 17.

    14 Ibid., 9-16.

    16 Woznicki, A Christian Humanism, 16.

    18 Wojtyla, Acting Person, 64.

    20 See quote in Woznicki, A Christian Humanism, 19

    22 Wojtyla, Acting Person, 70.

    24 Wojtyla, Acting Person, 279-280 n 2.

    26 Jerzy W. Galkowski in “The Place of Thomism in the Anthropology of K. Wojtyla” Angelicum, Vol 65, 1988:190.

    28 Rocco Buttiglione, Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II, trans. Paolo Guietti (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1997), 129, 356.

    30 Kenneth Schmitz, At the Center of the Human Drama, (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1991),145.

    32 John Paul II, Veritatis splendor; Centesimus annus; Fides et ratio, [encyclicals on-line]; available from http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/index.htm; Internet; accessed 31 March 2008. John Paul II’s encyclicals have been translated into various English translations. I will be using the Vatican’s official English translation.

    34 John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, 98.

    36 Ibid., 4.

    38 Quoted in Rocco Buttiglione, Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II, 193, from Acta Synodalia.

    40 Buttiglione, Karol Wojtyla, 193.

    42 Wojtyla, Acting Person, 180.

    44 John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, 32.

    46 John Paul II, Address to 50th General Assembly of the United Nations Organization, [speech online]; available from: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1995/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_05101995_address-to-uno_en.html; Internet; accessed 31 March 2008.

    48Augustine defines God’s eternal law as the “reason or will of God.” Thomas identifies eternal law as “the type of the divine wisdom as moving all things to their due end.” Persons have a natural knowledge of God’s eternal law accessible from within through reason, and therefore can participate in God’s providence. Natural law then is the human expression of God’s eternal law. Thomas writes that the “participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called natural law.” Thomas concludes that “the natural law is itself the eternal law, implanted in beings endowed with reason, and inclining them towards their right action and end, it is none other than the eternal reason of the Creator and Ruler of the universe.”

    50 John Paul II, Centesimus annus, 46.

    52 Ibid., 82.

    54 Ibid.

    It has become commonplace to talk about “The End of Metaphysics” and “Religion after Metaphysics” to express a sense of relief over the liberation of religion and philosophy from an oppressive and extrinsic concept. Religious thought “after metaphysics” according to this sentiment, should not be beholden to or be dependent on ontology. Arguments for this sentiment have become more refined since Hume called for books on metaphysics to be committed to the flames. Given this sensibility, is it possible to construct a Post-modern metaphysics of the human person? It will be argued in this paper that Karol Wojty³a/Pope John Paul II has done just that in his philosophical anthropology. While much of recent philosophy has insisted that we cannot get to the truth of things, Wojty³a has argued that we can get to metaphysics and the truth of reality through anthropology. This paper will first focus on how Wojty³a arrives at the metaphysics of the human person through the phenomenology of experience. Second, is Wojty³a a phenomenologist, or a Thomist, or both? Third, how does Wojtyla develop and examine his Post-modern metaphysics of the human person in the Papal Encyclicals?

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10506 Towards an Age of Synthesis (Introductory Lecture to Debate)

    This talk investigates the impact of a non-reductionist view of reality on the sciences. We examine claims that assert “all reality is nothing but…”. For example, the claim that consciousness is nothing but electrical impulses in the brain, or that biological processes are nothing but physical/chemical reactions. What happens if the theories and explanations in a discipline eliminate such “nothing but” claims? What new insights become available for theories that take reality to be multi-aspectual and multi-leveled? Are they actually freed from pre-conceived limits so as to account for more sides to their data? Are there clear strategies for explanation that are non-reductionist?

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10507 On the Essence

    IntroducciÛn.

