Criticism

[ScottRoberts]

From the above, I would take exception to your claim that these Pre-Socratic Greeks were naive Idealists. This would not be possible until Socrates. Homer’s gods were physical, not transcendent, beings of elemental power, living atop Mt. Olympus. Dionysus was a physical power inherent in music and wine. There simply was no idea of mentality apart from physicality. There was no notion yet of “common sense”, but simply a shared esthetic “being in the world”. It is in the fog of this confusion that we attempt to reconnect to our origins of Western thought, but I see a far distant beacon calling to a third option to the two you present. If we take the Pre-Socratics as inherently non-reductive physicalists rather than naive Idealists, we can perhaps find our way home to the esthetic experience of reality - the original grounding that we lost through metaphysics.

Likewise there was no idea of physicality apart from mentality.

I wasn't saying the Pre-Socratic philosophers were naive idealists, rather I was referring to the general population of pre-Pre-Socratic times as naive idealists. By 'naive' I am simply referring to how one experiences the world prior to any critical reflection on it (of which, at the time, there was none). What I mean by saying they were naive idealists is that Homer's audience experienced an extra-sensory spirit when they looked at nature. They did not see the gods, but felt their spiritual presence "behind" the natural world. So to put this in modern terms (idealist, physicalist, dualist), I would say their naivete was idealist -- their world was the work of gods and spirits -- persons, not mindless forces.

With the Pre-Socratics we have something new, namely thinking about their world. To call them physicalists (in the modern sense of the word) is nonsense. There couldn't have been physicalists (who regard nature as reducible to the work of mindless forces and energy) until that extra-sensory sense of spirit had been completely driven out. That process took about 2000 years, a process that started with the Pre-Socratics thinking about, and hence creating a distance from, the natural world. Even so, Heraclitus' fire would have been thought of as a spiritual essence, albeit not distinguished from its physical essence -- I mean that its spiritual and physical essence were one and the same. As was still the case 500 years later when the word for spirit was 'wind'.

So you are right that they sensed themselves as beings-in-the-world, and that the introduction of a distinction between appearance and reality of Socrates (preceded by Parmenides) began the process of losing that sense. But the world they were in had yet to divide itself into physical and mental.

As for "common sense", I am using it as I defined it in my essay: "If by "common sense" we mean our pre-philosophical understanding of what things are like—an understanding that is held in common with most everyone around us." One might also point out that the phrase "common sense" did not exist in earlier times because there was nothing to contrast it with. Only with thinking could one come up with theories that were not commonsensical, like Parmenides' or Plato's, or modern physicalism or idealism.

[I also posted this response to my blog in case anybody is interested in continuing the conversation there.]

I would like to keep the discussion here, since it has direct bearing on why I say that your claim that energy is more elemental than consciousness is a metaphysical claim. For if the people 3000 years ago felt energy as the work of spiritual forces, yet now we do not feel it, then common sense has changed. What I am getting at is that your reason for making your claim that it is not metaphysical is that it currently aligns with common sense. So I am pointing out that it didn't always, and may not in the future as our consciousness continues to evolve.

[JeffreyW]

From the above, I would take exception to your claim that these Pre-Socratic Greeks were naive Idealists. This would not be possible until Socrates. Homer’s gods were physical, not transcendent, beings of elemental power, living atop Mt. Olympus. Dionysus was a physical power inherent in music and wine. There simply was no idea of mentality apart from physicality. There was no notion yet of “common sense”, but simply a shared esthetic “being in the world”. It is in the fog of this confusion that we attempt to reconnect to our origins of Western thought, but I see a far distant beacon calling to a third option to the two you present. If we take the Pre-Socratics as inherently non-reductive physicalists rather than naive Idealists, we can perhaps find our way home to the esthetic experience of reality - the original grounding that we lost through metaphysics.

Likewise there was no idea of physicality apart from mentality.

I wasn't saying the Pre-Socratic philosophers were naive idealists, rather I was referring to the general population of pre-Pre-Socratic times as naive idealists. By 'naive' I am simply referring to how one experiences the world prior to any critical reflection on it (of which, at the time, there was none). What I mean by saying they were naive idealists is that Homer's audience experienced an extra-sensory spirit when they looked at nature. They did not see the gods, but felt their spiritual presence "behind" the natural world. So to put this in modern terms (idealist, physicalist, dualist), I would say their naivete was idealist -- their world was the work of gods and spirits -- persons, not mindless forces.

