Anti-Materialist Historical Materialism

[AshvinP]

I'm not going to try and summarise Whitehead but Matthew Segall's site has a lot of good Whitehead stuff on it (eg he recently put up this video https://footnotes2plato.com/2020/12/10/ ... hilosophy/, though I haven't seen it yet).
I agree that the deep metaphysical source of the culture-nature split goes back thousand of years. I think it can be traced back to the introduction of monetisation in ancient Greece, as Richard Seaford has argued.

But why did the monetization occur? And how does it relate to all of the other sweeping changes in ancient culture, economics, politics, technology, etc. around the same time? There is a historical perspective in the West, epitomized by thinkers like Marx, where major developments are viewed as a result of isolated 'ideas' of people with influence and/or isolated material relations within populations. The underlying ontology plays a huge role in suggesting such a frame is appropriate, which is why it is so important to firm up the ontology before anything else. I believe your paper is making a good attempt at that, but not going far enough away from materialism. Panpsychism in general does not go far enough away from materialism.

[JustinG]

The underlying ontology plays a huge role in suggesting such a frame is appropriate, which is why it is so important to firm up the ontology before anything else.

I disagree that ontology should come before consideration of the sociohistorical contruction of knowledge, because it assumes that the ontologist is somehow able to get outside his or her own sociohistorical context and get a birds eye view of what reality is "really like".

Hence, I like Postone's notion of immanent critique "that is self-reflexively consistent and understands itself with reference to its context”. This approach makes no claim to transhistorical knowledge which is not socially conditioned, and critiques the existing social formation in terms of categories and possibilities which are immanent within it. In this regard, I think panpsychism is more likely to be accepted within academia at the present time than idealism, though I could be wrong.

In terms of looking at other historical periods from the perspective of today, this approach also entails limitations on claims to interpretative completeness (eg a materialistic interpretation which is more acceptable today might be superseded by an idealist interpretation in the future).

[Soul_of_Shu]

The underlying ontology plays a huge role in suggesting such a frame is appropriate, which is why it is so important to firm up the ontology before anything else.

I disagree that ontology should come before consideration of the sociohistorical contruction of knowledge, because it assumes that the ontologist is somehow able to get outside his or her own sociohistorical context and get a birds eye view of what reality is "really like".

I don't know about attaining a 'bird's eye view' of what reality is really like, but surely an indelible realization of That which one is in essence is exactly what stepping out of the segregated maya-self view of a nature><culture/subject>< object divide is what mystics, whether through a practice of inquiry and/or altered states, have been attaining and teaching since time immemorial. Then with this realization comes the profound grokking of the primacy of consciousness, the dispelling of the suffering prone spell of separation, and the seeing through the fallacy of materialism, and so even as they may not profess as much, those psyches are functioning from the ontological premise of idealism. That materialism has come to prevail as the predominant paradigm is indicative of the hold that the identification with the maya-self view still has over the vast majority of the populace, and by extension those who they defer to as leaders with their systems of governance born of and wedded to the misapprehension of our essential nature. As such, the continued indoctrination into the status quo paradigm only serves to reinforce and perpetuate the maya-self. So as Ashvin points out, as long as the ontological premise of the majority is fixated in this habitual mindset, whatever system of governance that comes from it is at best a provisionally quasi-orderly structure built upon a frail foundation, ultimately a house of cards doomed to collapse ~ witness such scenarios now unfolding en masse as we speak. However, the endeavour to collaboratively come up with a coherent, cohesive, and compelling counter-materialist ontology and narrative that can appeal and prevail on a collective scale, such as the Essentia Foundation envisions, remains a daunting challenge, as we awkwardly navigate the disruptive phase transition into the integral age. Meanwhile, at the core of it, to know the 'I' as That which eveyOne is in essence remains paramount, even as, indeed especially as society at large apparently remains far removed from that state.

[AshvinP]

The underlying ontology plays a huge role in suggesting such a frame is appropriate, which is why it is so important to firm up the ontology before anything else.

I disagree that ontology should come before consideration of the sociohistorical construction of knowledge, because it assumes that the ontologist is somehow able to get outside his or her own sociohistorical context and get a birds eye view of what reality is "really like".

Hence, I like Postone's notion of immanent critique "that is self-reflexively consistent and understands itself with reference to its context”. This approach makes no claim to transhistorical knowledge which is not socially conditioned, and critiques the existing social formation in terms of categories and possibilities which are immanent within it. In this regard, I think panpsychism is more likely to be accepted within academia at the present time than idealism, though I could be wrong.

In terms of looking at other historical periods from the perspective of today, this approach also entails limitations on claims to interpretative completeness (eg a materialistic interpretation which is more acceptable today might be superseded by an idealist interpretation in the future).

The claim that reality was 'bifurcated' into culture-nature with the development of money in ancient Greece is not "immanent within its categories and possibilities". That is a reading which thoroughly imposes our modern subconscious categories onto ancient civilizations. Ontology helps us figure out what those categories and possibilities may have been thousands of years ago. If all reality is mental activity, then we may realistically expect to discover the basic structures of that mental activity through the language, art, technology, etc. it produced. In contrast, if 'matter' is fundamental (with mental activity stuck to it in some manner), then we are stuck with using our current structure of mental activity to investigate the ancient ones, and that will lead us nowhere.

I am not sure why what ontology is more likely to be accepted within academia is relevant. We should only promote ontologies which we believe to correspond with the Truth, regardless of how likely we think they are to be accepted or rejected by others.

[JustinG]

I don't know about attaining a 'bird's eye view' of what reality is really like, but surely an indelible realization of That which one is in essence is exactly what stepping out of the segregated maya-self view of a nature><culture/subject>< object divide is what mystics, whether through a practice of inquiry and/or altered states, have been attaining and teaching since time immemorial.

I'm not denying that mystics have profound intutions into the nature of reality. But the moment these intutions get put into language or interpreted internally they are sociohistorically conditoned. The experiences of altered states themselves (eg NDEs, psychic experiences, UFO phenomena) are also culturally dependent.

There is a big difference, for example, in indigenous or traditional Chinese intuitions of fundamental reality and dualistic forms of idealism which dichotomise the sensibly experienced world (bad) and the realm of pure consciousness (good).

[Soul_of_Shu]

I'm not denying that mystics have profound intutions into the nature of reality. But the moment these intutions get put into language or interpreted internally they are sociohistorically conditoned. The experiences of altered states themselves (eg NDEs, psychic experiences, UFO phenomena) are also culturally dependent.

There is a big difference, for example, in indigenous or traditional Chinese intuitions of fundamental reality and dualistic forms of idealism which dichotomise the sensibly experienced world (bad) and the realm of pure consciousness (good).

True enough, but this just all the more speaks to the need for a contemporary, cohesive, and compelling variation on idealism that can appeal on a collective scale that can subsume such sociohistorical factors. Otherwise, I don't see how an ongoing mixed bag of counter-materialist models, precluding the combined weight of unicity, is going to overcome the predominant paradigm. Whether a collaborative endeavour like the Essentia Foundation can pull this off I'm not sure, but it seems a challenge worth taking on.

[JustinG]

Yes, the Essentia Foundation looks like it has some great stuff.