    El problema del alma, uno de los m·s antiguos de la filosofÌa, es tambiÈn central en el pensamiento de Zubiri, hasta el punto de que cabe clasificar buena parte de su obra en funciÛn de este problema; esta clasificaciÛn, por otra parte, nos permitir· seÒalar las fuentes zubirianas que vamos a utilizar aquÌ en esta exposiciÛn:

    1. Los escritos que tratan directamente del alma (o psique): “El origen del hombre”, “El hombre, realidad personal”, “El problema del hombre”, “El hombre y su cuerpo”, “Notas sobre la inteligencia humana”, “La gÈnesis humana”, etc.
    2. Los escritos que no tratan directamente del alma, pero que son origen, fundamento o resultado de una concepciÛn de ella: Sobre la esencia, Estructura din·mica de la realidad, Inteligencia Sentiente, etc.
    3. Los escritos, mÌnimos, que no tratan directamente del alma ni est·n afectados por una concepciÛn de la misma: “El concepto descriptivo de tiempo”, “Respectividad de lo real”, etc.

    Como se puede apreciar, casi todos los escritos de Zubiri tienen que ver directa o indirectamente con el problema del alma, es decir, que el alma ha sido un tema capital y recurrente en sus escritos. Este dato es esencial, puesto que nos anticipa algo que no nos puede resultar extraÒo en un autor tan precoz y tan longevo desde el punto de vista filosÛfico: las ideas zubirianas acerca del alma han ido evolucionando.

    AquÌ nos vamos a referir b·sicamente a los escritos que tratan directamente del alma. Y lo que vamos a exponer es que Zubiri, en efecto, ha pasado de una concepciÛn del alma como “esencia” o “sustancia” de la sustantividad humana, a una concepciÛn del alma como “subsistema psÌquico”. La terminologÌa empleada en un caso y otro es un sÌntoma evidente de un cierto cambio de perspectiva, lo cual afecta a una nota fundamental del ser humano: la inteligencia. La inteligencia, dir· Zubiri al final, no es una nota constitutiva, sino una nota sistem·tica. Por lo tanto, el ser humano no es una “esencia abierta” – donde “abierta” significa “intelectiva” – sino que es una “realidad abierta”.

    El hombre, realidad personal.

    DespuÈs de una primera etapa de “formaciÛn y peregrinaje”, Zubiri comienza una segunda etapa de “maduraciÛn” filosÛfica que va de 1945 a 1960. Es la etapa de “gestaciÛn del realismo zubiriano”.2. En este artÌculo aparecieron aplicados al ser humano algunos de los conceptos que Zubiri alumbrÛ a lo largo de los aÒos anteriores en sus cursos privados, tales como “de suyo”, “sustantividad”, “suficiencia”, “notas”, “estructura”, “sistema”, “subsistema”, “esencia”, “constituciÛn”, “combinaciÛn funcional”, “desgajamiento exigitivo”, “subtensiÛn din·mica”, “sub-stancia”, “supra-stancia”, “actualidad”, “noergia”, “personeidad”, “suidad formal”, “impresiÛn de realidad”, “habitud”, “libertad en”, etc. De ahÌ que, en una nota a pie de p·gina de dicho artÌculo, Zubiri pudo afirmar:

    En toda esta lecciÛn no hago sino presentar en forma sistem·tica y concisa, conceptos que he expuesto in extenso en mis cursos p˙blicos desde 1945, especialmente en los consagrados a los temas “Ciencia y realidad, Tres concepciones cl·sicas del hombre, Cuerpo y alma, La libertad humana, FilosofÌa primera, y El problema del hombre (SEAF 56).

    Por tanto, “El hombre, realidad personal” es el escrito que mejor resume la concepciÛn del ser humano que Zubiri gestÛ desde los aÒos 45 hasta la dÈcada de los 60, incluida Èsta. En Èl Zubiri describe el ser humano en tres niveles, de fuera adentro, tal como cabe considerar a un ser vivo: el nivel de “suscitaciones-respuestas”, el de “habitudes-respectos formales” y el de las “estructuras”. Los dos primeros niveles son f·cilmente aprehensibles. Las acciones vitales en general son un equilibrio din·mico entre suscitaciones y respuestas variadas, a veces complejas, que en la medida en que resultan adecuadas, hacen biolÛgicamente viable a un ser vivo. Las habitudes son el modo que tiene de habÈrselas el ser vivo con las suscitaciones. La complejidad de las respuestas del ser vivo est· en funciÛn del respecto formal en que quedan para Èl esas suscitaciones. Zubiri enumera tres habitudes fundamentales (nutriciÛn, sentir, inteligir), correlativas a tres respectos formales o formalidades (alimento, estÌmulo, realidad). Por lo tanto, la riqueza de las suscitaciones depende de los respectos formales que capta el ser vivo. O dicho de otro modo, las habitudes son el fundamento de la riqueza responsiva del ser vivo. Pues bien, Zubiri da un paso m·s: cree que las habitudes todavÌa no son los mecanismos que explican la constituciÛn ˙ltima del ser vivo, sino que necesitan de algo m·s profundo que las posibilita. Por eso escribe:

    Toda habitud emerge y est· constituida por estructuras previas, que son las que definen y estructuran entitativamente al ser vivo en cuestiÛn […] Estas estructuras que constituyen la razÛn necesaria y suficiente de las habitudes es lo que define esencial y constitutivamente a la sustantividad. Si queremos preguntarnos por la esencia del ser vivo, hay que contestar a esta pregunta apelando a las estructuras que lo constituyen. Y, en efecto, la palabra esencia tiene muchos sentidos en filosofÌa. Sobre todo en la filosofÌa actual. Los fenomenÛlogos han usado y abusado hasta el horror del vocablo esencia. Pero, prescindiendo de estos abusos, entienden, con Husserl a la cabeza, que la esencia es el Sinn, el sentido de los actos de conciencia que intencionalmente se refieren a algo. Ahora, en esta acepciÛn, esencia, evidentemente, lo tiene todo; puedo hablar de la esencia de un color, de la esencia de esta mesa, en fin de dos mil esencias. No es esto lo que nos importa, porque lo que aquÌ nos importa no es la esencia como sentido de aquello a que se refiere el acto de conciencia, sino aquello que constituye lo esencial de la realidad, a diferencia de lo que no es esencial a ella, sea o no esta realidad tÈrmino de un acto de conciencia […] La esencia fÌsica de una realidad es el sistema de aquellos caracteres o de aquellas propiedades necesarias y suficientes para ser esto, que, ciertamente, no agotan al ser en cuestiÛn, pero que constituyen la raÌz ˙ltima de todo lo que este ser en cuestiÛn es […] Estos caracteres que constituyen la raÌz de lo que es una esencia, han de ser formales y constitutivos: no basta que sean caracteres que est·n en una cosa por el efecto de la causa que lo ha producido. Y digo esto, porque para los griegos, el problema de la esencia era un problema perfectamente limitado por una apelaciÛn que contrapone la naturaleza a la tÈchne, a lo artificial […] Pero esto que era claro para los griegos, es para nosotros soberanamente oscuro. Porque es que la tÈchne nuestra, nuestra tÈcnica, no solamente hace cosas artificiales, es decir, cosas que la naturaleza no harÌa. No. Lo grave de la tÈcnica actual es justamente al revÈs: que hace cosas naturales. Produce artificialmente electrones. Produce artificialmente molÈculas: est· a punto de producir la sÌntesis, si no de un ser vivo, por lo menos del elemento esencial del ser vivo. En ese caso la contraposiciÛn entre tÈchne, entre la tÈcnica y la naturaleza es inoperante. A lo que hay que apelar para definir la esencia de un ser vivo no es a esta contraposiciÛn entre lo natural y lo artificial, sino a la contraposiciÛn entre los caracteres constitutivos de una cosa, y que sean en cierto modo el fundamento sobre el cual se montan todos los dem·s caracteres que no son constitutivos, o que aun siÈndolo est·n presupuestos por los dem·s. En cierto modo, las propiedades de todas las propiedades.”4 La cosa es muy com˙n entre los organismos.

    Cualquier organismo est· compuesto de millones de sustancias, ninguna de las cuales pierde en el organismo su propia sustancialidad. Sin embargo, carecen de sustantividad; sustantividad sÛlo la posee el organismo (SEAF 71).

    Es lo que sucede, por ejemplo, en el caso de la glucosa. Cuando la glucosa est· fuera del organismo, es una realidad con su doble momento sustantivo y sustancial. Y al ingresar en el organismo, pierde su momento sustantivo, pero no el sustancial. De ahÌ que le sigamos llamando glucosa, y que de hecho podamos medir su concentraciÛn en la sangre. La glucosa en el organismo es sustancial pero insustantiva: la ˙nica sustantividad es la del organismo como un todo, no la de sus componentes, que son unidades sustanciales.