With the Pre-Socratics we have something new, namely thinking about their world. To call them physicalists (in the modern sense of the word) is nonsense. There couldn't have been physicalists (who regard nature as reducible to the work of mindless forces and energy) until that extra-sensory sense of spirit had been completely driven out. That process took about 2000 years, a process that started with the Pre-Socratics thinking about, and hence creating a distance from, the natural world. Even so, Heraclitus' fire would have been thought of as a spiritual essence, albeit not distinguished from its physical essence -- I mean that its spiritual and physical essence were one and the same. As was still the case 500 years later when the word for spirit was 'wind'.

So you are right that they sensed themselves as beings-in-the-world, and that the introduction of a distinction between appearance and reality of Socrates (preceded by Parmenides) began the process of losing that sense. But the world they were in had yet to divide itself into physical and mental.

As for "common sense", I am using it as I defined it in my essay: "If by "common sense" we mean our pre-philosophical understanding of what things are like—an understanding that is held in common with most everyone around us." One might also point out that the phrase "common sense" did not exist in earlier times because there was nothing to contrast it with. Only with thinking could one come up with theories that were not commonsensical, like Parmenides' or Plato's, or modern physicalism or idealism.

[I also posted this response to my blog in case anybody is interested in continuing the conversation there.]

I would like to keep the discussion here, since it has direct bearing on why I say that your claim that energy is more elemental than consciousness is a metaphysical claim. For if the people 3000 years ago felt energy as the work of spiritual forces, yet now we do not feel it, then common sense has changed. What I am getting at is that your reason for making your claim that it is not metaphysical is that it currently aligns with common sense. So I am pointing out that it didn't always, and may not in the future as our consciousness continues to evolve.

“Likewise there was no idea of physicality apart from mentality.”

But that is my point. Mentality was inherently part of physicality and would not be split off into anything like Idealism until much later with Socrates. Physis still embraced everything,

“I wasn't saying the Pre-Socratic philosophers were naive idealists, rather I was referring to the general population of pre-Pre-Socratic times as naive idealists. By 'naive' I am simply referring to how one experiences the world prior to any critical reflection on it (of which, at the time, there was none).”

I specifically referenced your term “naive idealist” and disagree with both words. Idealism was impossible prior to metaphysics, and there was little that was naive. Heraclitus, Democritus, Thales, and Pythagoras, among others, were men of their times and most critically reflected on the world, and in a far more authentic way than we have since. I have no reason to think they saw the world fundamentally differently from the general population.

“What I mean by saying they were naive idealists is that Homer's audience experienced an extra-sensory spirit when they looked at nature. They did not see the gods, but felt their spiritual presence "behind" the natural world. So to put this in modern terms (idealist, physicalist, dualist), I would say their naivete was idealist -- their world was the work of gods and spirits -- persons, not mindless forces.”

This is the crux of the matter, and I believe our ingrained Western metaphysics is preventing our accurate imagining of Pre-Socratic Greece. To appreciate their view of the world, we first have to abandon all traces of metaphysics. First of all, the gods were not spirits to them, but living beings in the world who resided atop Mt. Olympus and occasionally directly interacted with mortals, including procreation. Dionysus himself was a result of such interbreeding. These gods were not essentially minds but physical living beings. Most importantly, what they represented was force or energy as direct physical cause.

Most telling is your use of the word “behind”. For these Greeks there was no such thing. Gods, or truth, were integral elements of reality. The beyond of “Meta had not yet been thought. To understand this originating of Western thought, it is imperative to imagine the sensible palpability of everything.

“To call them physicalists (in the modern sense of the word) is nonsense.”

This is true, and we no longer have the right word to use here. This was the time before physis was split into physical and metaphysical, and was non-reductive. But that is just further reason to refrain from attributing anything like idealism to these people. What would later be removed to a metaphysical transcendent Idea was still present in the sensible world.

I do understand how you defined “common sense” and only meant to further explore the confusion in our current definitions and what that revealed about our metaphysical path away from the originating thought.

[AshvinP]

This is true, and we no longer have the right word to use here. This was the time before physis was split into physical and metaphysical, and was non-reductive. But that is just further reason to refrain from attributing anything like idealism to these people. What would later be removed to a metaphysical transcendent Idea was still present in the sensible world.

I do understand how you defined “common sense” and only meant to further explore the confusion in our current definitions and what that revealed about our metaphysical path away from the originating thought.

