KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Müller)

Response 12 (to C26 by McCarthy)

WESENS-SCHAU VERSUS CONCEPT-BUILDING
by Herbert FJ Müller
16 March 2001, posted 3 April 2001

[1]
ABSTRACT

Maurice McCarthy presents an interesting and spirited discussion of the increasing evidence of a need for a change in conceptual views and practices, with the aim of an unbiased perception of phenomena. This view has some problems : historically, Edmund Husserl tried it but was not successful; in the end he proposed once more a static metaphysical view. My explanation : he could not go beyond mind-independent-reality-belief because he based himself on it by assuming that phenomena are mind-independently structured. This amounts to trying to jump over one's own shadow, and is self-defeating. Therefore the change now must be more thorough, to the effect that : one has to acknowledge that we build and posit, rather than find, the qualities and structures of experience and thinking.

Quotes from McCarthy are in "quotation marks", my responses are in [brackets].

[2]
" <6> … Empirical Materialism attained the golden fleece of absolute truth, at least in its own mind. … <7> A century later that golden fleece of absolute truth has been lost. … The whole world is again phenomenal and not absolutely true. In fact Phenomenalism is thrust upon us, in some regard, by the necessary development of physics in the early 20th century. … "

[3]
[ The above characterization of empiricism-positivism, and absolute truth, is rather well made, and so is the statement about the further development. I agree that something new is developing, but in my opinion the direction of the present trend has to be somewhat different. Instead of discovering phenomena, we are headed toward a view in which we realize that we build the qualities (eg, colors or pain) and also the structures of experience. (This is known as radical constructivism - see TA17 by von Glasersfeld - or as I have called it, zero-reference (0-D) of the structures we build, posit, and use, because they do not refer to anything pre-constructed outside or inside us). It puts the emphasis on an active process, discarding the possibility of finding some 'given' already-structured phenomena. In doing so we do indeed discover something : the limits of the possibilities of structure-building and -use, that is the viability of the structures built by us, rather than pre-existing structures. The limits are not absolute in the old sense, but it turns out that some of them are nevertheless quite definite. ]

[4]
" <7> … Covertly the subjective construct became prior to the reality of the objects. Quantum Physics made explicit that the being of the object is related to the subject. … The object only 'is' when and where it is seen. With the end of object consciousness the age of the World-I duality draws to an end and we embark upon a whole new era. … <8> The entire world is now subsumed in the phenomena of the soul, of consciousness. "

[ Our structures of self and objects (and of other people too) are built or structured simultaneously, I would think. Thus the subject is an aspect of every experience rather than everything being subsumed in the soul. The important point is to go back to undivided experience, that is to before the Cartesian ontological subject-object split, implied in empiricism, etc. This I guess would be in agreement with the summary in <8>. But the question of construction versus mind-independently-pre-constructed reality (MIR) is pervasive, and re-appears in the section on epistemology : ]

[5]
" <12> … all knowledge must be dismissed and a beginning made from immediately perceived phenomena, i.e. the given experience, so that there are no presuppositions. In this regard the exposition below is defective. Existence should be that which 'is' by proceeding from grounds for that existence. Existent is here used as anything that shows itself, no matter how trivial that being is. … "

[ Later phenomenologists, such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty (see TA24), and also Zubiri and Steiner (both of whose work MM mentions), did in my opinion likewise not succeed, nor clearly try, to avoid MIR-belief. Until further notice I assume that an outcome of MIR-affirmation is inevitable if one starts from an MIR basis. The problem was clearly not a lack of desire or determination (of phenomenologists, but also earlier of Descartes, empiricists, positivists, and others) to avoid pre-conceptions. Rather, it seems that the assumption of pre-formed structures, for instance in the incarnations of "objects", or "phenomena", is so ingrained that they were not recognized as being MIR. Jaspers, on the other hand, appears to have viewed transcendence as a needed practical procedure. ]

[6]
" <13> The percept guarantees the being of the existent without any further qualification. "

[ But this surely needs some qualification. What for instance about false perceptions, such as hallucinations ? Also the argument is not convincing, as just discussed. ]

" <14> … Critically the first object to be distinguished from all other phenomena, in however generalised a manner, is implicitly that which must become a self, a soul. "