    Pues bien, lo mismo ocurrirÌa en el caso del ser humano. El ser humano est· compuesto de muchas sustancias materiales, lo que propiamente llamamos organismo o “cuerpo”, y de una sustancia psÌquica que Zubiri llama aquÌ “alma”. Desde este punto de vista, y en el rigor de los tÈrminos, el ser humano no es una unidad sustancial, sino dual, o plural. En todo caso, lo anÌmico es irreductible a lo corporal. Ahora bien, debido a que ese conjunto de sustancias se “codeterminan”, ello da lugar a una nueva unidad de realidad con nuevas propiedades.

    Las propiedades de los compuestos, unas son “aditivas”: son la suma de las propiedades de una “mezcla”. Pero otras son “sistem·ticas”; no pueden distribuirse sobre cada una de los componentes, sino que afectan pro indiviso al sistema entero. Tal es el caso de muchas propiedades en una “combinaciÛn” (SEAF 71).

    Las llamadas propiedades constitucionales, es decir, las propiedades sistem·ticas, brotan de la codeterninaciÛn de las propiedades constitutivas, y por tanto transforman la unidad sustancial de los diversos componentes en una unidad superior: la unidad sustantiva. La unidad sustantiva es el resultado de una combinaciÛn de unidades sustanciales. En el orden operativo es lo que Zubiri llama “combinaciÛn funcional”, pero en el orden constitucional se trata de “mera sustantividad”

    Tr·tase de una sustantividad que en el orden operativo est· caracterizada no por la producciÛn de una sustancia nueva, sino por la producciÛn de una ‘combinaciÛn funcional’. La independencia del medio y el control especÌfico sobre Èl, no serÌa sino la expresiÛn de esta peculiaridad, la expresiÛn de la combinaciÛn funcional (SEAF 71).

    Esto es lo que sucede con todos los seres vivos, y por supuesto con ese ser vivo que es el ser humano, con la peculiaridad de que su sustancia psÌquica es de un orden distinto al de todas las dem·s sustancias materiales.

    El hombre se halla compuesto de una sustancia psÌquica, y de millones de sustancias materiales. Pero todas ellas constituyen una sola unidad estructural. Cada sustancia tiene de por sÌ sus propiedades, pero la estructura les confiere una sustantividad ˙nica en virtud de la cual la actividad humana es absolutamente nueva.

    Como sustantividad, el ser humano es una unidad cuya habitud se define como inteligencia sentiente. La intelecciÛn sentiente es la actividad constitucional de la sustantividad humana. Ahora bien, en el orden constitutivo o esencial, el ser humano es una “corporeidad anÌmica”, o lo que es lo mismo una “esencia abierta”. Esta segunda es la fÛrmula con la que Zubiri termina la fundamentaciÛn metafÌsica del ser humano en Sobre la esencia. “Esencia abierta”, o “corporeidad anÌmica” expresa, no la unidad sustantiva del ser humano, sino su “codeterminaciÛn” esencial. Zubiri no puede hablar de una unidad sustancial al modo aristotÈlico, porque no lo es. Tampoco puede hablar de unidad sustantiva, porque la sustantividad sÛlo aparece en el orden constitucional. Habla por eso de una unidad estructural.

    El hombre es una sola unidad estructural cuya esencia es corporeidad anÌmica. Sus elementos no se determinan como acto y potencia sino que se co-determinan mutuamiente (SEAF).

    Ahora bien, ¿quÈ tipo de unidad es eso que Zubiri llama “unidad estructural”. Si no es una unidad sustancial ni tampoco sustantiva, ¿es que hay un tercer modo de unidad? Zubiri va a intentar resolver este problema algunos aÒos m·s tarde.

    El hombre y su cuerpo.