I will just say again, this obsession with the outer form of this word "idealism", an obsession which itself is a result of modern philosophical abstraction, is causing a lot of confusion. What you write in bold is practically the same thing Scott is saying (although it is at tension with what you wrote earlier about "force and energy" perceived as purely physical process).

[JeffreyW]

This is true, and we no longer have the right word to use here. This was the time before physis was split into physical and metaphysical, and was non-reductive. But that is just further reason to refrain from attributing anything like idealism to these people. What would later be removed to a metaphysical transcendent Idea was still present in the sensible world.

I do understand how you defined “common sense” and only meant to further explore the confusion in our current definitions and what that revealed about our metaphysical path away from the originating thought.

I will just say again, this obsession with the outer form of this word "idealism", an obsession which itself is a result of modern philosophical abstraction, is causing a lot of confusion. What you write in bold is practically the same thing Scott is saying (although it is at tension with what you wrote earlier about "force and energy" perceived as purely physical process).

No, there is a critical difference, but to see it requires refraining from projecting our usual metaphysical framework onto a people to whom the concept would be entirely foreign. Robert’s intention in the essay is reclaim a naive sort of idealism by which the Pre-Socratics experienced the world as mind:

“Ancient common sense, like modern common sense, was a consequence of direct experience, but the nature of direct experience has changed. Ancient common sense was a consequence of the mentality of natural phenomena being directly perceived, somewhat like the way we detect the mentality that lies behind the utterances of people. But experience has changed, and we no longer have that sort of direct experience of mind in nature.”

He can only make that claim by describing the gods as “behind” the physical world as non-material minds. The Greeks at that time had no such concept and mind could not exist separately from a body - physis had not yet been split. The gods were physical living beings whose physicality included minds, but they represented elemental forces, not non-material consciousness.

The point I want to emphasize is that cosmic mind only becomes a possible thought when we disembody Ideas from the physicality, and with it mentality from the body. That is what the Socratics introduced to the world and the metaphysical that error that Kastrup continues. I reject that error and look to a wholly non-metaphysical experience. It comes down to Roberts desire to recapture what he describes as experience of mentality versus what I describe as experience of physis and non-reductive engagement of Being.

[Mark Tetzner]

I am enjoying the convo ensuing here, posting 1 more article by BK that I particularly enjoyed.
Especially the notion that we "structurally believe in nonsense".
https://iai.tv/articles/every-generatio ... -auid-1349

and a new contributor on the essentia-blog.
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/seei ... 7aAyK8ObcU

And TC, author of my big toe.

[Soul_of_Shu]

No, there is a critical difference, but to see it requires refraining from projecting our usual metaphysical framework onto a people to whom the concept would be entirely foreign. Robert’s intention in the essay is reclaim a naive sort of idealism by which the Pre-Socratics experienced the world as mind:

“Ancient common sense, like modern common sense, was a consequence of direct experience, but the nature of direct experience has changed. Ancient common sense was a consequence of the mentality of natural phenomena being directly perceived, somewhat like the way we detect the mentality that lies behind the utterances of people. But experience has changed, and we no longer have that sort of direct experience of mind in nature.”

He can only make that claim by describing the gods as “behind” the physical world as non-material minds. The Greeks at that time had no such concept and mind could not exist separately from a body - physis had not yet been split. The gods were physical living beings whose physicality included minds, but they represented elemental forces, not non-material consciousness.

The point I want to emphasize is that cosmic mind only becomes a possible thought when we disembody Ideas from the physicality, and with it mentality from the body. That is what the Socratics introduced to the world and the metaphysical that error that Kastrup continues. I reject that error and look to a wholly non-metaphysical experience. It comes down to Roberts desire to recapture what he describes as experience of mentality versus what I describe as experience of physis and non-reductive engagement of Being.

Note to Jeffrey: Just catching up this morning, and noticed that the above reply to Ashvin was re-posted twice more, by way of quoting the original. As far as I can tell there were no edits made to the original, so saved only that one, and deleted the two that followed.

[AshvinP]

This is true, and we no longer have the right word to use here. This was the time before physis was split into physical and metaphysical, and was non-reductive. But that is just further reason to refrain from attributing anything like idealism to these people. What would later be removed to a metaphysical transcendent Idea was still present in the sensible world.

I do understand how you defined “common sense” and only meant to further explore the confusion in our current definitions and what that revealed about our metaphysical path away from the originating thought.

