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Is the World Inconceivable Apart from Consciousness? (Version 2.0)

That depends. It depends on what ‘world’ means.

Steven Nemes quotes Dermot Moran on the former’s Facebook page:

[1] In contrast to the outlook of naturalism, Husserl believed all knowledge, all science, all rationality depended on conscious acts, acts which cannot be properly understood from within the natural outlook at all. [2] Consciousness should not be viewed naturalistically as part of the world at all, since consciousness is precisely the reason why there was a world there for us in the first place. [3] For Husserl it is not that consciousness creates the world in any ontological sense—this would be a subjective idealism, itself a consequence of a certain naturalising tendency whereby consciousness is cause and the world its effect—but rather that the world is opened up, made meaningful, or disclosed through consciousness.  [4] The world is inconceivable apart from consciousness. [5] Treating consciousness as part of the world, reifying consciousness, is precisely to ignore consciousness’s foundational, disclosive role. (Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology, p. 144.)

This strikes me as confused. I will go through it line by line. I have added numbers in brackets for ease of reference.

Ad [1]. I basically agree.  But while conscious acts cannot be properly understood from within die natürliche  Einstellung, it doesn’t follow that they cannot be understood “at all” from within the natural attitude or what Moran is calling the natural outlook. So I would strike the “at all.” I will return to this issue at the end.

Ad [2].  Here the trouble begins. I grant that conscious acts cannot be properly understood in wholly materialistic or naturalistic terms. They cannot be understood merely as events in the natural world. For example, my thinking about Boston cannot be reduced to anything going in my brain or body when I am thinking about Boston. Conscious acts are object-directed. They have the property philosophers call ‘intentionality.’  Intentionality resists naturalistic reduction.

And I grant that there is a sense in which there would not be a world for us in the first place if there were no consciousness. A world for us is a world that appears to us as conscious beings.

But note the equivocation on ‘world.’ It is first used to refer to nature itself, and then used to refer to the openness or apparentness of nature, nature as it appears to us and has meaning for us.  Obviously, without consciousness, nature would not appear, but this is not to say that consciousness is the reason why there is a natural world in the first place.  To say that would be to embrace a form of idealism.

Ad [3] We are now told that this is not “a subjective idealism.” I agree.  But note that the world that is disclosed and made meaningful is not the world that is inconceivable without consciousness.  The equivocation on ‘world’ persists.  There is world in the transcendental-phenomenological sense as the ‘space’ within which things are disclosed and become manifest, and there is world as the things disclosed.  These are plainly different even if there is no epistemic access to the latter except via the former.

Ad [4] Therefore, to be precise, we should say that the world as the ‘space of disclosure’ is inconceivable without consciousness. But this ‘space of disclosure’ is not the same as the natural world, which is not inconceivable without consciousness.  If you say that it is, then you are adopting a form of metaphysical idealism, which is what Husserl in the end does.

In the end, he reduces Being to Meaning (Sein to Seinsinn) or Being (Sein) to ontic validity (Seinsgeltung).  Accordingly, beings in the world are constituted (a piece of Husserlian jargon) as beings by transcendental consciousness.  This is the upshot of the transcendental-phenomenological reduction. What we naively take in the natural attitude to exist in themselves, on their ontological own, so to speak, things like rocks and planets and galaxies, are in truth intentional objectivities constituted in transcendental consciousness.

Ad [5] In the final sentence, ‘world’ clearly refers to the physical realm, nature. I agree that it would be a mistake to reify consciousness, to identify it with any physical thing or process. Consciousness plays a disclosive role. It is pre-mundane, transcendental.  As OF the world — genitivus objectivus — consciousness is not IN the world. But the world in this sense, the world that consciousness is not IN, is conceivable apart from consciousness.  If it were not, then Roman Ingarden’s realism and Thomist realism, and other types, would not be conceivable, which they plainly are.

And so the confusion remains.  The world in the specifically phenomenological sense, the world as the ‘space’ within which things are disclosed — compare Heidegger’s Lichtung or clearing — is inconceivable without consciousness. But the world as that which is disclosed, opened up, gelichtet, made manifest and meaningful, is NOT inconceivable apart from consciousness. If you maintain otherwise, then you are embracing a form of metaphysical idealism.

So I’d say that Moran and plenty of others are doing the ‘Continental Shuffle’ as I call it: they are sliding back and forth between two senses  of ‘world.’  Equivalently, they are conflating the ontic and the broadly epistemic.  I appreciate their brave attempt at undercutting the subject-object dichotomy and the idealism-realism problematic.  But the brave attempt does not succeed.  A mental act of outer perception, say, is intrinsically intentional or object-directed: by its very sense it purports to be of or about something that exists apart from any and all mental acts to which it appears.  To speak like a Continental, the purport is ‘inscribed in the very essence of the act.’  But there remains the question whether the intentional object really does exist independently of the act. There remains the question whether the intentional object really exists or is merely intentional.  Does it enjoy esse reale, or only esse intentionale?