    La concepciÛn zubiriana del alma que acabamos de ver en la descripciÛn anterior va a cambiar abruptamente a partir de la dÈcada de los 70 con la publicaciÛn del artÌculo “El hombre y su cuerpo”. En esta dÈcada Zubiri abre un nuevo periodo de su vida intelectual, el ˙ltimo de su “madurez” filosÛfica, puesto que revisa algunos conceptos que venÌa utilizando con anterioridad. Tales son, por lo menos, los conceptos de “sustancia”, “sustancialidad” y “actualidad”. Este trÌo va a adquirir una articulaciÛn distinta de la que venÌa teniendo en el periodo anterior, de forma que el concepto de “sustancia” pasa a segundo plano o desaparece, mientras que el concepto de “actualidad” toma su relevo y cobra cada vez m·s importancia. Vamos a verlo.

    El artÌculo “El hombre y su cuerpo”, que se publicÛ en 1973/4 en dos revistas, comienza con una depuraciÛn terminolÛgica, que es el indicio m·s claro de los cambios profundos que Zubiri va a introducir en este tema.

    El hombre es una realidad una y ˙nica: es unidad. No es una uniÛn de dos realidades, lo que suele llamarse “alma” y “cuerpo”. Ambas expresiones son inadecuadas porque lo que con ellas pretende designarse depende esencialmente de la manera como se entienda la unidad de la realidad humana. De ello depende asimismo la idea de su actividad (SEAF 87).

    Si la nociÛn de alma desaparece del lenguaje de Zubiri, lo que primeramente tenemos que preguntarnos es si eso no significa abandonar tambiÈn la nociÛn metafÌsica de sustancia y la unidad que ella representa. He aquÌ el texto fundamental.
     

    La realidad humana es una unidad de sustantividad, esto es, es una unidad primaria y fÌsica de sus notas. De estas notas, unas son de car·cter fÌsico-quÌmico, otras de car·cter psÌquico (por ejemplo, la inteligencia). Las notas de car·cter fÌsico-quÌmico suelen llamarse sustancias, y lo son, pero no en el sentido metafÌsico de sustancia, sino en el sentido vulgar del vocablo, como cuando hablamos, por ejemplo de sustancias grasas, del ·cido pir˙vico, del hierro, del fÛsforo, etc. Tr·tase, pues de lo que llamamos sustancias quÌmicas. Este aspecto fÌsico-quÌmico de la sustantividad humana no es, como suele decirse, “materia” (cosa asaz vaga y demasiado remota para la constituciÛn formal de la sustantividad huata), sino que es “organismo”. El organismo es tan sÛlo un subsistema parcial dentro del sistema total de la sustantividad humana. Por sÌ mismo y en sÌ mismo, carece de sustantividad. El aspecto psÌquico de la sustantividad humana tampoco es, como suele decirse “espÌritu” (tÈrmino tambiÈn vago). PodrÌa llamarse “alma” si el vocablo no estuviera sobrecargado de un sentido especial, archidiscutible, a saber: el sentido de una entidad “dentro” del cuerpo y “separable” de Èl. Prefiero por esto llamar a este aspecto simplemente “psique”. La psique no es una sustancia ni en el sentido vulgar del vocablo (eso es sobradamente evidente), pero tampoco en el sentido metafÌsico. La psique es tambiÈn sÛlo un subsistema parcial dentro del sistema total de la sustantividad humana (SEAF 90).

     

    Como antes, la nociÛn de sustantividad sigue siendo aquÌ fundamental para describir la unidad sistem·tica de la realidad humana. Pero esta unidad ya no lo es de sustancias, como sÌ ocurrÌa en la concepciÛn anterior, sino de notas que forman dos “subsistemas”, el psÌquico (ya no alma) y el org·nico. Por tanto, podemos llamar la atenciÛn sobre tres puntos en este texto. Primero, que la nociÛn de alma es sustituida por la nociÛn de psique. Segundo, que la nociÛn de sustancia pierde su sentido metafÌsico. Tercero, que las notas esenciales no forman sistema sino subsistema. Estas tres ideas est·n perfectamente conectadas, es decir, que obedecen a un mismo objetivo o interÈs: salvar la unidad de la sustantividad humana sin que ello signifique reducir el subsistema psique al subsistema org·nico. Esto sigue siendo un punto invariable en Zubri.

