Tom Carroll asks,
When you say “meditation,” what do you mean? Is there a specific practice or set of practices you have in mind? I am genuinely curious. I am a 69-year-old Catholic, well-ensconced in Holy Mother Church with absolutely no desire to “swim the Ganges,” as one might say. Still, I have read a bit on Vedanta recently and it’s interesting. That’s part of what prompts my question, I suppose.
Here is part of my answer. More later on specific practices and ‘swimming the Ganges.’ Feel free to ask me any question about it.
Thanks so much, Bill. Just the kinds of answers and clarifications I was hoping for. Mine was a quick read this morning — on the road until early June — but I plan to circle back in the evenings.
I was particularly struck by your Inquiry section. You said, “Someone who claims to be serious about understanding the mind, but refuses to meditate I would dismiss as unserious. If this entails my dismissal as unserious of almost all contemporary philosophers of mind, then so be it.”
One of the reasons this grabbed my attention is that I am halfway through an article by Wolfgang Fasching, a contemporary philosopher (phenomenology) at the University of Vienna. The title of Fasching’s article is “Consciousness, self-consciousness, and meditation”, and (at least thus far) he seems to be making a point similar to yours about the value of meditation as a window onto the transcendental self. Fasching has written several articles, all of which I found interesting, arguing that Western philosophy of mind could profit from Vedantist insights. His work is easily Google-able.
Anyway, this is the sort of thing I was hoping you’d get into. Thanks again for taking the time to write it and, as ever, for your precision and clarity. Definitely looking forward to the “[m]ore later…”
Thanks, Tom. I wasn’t aware of Fasching’s article, but here it is: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11097-008-9090-6.pdf
I should read it.
Today or tomorrow I’ll post a follow-up on techniques of meditation.
This was so interesting and illuminating, and I thank you again for laying it out. As I think through what you wrote, I want to make sure I am not jumping to conclusions or putting words in your mouth. For that reason, I’d like to take advantage of your kind “any question” offer. I want to ensure I am following what you are saying, not just what I imagine (or hope) you are saying.
First question. You say one aim of meditation is to “to dis-cover the root of all thinking, that which is transcendentally-ontologically prior to all thinking.” Before that, you mentioned the Vedantist idea of Atman as one example of a more philosophically- and historically-conditioned aim of meditation. I thus take it that when you refer to “that which is transcendentally-ontologically prior to all thinking,” you are speaking (more or less) about what Vedanta sees as Atman.
What about the case of *Western* philosophical (as opposed to religious) traditions that have engaged with this? For example, are you talking about the same ‘transcendental ego’ you have mentioned before, e.g., a few years ago in your “Why Did I Move Away from Phenomenology, Part I” post and elsewhere? Is it the same thing Husserl means when he talks about the TE? Is it the same thing Kant means by the ‘transcendental unity of apperception?’
I know distinctions are both myriad and important in philosophy. I therefore expect there are significant differences between all these Western interpretations, even if I presently have only a shaky grasp of what they might be. But just to help me appreciate the point YOU are making — are these other ideas in the neighborhood for you? Are these ideas (roughly) the same as what you are talking about with “that which is transcendentally-ontologically prior to all thinking?”
Second question. You say, “[m]ental quiet is not easy to attain, but. . . [w]hen you reach it, you will know you are there.” You did not say so, but my impression is that you have had the experience. I actually think you said you did in one of your previous posts over the years.
Moreover, I gather you see this state of “mental quiet” as an intuition of “that which is transcendentally-ontologically prior to all thinking,” or (better perhaps) revealing of it. Or at least that this would be a reasonable and defensible interpretation of the experience. Am I right?
You described the experience a bit, e.g., “a positive state of consciousness” and “an intense state of wakefulness.” Yet one also hears some adepts say that such ‘transcendental’ states are ‘ineffable.’ Was your experience ‘ineffable’ in any sense? I mean, obviously you can say *something* about it — you did, in fact. Still, when I think back to intense states of wakefulness I have experienced in my own life, I presume the parallels between yours and mine break down in this case.
Is that correct? For you, is there genuinely a sense in which ‘words fail’ when you describe the experience? And if so, is that very ineffability among the reasons you “know you are there?” I’m obviously hoping to get affirmative answers to these ‘ineffability’ questions, but I will stoically take what comes. 😉
Third question, and the last for today. You wrote, “Ordinary mind, in virtue of its intentionality (object-directedness), is ever fleeing itself towards what is not itself.” Okay. I think I’ve got this one. Please tell me if I do, or if I am putting words in your mouth. This is an area about which I’ve been fairly excited for some time, and I want to know whether I’m butchering it.
If I understand this correctly, the idea is that intentionality is directed at objects (things), and a *thing* is precisely what consciousness “is not itself.” Am I right? And if so, isn’t this where the notion of consciousness as ‘no-thing’ can come into play?
I can’t quite get my head around what Sartre is talking about with his “wind blowing towards objects,” but I don’t see why that should get in the way of my using his totally cool ‘no-thing’ formulation. Long ago at USC, I took a continental philosophy course from Dallas Willard. I had some wonderful office-hours conversations with him. (He was a very nice man, always generous with his time.) I remember he talked to me about consciousness being ‘no-thing’ as well — he used that phraseology — though I was unable to appreciate much of it at the time. Isn’t that what you are talking about here?
Following that thought, when Hume looked ‘inward’ and found memories and images and ideas but no ‘self,’ one could say this was because he was looking for just another thing, but the self is not a thing — i.e., it is no-thing. Right? Is that the way to use the term?
In short, is this what you meant by “ordinary mind…is ever fleeing itself towards what is not itself?” Am I correct about this, as least basically? Surely there are good criticisms one could make of what I just said, but is it in the ballpark?
If that’s not what you meant, I will need to reorient myself a bit.
Tom,
I solved the computer problems. I now have time to answer only the first part of your first question. You say : >>I thus take it that when you refer to “that which is transcendentally-ontologically prior to all thinking,” you are speaking (more or less) about what Vedanta sees as Atman.<< Not quite. Atman is only one candidate among several for the office of that which is transc-ontol prior to all discursive thinking. Another candidate is the Plotinian One. More later.
Glad your computer problems are behind you, and thank you for the part-one answer. I am traveling tomorrow through 3 June, but plan to snag time in the evenings. I have done my first read-through of “How to…” and “Moksha,” and plan to go slower and make notes tomorrow on the plane. I hope to have new questions before you finish posting re “What and Why.” Once more, I do appreciate your time on this.