I recommend to my friend Nemes that he read Roman Ingarden’s critique of Husserl’s idealism.  I also recommend that he read Husserl himself (in German if possible) rather than the secondary sources he has been citing, sources some of which are not only secondary, but second-rate.

To return to what I said at the outset: Conscious acts cannot be properly understood naturalistically.  But surely a full understanding of them must explain how they relate to the goings-on in the physical organisms in nature that support them.  A satisfactory philosophy cannot ignore this. And so, to end on an autobiographical note, this was one of the motives that lead me beyond phenomenology.

Interior Locutions: Criteria of Genuineness in Teresa of Avila

This article sets forth three signs or criteria for the evaluation of  interior locutions according to the great Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila (1515-1582),  as found in her Interior Castle, Sixth Mansion, Chapter Three, pp. 138-148 in the E. Allison Peers translation.  Such locutions are variously called inner, interior, spiritual, and  intellectual.   I will call them interior.  They are to be distinguished both from exterior locutions heard by the ears and from exterior locutions imagined to be heard by the ears. All locutions, whether exterior or interior, are verbal, not visual: they are words or composed of words. Etymology of ‘locution’ here.  Interior locutions are sometimes called interior words. They convey a message that appears to come from without, and in many if not most cases, one that appears to come from God.

Teresa gives “Be not troubled” as an example of an interior locution that appears to come from God.  But how does one know that this locution does in fact come from God, either directly or via one of his appointed messengers such as an angel? What are the criteria whereby we judge the source, and thereby the veridicality, of the message conveyed?

The first and truest [sign] is the sense of power and authority which they bear with them, both in themselves and in the actions which follow them. I will explain myself further. A soul is experiencing all the interior disturbances and tribulations which have been described, and all the aridity and darkness of the understanding. A single word of this kind — just a “Be not troubled” — is sufficient to calm it. No other word need be spoken; a great light comes to it; and all its trouble is lifted from it, although it had been thinking that, if the whole world, and all the learned men in the world, were to combine to give it reasons for not being troubled, they could not relieve it from its distress, however hard they might strive to do so. (141) [. . .]

The second sign is that a great tranquillity dwells in the soul, which becomes peacefully and devoutly recollected, and ready to sing praises to God. (141) [. . .]

The third sign is that these words do not vanish from the memory for a very long time: some, indeed, never vanish at all. Words which we hear on earth — I mean, from men, however weighty and learned they may be — we do not bear so deeply engraven upon our memory, nor, if they refer to the future, do we give credence to them as we do to these locutions. For these last impress us by their complete certainty, in such a way that, although sometimes they seem quite impossible of fulfilment, and we cannot help wondering if they will come true or not, and although our understanding may hesitate about it, yet within the soul itself there is a certainty which cannot be overcome. (142) [. . .]

Suppose a putative message ab extra passes these tests. Does it follow that the message is from God either directly or indirectly via a divinely appointed emissary?  No.  But by the same token it does not follow from  the visual and tactile perceptions as of a cat on my lap, that there is a cat on my lap.  And yet the evidence of the senses in normal to optimal conditions, good light for example, is pretty good evidence!  It is evident, though not self-evident (in the way it is self-evident that I seem to see and feel  a cat on my lap) that there is a cat on my lap.  What is evident needn’t be self-evident.  One could question this distinction, but it is one  that lays strong claim on our acceptance.

Now if the evidence of the outer senses is good enough to render reasonable  our belief in the reality of material things, is the evidence of interior locutions good enough to render reasonable the belief that some of these locutions have a divine source?  I answer in the affirmative.

There are, however,  important differences between outer perception (via the five outer senses) and the inner perception of the Interior Word. They need to be considered. One difference is that the outer perception of material particulars and events is repeatable ad libitum.  I see a mountain, and the sun setting behind it, turn away, then look at both again.  I see the same mountain and the  same event.  This repeatability  confirms my belief that the material objects of outer perception are ‘really there.’

A second difference is that one and same material thing can be seen from many different angles.

A third is that my perceptions as of mountains and cats are easily corroborated by my companions.  Intersubjective agreement is  a major source of support of trust in the outer senses.

A fourth difference is that the occasional misperception is correctable by further perception.  “See that cat? It’s a bobcat!” “No it isn’t. Look more closely. It’s just a big ornery domestic cat.  Bobcats in the wild don’t wear collars.”