    Ciertamente, este subsistema [psique] tiene algunos caracteres irreductibles al subsistema org·nico, y en muchos aspectos (no en todos, bien entendido) tiene a veces cierta dominancia sobre Èste. Pero sin embargo, la psique es sÛlo un subsistema parcial. Esto quiere decir que ni organismo son un sistema por sÌ mismo, sino que cada subsistema es sistema sÛlo en virtud de una consideraciÛn mental no arbritraria, pero tampoco adecuada a la realidad. En su realidad fÌsica sÛlo hay el sistema total; tanto en su funcionamiento como en su estructura reales, todas y cada una de las notas psÌquicas son “de” las notas org·nicas y cada una de las notas org·nicas es nota “de

    Si la sustantividad es un sistema total de notas con suficiencia constitucional, el “subsistema” de notas constitutivas o esenciales hay que definirlo entonces como un sistema insuficiente. Esto es aquÌ fundamental. En Sobre la esencia hay veces que Zubiri llama a las notas constitutivas o esenciales “sistema” y no “subsistema” (SE, 267). Esto resultaba allÌ paradÛjico, dado que la tesis del libro es que el sistema completo no puede ser m·s que el sustantivo, es decir, el que forman las notas constitucionales. Pero en la medida en que las notas constitucionales se basan en las constitutivas, Zubiri acababa concediendo tambiÈn cierta suficiencia a las notas constitutivas. La esencia no serÌa subsistema sino sistema. Las consecuencias de esta concepciÛn ya la hemos visto: el alma es una sustancia espiritual que forma parte del sistema constitutivo o esencial de la realidad humana. Pues bien, esto es lo que Zubiri revisa ahora. La psique no es m·s que un “subsistema” de notas constitutivas o esenciales sin suficiencia constitucional.

    Subsistema no es un sistema fragmentario que estuviera incluido o recluido en el sistema total: ni la psique est· recluida en el organismo ni Èste en aquÈlla. El subsistema no es un fragmento, sino una cierta unidad a la que le falta sin embargo el momento de clausura clÌclica (SEAF 95).

    Por eso Zubiri deja de llamar “alma” a ese subsistema psÌquico, y, como consecuencia, deja de echar mano de la nociÛn de sustancia. La nociÛn de alma, tal como venÌa consider·ndose en perspectiva aristotÈlica, mentarÌa una sustancia con suficiencia entitativa, por tanto, ubicada circunstancialmente en el sistema sustantivo humano, pero separable del cuerpo. El alma serÌa sustancial dentro de la sustantividad humana, pero sustantiva una vez aniquilada esta sustantividad. Sin embargo, esto es lo que Zubiri no acepta ahora. Hasta el punto que Zubiri, traspasando las fronteras estrictamente filosÛficas, llega a afirmar:

    Digamos, de paso, que cuando el cristianismo, por ejemplo, habla de supervivencia e inmortalidad quien sobrevive y es inmortal no es el alma sino el hombre, esto es, la sustantividad humana (SEAF 90-1).

    Ahora bien, esto que Zubiri formula como “de paso”, quiz· lo sea menos de lo que aparenta. En la etapa anterior, hasta la dÈcada de los 70, Zubiri ha sostenido la idea de alma como sustancia por motivos teolÛgicos. Como ha escrito D. Gracia, “la idea de Zubiri en todos esos aÒos es que el alma es una sustancia espiritual, que es sustantiva cuando est· fuera del compuesto humano, pero que tiene car·cter sÛlo sustancial cuando forma parte de la realidad del ser humano. Y esto es lo que comienza a relativizar en la primavera de 1973, como consecuencia de un ciclo de elecciones impartido por Marie-…mile Boismard en la Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones de Madrid. En esas conferencias Boismard explicÛ cÛmo en la literatura veterotestamentaria cl·sica no hay alma, sino sÛlo ser humano, y que la gracia divina de la resurrecciÛn lo es tambiÈn del hombre entero. En la sustantividad no hay nada que exija necesariamente la perduraciÛn. Zubiri conocÌa perfectamente esos datos bÌblicos, pero pensaba que la no aceptaciÛn de un alma espiritual chocaba de frente con uno de los c·nones del Concilio de Vienne.6.