[ This sounds like Descartes. But the self, the subject (or soul), has at its center subjective ongoing experience. It may be better to avoid calling it an object, because one of the first pragmatic structures to be built within experience is the split between subject and object. The self is also built within experience, like the outside world. ]

[7]
" <14> … Paradoxically this, more than any thing else, is what Phenomenalism wishes to deny - the soul is supposed to be a category error. This shows that all knowledge depends, first of all, on a grasp of your own being. Nevertheless, the worldview made the author shrink, for he felt, in an unrealised manner, that this was solipsism, the Hades of all philosophy. Yet we have seen there is no absolute truth behind us and we must enter these gates or abandon any hope of finding the truth again. "

[8]
[ It is useful to distinguish between ontological solipsism - which like other kinds of ontology in my opinion is more a problem than help - and methodological solipsism, which only means that the subject cannot be ignored and that subjective experience needs to be taken as starting point, as MM says. And despite the lack of given absolute truth, we can build truth, and do it all the time. ]

[ Concerning the category error : this I think can be easily corrected in the 0-D position. Firstly, the subject is not an object; instead subjective experience is the matrix in which all the structuring (of self as well as nature (objects) and other people) takes place; experience is not itself one of the structures, although a formed self is. Secondly, the 0-D position is immune to relapse into MIR-metaphysics, because it shows (and is) the origin of MIR-belief. Also, 0-D provides unity <18> because the pragmatic subject-object division is not ontological. And reality <19> is created by investing belief in the posited structures. Finally, 0-D is not equal to ontological solipsism, because keeping the subject included does not imply that the subject is an ontological basis for anything. ]

[9]
" <16> … unlike all other phenomena, as 'I' created the thought there is no question of another reality lying behind it. "

[ I agree with the second part, but other phenomena as well have no other reality behind them. ]

" Here the phenomenon is one with its reality beyond dispute, there is no thing-in-itself behind it, to the extent that to ask if it can be known is a nonsense. "

[ I agree, but of course some people don't. Convinced materialists do claim that the self is either an illusion, or is not real, or can be reduced to some material object or process, as in "the mind/brain". ]

[10]
" … The thing-in-itself is unknowable so it may or may not exist. In the words of Goethe, "That which leaves no possibility of its refutation thereby declares its own falsehood." "

[ I find it helpful to think that these are auxiliary structures, tools, scaffolding, made by us. They exist not ontologically (ie, mind-independently), but in a way similar to logic, mathematics, concepts or, if you like, dreams. ]

" … The thing-in-itself is not a scientific proposal on Popper's method of negation and so should be dismissed without further ado from all scientific and theological speculation. "

[ It is an auxiliary structure and does no harm when it is treated as such. And also, you use MIR yourself, in spite of what you say in <17>. Furthermore Popper, too, used ontology, which is traditional static metaphysics. ]

[11]
" <20> … What is true? 2+2=4? "

[ True, or maybe better "real" or "functional" or "viable", in the sense of a bicycle : it is a tool which works the way we have made it and use it. ]

" … You must sit in the furnace of your own despair, burning off all external relation or stand on the abyss and feel the terror of falling forever. It burns like fire into the soul. And in this torture 'I am' is still here. I am. The one absolute truth which materialism placed beyond its own grasp. However short or long a time it takes, your own spirit becomes a certainty. The thought of your own immortal being is perceived, absolute knowledge when you objectively realise it in this way, but only to you. "

[ Well put, this sounds real. But you assert that you are, you don’t find yourself in a pre-fabricated state, no absolutes are required. And that goes for the rest of reality too. ]

" <22> To another it is still only a belief, a faith, but I *know* that *I am*. Until a multitude of individuals find their own 'voice,' there is no inter-subjective knowledge to be had on this point. Thought also begins to take on an aspect like a new power of perception: it 'feels' concepts and 'gathers' from this touch whether it is knowable. No one has the right to deny the experience of another but all are welcome to search their own souls for themselves. If I could now rebuild the temple at Delphi the inscription over the doorway would read "Know that Thou Art!" "

[ You are resilient. Knowing is strong belief and assertion, it can also be called "finding your certitude" <24>. This is quite compatible with "building yourself" and your freedom and responsibility <25>. The important point is that you, not someone or something else, make and assert yourself. ]

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Herbert FJ Muller