My spiritual teacher advised his students to read a book called Beyond the Postmodern Mind by a world-known philosopher and scholar Huston Smith. My teacher’s thought was that it would be good for us to understand the evolution of thought and values in the western world, and to understand where and how the current paradigm originated, why the West thinks as it does. What follows is a short piece I wrote, inspired by Smith:
According to Jacques Derrida, claims of Absolute Truth marginalizes other ideas and alienates us from others who don’t share our world view. It makes us blind to alternative ways of understanding. There’s definitely some truth to this. The remedy, however, is not to throw the metaphysical baby out with the bath water in order to be open-minded, but to rely on people whose metaphysics are not only informed by logic and reasoning, but by genuine mystical experience.
A natural conclusion of Derrida’s theory would be that the more a person bases his/her life on a metaphysical world view, the more closed, marginalized and antagonistic towards differently thinking people he must be. But obviously this is not the case with mystics. They are in many ways much more connected to the nature, more conscious and clear-minded of what’s going on around them, kinder to other living beings and very flexible in their thinking –more so than most postmodernists–while basing their lives completely on a “metaphysical” foundation.
Institutionalized religion often serves as an example of what Derrida is warning about. When an institution is based on metaphysical principles but there are no members who would embody the theory of their metaphysical system the problems with absolute claims become very obvious. When religion becomes only a philosophical or theological belief-system with no one to clarify and validate the construct with their mystical experience of it, people start “dragging transcendence to their level”, as Swami puts it. To make matters worse, even if there is such a person, institutions often turn against members that actually embody the true spirit of the institution. The realized person’s flexibility is seen as a deviation because it doesn’t fit the conditioned and literal understanding of the institution’s metaphysics. Truth has to be as the institution delineates it, otherwise it will crumble the whole foundation the members have built their lives on.
It could be argued that true metaphysical world views, that have lasted the tear of time, have originated as a side-product of the mystical experience. The experiencers have put their experiences into words, and from that philosophical systems have developed.The mystical experience is afforded to a fortunate few by revelation, so even metaphysics in the ultimate case would be a descending form of knowledge. This is why reason should never be separated from the mystical experience and given independence. The only solution to keep metaphysics from either turning into totalitarianism or into meaningless relativism (as a reaction to totalitarianism) is to have a continuous stream of new revelation and a chain of saints who can provide that.
Of course it’s a whole other discussion of how to decide who is a real saint and which saint’s vision is the correct, but I won’t get into that here.
IMHO, western mind doesn’t necessarily ‘think’ unlike eastern mind. Or vice versa. A post modern person may also think in all new ways, beyond east and west. Universal way, controversial way, etc.
I find eastern and western attributes to be a part of milieu of a pre-WWII world, with science and human society still deeply segregated and fragmented. We’re still dragging that world view in us, because it’s still instated through politics and economy, which dominate today’s life.
Thus we have an old economic system that is utterly inefficient in coping inside modern world, which causes multitude of crises, all augmented with political issues that sparkle constantly around the globe.
Some new bold moves on metaphysics are possible too; if you ever have a chance, take a look on “Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized”, by Ladyman, Ross, Spurrett and Collier. I’ll grab and excerpt from Amazon, which nicely summarises that work.
“Every Thing Must Go” is a bold attempt to replace our standard metaphysical picture of the world with a radically different view. The motivation for this change comes from taking science, and especially fundamental physics, seriously. The basic structure of the book is as follows.
1. The authors begin by calling into question the methodology of current “armchair” metaphysics. A new naturalistic methodology is proposed according to which the goal of metaphysics is to unify the various sciences.
2. Using this methodology, Ladyman et al proceed to argue for a version of ontic structural realism about fundamental physics. According to this view, our best physical theories tell us only about structure — not entities — because there are no entities. In other words, at the fundamental level, there are no things (hence the title).
3. Finally, the authors attempt to explain how the successful deploying of objects and causation in the special sciences can be justified when neither is found in fundamental physics nor is reducible to it.
4. The key to reconciling the special sciences with fundamental physics is an understanding of objects of the former in terms of Dennett’s real patterns. Essentially, objects (and causation) in the special sciences are real patterns that track important features of the structure of reality at a non-fundamental level of resolution.
Perhaps the most important role for philosophy of any sort is questioning the fundamental assumptions that underlie our thinking.
This book exemplifies this virtue by asking, “Is the world really made up of smaller and smaller things? Or is this merely a prejudice carried over from our experience with the world of everyday experience?”
So let’s go back again; we live in a world segregated by politics and economy, and it seems those two stubborn imposed ‘realities’ of our lives like us to believe world is meant to be like that, despite evidence that the opposite is actually true.