    Los conceptos de subsistema y sistema (o sustantividad) serÌan pues suficientes para explicar ahora la unidad de la realidad humana, porque lo que prima es definitivamente el todo frente a las partes. Ya no es necesario apelar a una sustancia anÌmica interna al cuerpo humano. Algo de eso quiere transmitir el propio tÌtulo del artÌculo que venimos analizando, “El hombre y su cuerpo”. AquÌ “cuerpo” no es algo aÒadido al hombre, sino un subsistema fÌsico-quÌmico, el llamado “organismo”, que no obstante posee algunas “funciones” dentro del sistema entero de la sustantividad humana. Tales son la funciÛn org·nica, la funciÛn configuradora y la funciÛn som·tica. Lo que sÌ va a insinuar Zubiri es que entre las dos primeras funciones y la ˙ltima hay una diferencia radical. Las dos primeras son funciones que tienen que ver con la organizaciÛn fÌsico-quÌmica, es decir, con el subsistema org·nico, mientras que la tercera es una funciÛn de actualidad o presencialidad. Es decir, que el cuerpo expresa m·s de lo que es desde el punto de vista fÌsico-quÌmico, puesto que hace al ser humano presente o actual.

    La sustantividad psico-org·nica tiene un momento de corporeidad, esto es, un momento de actualidad, de presentidad “fÌsica” en la realidad. El organismo tiene aquÌ una funciÛn propia: la de ser el fundamento material de esta actualidad presencial. La materia como fundamento de actualidad, de presencialidad “fÌsica” es lo que debe llamarse soma. El organismo tiene esta (que desde mis primeros escritos llamÈ asÌ) funciÛn som·tica. Es una funciÛn distinta de la organizadora y de la configuradora. No confundamos, pues, soma y organismo. SÛlo en virtud de esta funciÛn debe llamarse al organismo cuerpo. El organismo es cuerpo, esto es, soma, tan sÛlo por ser fundamento material de la corporeidad del sistema, y no al revÈs. Claro est·, esta funciÛn, de hecho, presupone la funciÛn organizadora y la de configuraciÛn; sin estas funciones no habrÌa presencialidad fÌsica. Pero no se identifican formalmente con Èsta. Ser soma, ser cuerpo no es formalmente idÈntico a ser organizaciÛn fÌsico-quÌmica. Es sin embargo una funciÛn estrictamente material; es, si se quiere, materia som·tica a diferencia de materia org·nica. La primera concierne al organismo como fundamento de actualidad, la segunda le confiere como fundamento de organizaciÛn (SEAF 97).

    Esto es lo que escribe Zubiri en 1973. El giro que ha dado en esta fecha ha sido importante. Ha dejado de usar el concepto de sustancia anÌmica, y ha encontrado el sustituto explicativo de la inteligencia en el concepto de “actualidad”. Pasa del binomio sustancia-sustantividad al de sustantividad-actualidad. Dicho de otro modo, el contrapunto de la sustantividad es ahora la actualidad y no la sustancialidad. Esto implica que el juego de relaciones que anteriormente se establecÌa entre sustancia y sustantividad, se establece ahora entre sustantividad y actualidad. Que una cosa pierda o gane notas no afecta a su car·cter sustantivo, como sucedÌa antes, sino a su car·cter de actualidad. La glucosa, por ejemplo, al entrar en el organismo no es que pierda su sustantividad, sino que adquiere una nueva actualidad, y lo mismo el organismo, etc. Todo se explicarÌa a partir de este proceso de actualizaciones. TambiÈn la inteligencia. La inteligencia ya no es necesario conceptuarla como una nota constitutiva o esencial dentro de la unidad sustantiva de la realidad humana, como Zubiri pensaba antes. Basta con hacerla depender de las notas sistem·ticas de la propia sustantividad, al modo de las propiedades nuevas de las “combinaciones funcionales”. La inteligencia es una nota sistem·tica nueva que definen el conjunto de notas psico-org·nicas que constituyen la sustantividad humana. Esta sustantividad sigue siendo abierta, puesto que sus actualizaciÛnes pueden ser m˙ltiples, pero en todo caso, no debe su apertura a una nota esencial o constitutiva, la sustancia anÌmica, sino a la estructura sistem·tica de dicha sustantividad.