Ad (1). By contrast with outer sense perceptions, mystical deliverances are not repeatable ad libitum:  I cannot bring them about by my own effort.  They are not under the control of my will. Their phenomenological quality is that of something  gratuitous, granted, gifted.   And only rarely are they granted.  The rarity  of mystical deliverances aids and abets the thought that they are illusory.  Whereas material objects confront us every waking moment,  messages from the Unseen Order arrive only a few times in a lifetime. And when these putative messages do arrive, they don’t last long. This makes them easy to discount and dismiss.

Be not troubled! The message is vouchsafed and then it is over. I cannot request the messenger to repeat himself, let alone display his credentials.  The messenger does not appear, only his message.  The tests of outer perception (repeatability, corroborability by others, correctability) are not applicable.

Ad (2).  I can walk around a tree and see it from different sides.  The Interior Word cannot be ‘heard’ from different positions in space.

Ad (3).  You and I and indefinitely many others can view one and the same tree. Our perceptions are mutually corroborative.  But your Interior Word experience is numerically different from mine even if the content is the same, such as Be not troubled!

Ad(4) The transiency of the experience of the Interior Word renders irrelevant any correctability by further perception.

The question is now: are these undeniable differences reasons to discount or even dismiss interior locutions as divine revelations? I say No. The differences are what we should expect given the nature of mystical deliverances as compared to the nature of ordinary perceptual deliverances.  The fact that interior locutions are unrepeatable at will, had by few and by these few only rarely,  is no argument against their veridicality. To think otherwise is to judge them by an inappropriate standard, one that is ruled out by their very nature.

To conclude. Interior locutions that pass Teresa’s tests are evidence of God’s existence and his concern for us. Coercive evidence? Proof? No. But evidence sufficient to render reasonable our taking of such mystical deliverances as revelatory.  So go ahead, believe! What harm can it do? (Wittgenstein)  There is light enough for those who wish to see, and darkness enough for the contrary-minded. (Pascal)  Evidence enough for those who are disposed to believe, but not enough for those who are disposed to disbelieve.

There is a story told about Bertrand Russell.  Russell dies and enters the divine presence. God says, “Why didn’t you believe in me?” “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!”

I’d say that Lord Russell was constitutionally indisposed to believe.  Some of us, however, are so disposed. It is a further question whether this disposition to believe is itself a divine gift.  Whether or not it is, you are within your epistemic/doxastic rights to believe that it is.

Julian Green on Manna

Diary 1928-1957, entry of 6 October 1941:

The story of the manna gathered and set aside by the Hebrews is deeply significant. It so happened that the manna rotted when it was kept. And perhaps that means that all spiritual reading which is not consumed — by prayer and by works — ends by causing a sort of rotting inside us. You die with a head full of fine sayings and a perfectly empty heart.

The consumption of a comestible is its physiological appropriation. To appropriate is to make one’s own. Green is referring to spiritual appropriation, the making one’s own of spiritual sayings by prayer and practice.

Did edible bread once fall from the sky? I don’t deny it, but must I affirm it? Would it not be enough to take the Old Testament passage in its spiritual sense and bracket the question of its literal truth?

 

NPR and PBS Finally Defunded

This is great news, and we have Trump to thank for this and for so many other things. In May of this year, I wrote over at Substack:

If you like NPR programming, write them a check! Just don't demand that they receive taxpayer support. We are in fiscal crisis, and budgetary cuts must be made. If such inessentials as NPR and PBS cannot be defunded, which programs can be defunded?

Some think that a refusal of sponsorship amounts to censorship. But that is foolishness pure and simple and duly refuted here.

So one reason to defund NPR is that we cannot afford it. But there is a much better reason.

Even if we could afford it, NPR in its present configuration should not receive Federal support. And this for the simple reason that it is plainly a propaganda arm of the Left.* If you deny the increasingly leftward tilt of NPR, even unto 'wokery,' then you are delusional and not worth talking to. So I'll charitably assume that you are sane and admit the bias. The next question I will put to you is whether you think it is morally right that tax dollars be used to push points of view and policies that half if not most of us in this land find deeply objectionable on moral grounds such as the policy of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events. I say that it it is not morally right that the government take our money by force and then use it for a purpose that is not only inessential and unconnected to the necessary functions of government, but also violates our beliefs.

So that is my second reason for defunding NPR.

Perhaps, if NPR were balanced like C-SPAN, it could be tolerated in times of plenty. But we are not in times of plenty and it is not balanced.

Note that a reasonable liberal could accept my two reasons. But contemporary liberals are not particularly liberal in the classical sense, and the Democrat Party has been hijacked by the Left. I am not arguing that the federal government must not engage in any projects other than those that are strictly essential such as those connected with the protection of life, liberty, and property (the Lockean triad). I am arguing that present fiscal facts and facts pertaining to NPR content dictate that defunding NPR is something that ought to be done.