Thanks for your reply, Zvonimir. It gave me a good opportunity to further clarify my thoughts on the subject. Here’s what I thought:
You’re saying that the global community has transcended the east/west segregation and the distinction holds no meaning anymore since we live in a global village, but the way I see it is that actually the whole world has become westernized. Unity requires a similar world view, or a loose theoretical framework at least. And the modern world surely has one: value relativism, of which consumerism is a natural outcome. I see this very much as a product of the west. What I mean with the West in this context is the cultures that were part of the scientific/industrial revolution and turned into modernism and finally to postmodernism. If it wasn’t for these cultures, Middle-Europe I guess, the world would still be living in a pre-industrial setting. So to say that we have transcended the east/west thinking is very Western-centric IMHO.
The current paradigm was first forced by the sword and later with promises of easy life and glamour. I think it’s an unarguable fact that the whole world is trying to follow the culture that set the title wave of modernity on its course.
Also, what the book “All Things Must Go” is advocating sounds very much like another Western project to me. We have to realize that believing in the superiority of science as a means of knowing is very much a culturally biased opinion, but it’s very hard to see as such because it’s OUR culture, and it’s so much harder to see your own cultural conditioning than others’.
Modern philosophy seems to be doubtful to the extreme and apparently totally open to new ideas, but at the same time strongly relies on empiricism and science. I find that to be a contradiction.
The book “all things must go” seems to be relying on the same thing, that a comprehensive world explanation can only be arrived at through naturalistic means. This is a point I strongly disagree with. I believe that you do get accurate information about your surroundings through science (no, I don’t believe the world is flat, thank you very much) but it’s only one methodology of gathering knowledge, one view of looking at what’s happening. My personal conviction is that it just can’t touch the deeper understanding or knowing of reality, as it is experienced by the mystics. Why should I believe in the unproved background assumption of science that reality can be known by empiristic or naturalistic means? I’m very doubtful of that.
Another assumption that we westerners seem to take for granted is that in the final analysis all progression is elevating, or adds something more to the old. So we have to find NEW ways of thinking, NEW ways of commuting, sleeping, having sex, eating, playing, relaxing and so on. But I think we should also stop to consider that maybe we have lost some abilities that were inborn in the ancient cultures, and now we are trying to substitute that connection by feverishly trying to come up with new things.
What this really boils down to is a linear way of thinking, which is practically absent in the ancient cultures.
At the same time, this is not to say that everything was perfect in the “olden days”, but I do feel we have lost something that cannot be substituted with the brilliant innovativeness and intelligence of the modern mind (which actually is amazing in itself).
I do believe that the east and the west could come together in a profound way, but it’s not going to happen in the way the world is going at it right now.
I warmly recommend Huston Smith’s book to you, Zvonimir. It’s very refreshing and bold in its approach, but not fundamentalist at all.
Hello dear Gurunistha
And thank you for your response. It’s always good to communicate more and be more precise. It’s a pleasure to be in contact with you.
Actually, the reality of these matters is far more complex than what I’ve explained in the above brief message. At the moment it may be perceived as “All Things Must Go” conform with just a modern science, but we can express it in this way: modern science also conforms the truth found in scriptures and revelation of old, now more than ever before.
Statement that says that there’s an underlying substance to all things, and the that we’re all enmeshed in an unified field of consciousness, as physicist David Bohm would propose, doesn’t exclude a statement from, say, Isa Upanshad 5: “It (tat) moves and moves not; It is far and likewise near. It is inside all this and It is outside all this.”
As per your argument that unification seems to be a form of westernisation, yes I agree — it may be perceived as such. However, we can propose a similar argument: to say that we have not transcended the east/west thinking can be seen as very Eastern-centric
And that modern science doesn’t come close to revealed truth of the scripture may be also considered a prejudice, because who can positively prove some modern scientists are not revealed fragments of the eternal truth now, in this time and space? And who can prove modern scientists don’t speak the same truth as saints of long ago? But perhaps the problem is in us — the interpreters — who cannot translate the messages and don’t have courage or will to correlate them?
Trying to find the lowest common denominator through sciences, as the basis for metaphysics, doesn’t sound too bad as it seems at the first glance: at least that attempt tries to find a common ground among different realities and particular views, to objectivise the core values upon which we can all agree. That attempt alone is worth praise.
Discussions like this can go on and on, of course, but at some stage we have to stop and take a look back: in this troubled world at the moment (to paraphrase Mr Spock) the needs of many outweigh the needs of few. Trying to find some unifying ground is a necessity and whoever does the job — either science and new metaphysics or revealed scripture and old metaphysics or both — we may say have a unified vision of the world.
Thank you once again.