    ConclusiÛn.

    Como acabamos de ver, Zubiri resuelve el problema del alma de dos modos esencialmente distintos a lo largo de su vida intelectual. En el artÌculo “El hombre, realidad personal”, de 1969, presenta una concepciÛn del ser humano que pasa por la postulaciÛn de una sustancia anÌmica como fundamento de la unidad sustantiva. Sin embargo, en el artÌculo “El hombre y su cuerpo”, de 1973, presenta una nueva concepciÛn del ser humano, ahora apelando, no a la idea de sustancia, sino a la idea de actualidad. La inteligencia serÌa una actualizaciÛn de las notas constitucionales, no constitutivas, de la sustantividad humana.

    Sin embargo, hay un punto en el que Zubiri nunca ha variado su posiciÛn: que la inteligencia, sea concebida como nota sustancial, sea concebida como nota sistem·tica, es irreductible a una complejizaciÛn de notas fÌsico-quÌmicas. La inteligencia siempre es un plus de actualidad. Da ahÌ que ning˙n monismo emergentista pueda resultar a ˙ltima hora completamente convincente. Por eso la soluciÛn de Zubiri podrÌa entenderse como un “emergentismo por elevaciÛn”. El organismo “da de sÌ” la inteligencia, “desde sÌ misma”, pero no “por sÌ misma”. Lo cual no deja de ser una explicaciÛn metafÌsica. Porque fenomenolÛgicamente la cuestiÛn queda intacta. Y es que aquÌ es donde sigue estando el problema, quiz· el misterio, de la inteligencia. Es lo que hemos querido expresar con el tÌtulo de este trabajo: alma, psique, intelecto.

     


    Endnotes

    2 X. Zubiri, “El hombre, realidad personal”, en Revista de Occidente (Madrid), 2ª Època, nº 1 (1963), pp. 5-29.

    4 D. Gracia, “La madurez de Zubiri”, p. 4 (en prensa).

    6 D. Gracia, “La madurez de Zubiri”, 11 (en prensa).

    On the essence is the zubirian analyse of the reality in general and the human reality in particular. The reality does not have a substantial structure but substantive, and the essence is not therefore essence of the substance but the substantive reality. In addition, in the transcendental order, the essence is either closed or opened. In the world, the human reality is the “opened essence,” the intellective essence that is usually called “person.” The person notion is thus the aim of detailed metaphysical analysis of the reality. However, the person notion as “open essence” creates the same problems. In 1962, Zubiri thought that intelligence was an essential note that performed a special role in the structure of the human reality. Nevertheless, since 1973 Zubiri analized the intelligence like systematic or substantive note. Then “open essence” becomes “open reality.” In this communication, we tried to discuss this problem with the purpose of clarifying the position of Zubiri and perhaps its evolution.

    5/28/2008 05/28/2008 10508 Nature and Hypostasis: An Orthodox Christian Response to Reductionism

    The question that has been presented is whether or not man is more than an electro-chemical system. One can approach this question from several points of view.

    I would like to argue that the answer is no, man is not merely an electro-chemical system shaped incidentally by evolution. I would like to argue this position on the basis of the Orthodox Christian concept of hypostasis.

    At one level, all of humanity shares a common nature. Many elements of that nature are shared with other living creatures. The common human nature refers to all those things which human beings have in common and which are subject to the laws of nature. It is evident, however, that at another level each human being has an individual construct that is more than simply electro-chemical activity, no matter how complex, and which cannot be resolved by a reference to biological evolution. In Orthodox Christian theology, we refer to this construct as hypostasis.î The hypostasis is that from which the individual shapes his or her own personhood. It is an energy which exceeds the realm of electro-chemical activity, the common human nature, and biological evolution. It allows the individual to do something that non-human creatures cannot doóand that is to plan, shape and develop his or her own destiny. The individual can choose and make of his/herself what he/she wills. I cannot see a successful argument suggesting that this is accomplished simply by a complex electro-chemical activity. Such an activity requires an entity higher than, and free from,the common human natureóthat which everyone has in common, and which is subject to the laws of nature.