Finally, you may enjoy watching the current NPR boss squirm and back track in the teeth of Congressional grilling.

_________________

*I stand not only for the separation of church and state, but also for the separation of leftism and state. Leftocracy is as antithetical to the founding principles of our constitutionally-based republic as is theocracy.

The Awesome Power of TDS . . .

. . . is demonstrated by the fact that George F. Will, horribile dictu,  voted for Kamala Harris. The bow-tied, yap-and-scribble pussy-wussy is hard at work destroying whatever legacy he might have enjoyed had he not gone bonkers over DJT, something he has in common with the rest of the Bulwark bunch. Staunch conservative and constitutional scholar that he is, Will voted for four more years of a wide-open border, with all that that brings in its train, including Tren de Aragua, drug smuggling, human trafficking and slavery, gun running,  not to mention the other outrages Kamala would have continued, such as the trashing of the Constitution.

You won't find an entry for TDS in DSM-IV, but it is real, and it has no counterpart on the Right.

So Racism and Misogyny Explain Kamala’s Loss?

Why did Kamala lose?  Here:

One answer has to do with race and gender. Too many Americans, especially white men, were still not willing to vote for a woman, even less a Black woman. 

Only a leftist scumbag could spew such slanderous garbage.  The vast majority of conservatives don't care about a candidate's race or sex. We care about ideas and policies.  If the contest were between Joe Biden and Tulsi Gabbard, most conservatives would vote for Tulsi Gabbard.

UPDATE (11/8)

Speaking of Tulsi Gabbard, on one of the talk shows last night she pointed out that Biden and Harris never once showed any concern about the very real threat of WW3 whereas Trump repeatedly demonstrated awareness of the grave danger we and the world are in under the 'leadership' of Biden and Harris.  I would add that one of the many reasons why the Clown got crushed was because of her insouciance regarding this genuine existential threat to humanity as opposed to the fake 'threats' cooked up by the Dementocrat tag team.

Two More on Politics

It may be a bit OTT in places, but I agree in the main with Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano's Open Letter to the American People on the eve of the 2024 presidential election. (HT: Catacomb Joe)

And here's Tucker Carlson to get your blood up. (HT: Vito Caiati)

WARNING:  Should our side win, expect violence from our political enemies. Never underestimate the depths of the Left's depravity. 

Hit the Road, Jack (Smith)

A soupçon of sanity returns to the body politic. Roger Kimball:

“Upon careful study of the foundational challenges raised in the Motion,” Cannon wrote in her ninety-three-page ruling, “the Court is convinced that Special Counsel’s Smith’s prosecution of this action breaches two structural cornerstones of our constitutional scheme — the role of Congress in the appointment of constitutional officers, and the role of Congress in authorizing expenditures by law.” 

Result? “The Superseding Indictment is DISMISSED because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.” 

Hit the road, Jack (and don’t you come back no more).

In another encouraging development, Elon Musk delivered a stinging rebuke to that noisome knucklehead Newsom by ordering the transfer of X and SpaceX from San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively, to Texas.

According to the WSJ, Musk plans to pony up $45 million per month to a pro-Trump Super Pac. 

The tables are beginning to turn. But no complacency!  We know a priori that our political enemies will cheat their asses off as they did last time. It is important that we not only defeat them electorally but also demoralize them by crushing them in a landslide. All hands on deck!

Outstanding oratory last night at the RNC meeting #2 in Milwaukee. The best speeches in my view were by Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, and Ben Carson, in that order. The ordinary citizens who came forward were also impressive with their tales of tragedy caused by the insanely destructive immigration policies of Biden, Harris, Mayorkas, and the Deep State reprobates who pull their strings.  

Can What is Impossible to Achieve be an Ideal for Us?

This Stack topper proposes a generalization of the age-old principle from Roman law, ultra posse nemo obligatur.

Excerpt:

This is an important topic because having the wrong ideals is worse than having no ideals at all.  Many think that to be idealistic is good.  But surely it is not good without qualification.  Think of National Socialist ideals, Communist ideals, DEI-driven ‘wokester’ ideals and of their youthful and earnest and sincere proponents.  Those are wrongheaded ideals, and some of them are wrongheaded because not realizable.  The classless society; the dictatorship of the proletariat; the racially pure society; the society in which everyone is made materially equal by the power of the state including the states’ agents of equalization.  Ideals like these cannot be achieved, and if the attempt is made terrible evils will be the upshot.  The Commies broke a lot of eggs in the 20th century (100 million by some estimates) but still didn't achieve their fabulous and impossible omelet. 

Their ideals were not realizable because not warranted by the actual facts of human nature. The possibility of their realization was merely imagined, merely ‘cooked up’ or excogitated in the febrile heads of such utopians as the Nowhere Man John Lennon.