I will just say again, this obsession with the outer form of this word "idealism", an obsession which itself is a result of modern philosophical abstraction, is causing a lot of confusion. What you write in bold is practically the same thing Scott is saying (although it is at tension with what you wrote earlier about "force and energy" perceived as purely physical process).

No, there is a critical difference, but to see it requires refraining from projecting our usual metaphysical framework onto a people to whom the concept would be entirely foreign. Robert’s intention in the essay is reclaim a naive sort of idealism by which the Pre-Socratics experienced the world as mind:

“Ancient common sense, like modern common sense, was a consequence of direct experience, but the nature of direct experience has changed. Ancient common sense was a consequence of the mentality of natural phenomena being directly perceived, somewhat like the way we detect the mentality that lies behind the utterances of people. But experience has changed, and we no longer have that sort of direct experience of mind in nature.”

He can only make that claim by describing the gods as “behind” the physical world as non-material minds. The Greeks at that time had no such concept and mind could not exist separately from a body - physis had not yet been split. The gods were physical living beings whose physicality included minds, but they represented elemental forces, not non-material consciousness.

The point I want to emphasize is that cosmic mind only becomes a possible thought when we disembody Ideas from the physicality, and with it mentality from the body. That is what the Socratics introduced to the world and the metaphysical that error that Kastrup continues. I reject that error and look to a wholly non-metaphysical experience. It comes down to Roberts desire to recapture what he describes as experience of mentality versus what I describe as experience of physis and non-reductive engagement of Being.

JW,

Scott did make clear in his last response to you that he was not referring to the pre-Socratics, but the general population prior to that time. There was overlap, of course, and Idea was still experienced as more immanent in the sense-perceptible world by the pre-Socratics than it is for us today (which is also what you are saying), but the Axial Age really marks the time when "original participation" was being lost and the Idea was becoming inwardly experienced rather than outwardly. But it would take another 1500-2000 years or so for that inward process to be fully completed and the ideal element stripped from outer appearances in Nature altogether.

You are taking "behind" too literally. Scott provided context in bold. Language is the best example here because it concretely illustrates the ideal power of Logos working in Nature. When someone speaks to you, you don't literally perceive their inner mentality as being "behind" the words which imprint into your consciousness, but you can differentiate between the symbolic words and that inner mentality which they symbolize. The same was the case for sense-perceptible appearances in the outer world for the ancient participatory consciousness. They distinguished symbol from Reality "behind" symbol without dividing them completely and confusing the symbols for the "actual reality" as we do now. Again, I don't see you saying anything different.

[JeffreyW]

No, there is a critical difference, but to see it requires refraining from projecting our usual metaphysical framework onto a people to whom the concept would be entirely foreign. Robert’s intention in the essay is reclaim a naive sort of idealism by which the Pre-Socratics experienced the world as mind:

“Ancient common sense, like modern common sense, was a consequence of direct experience, but the nature of direct experience has changed. Ancient common sense was a consequence of the mentality of natural phenomena being directly perceived, somewhat like the way we detect the mentality that lies behind the utterances of people. But experience has changed, and we no longer have that sort of direct experience of mind in nature.”

He can only make that claim by describing the gods as “behind” the physical world as non-material minds. The Greeks at that time had no such concept and mind could not exist separately from a body - physis had not yet been split. The gods were physical living beings whose physicality included minds, but they represented elemental forces, not non-material consciousness.

The point I want to emphasize is that cosmic mind only becomes a possible thought when we disembody Ideas from the physicality, and with it mentality from the body. That is what the Socratics introduced to the world and the metaphysical that error that Kastrup continues. I reject that error and look to a wholly non-metaphysical experience. It comes down to Roberts desire to recapture what he describes as experience of mentality versus what I describe as experience of physis and non-reductive engagement of Being.

Note to Jeffrey: Just catching up this morning, and noticed that the above reply to Ashvin was re-posted twice more, by way of quoting the original. As far as I can tell there were no edits made to the original, so saved only that one, and deleted the two that followed.

Thanks. I don’t know how that happened, but I am terribly inept at all things related to computers and the internet.

[JeffreyW]

I will just say again, this obsession with the outer form of this word "idealism", an obsession which itself is a result of modern philosophical abstraction, is causing a lot of confusion. What you write in bold is practically the same thing Scott is saying (although it is at tension with what you wrote earlier about "force and energy" perceived as purely physical process).

No, there is a critical difference, but to see it requires refraining from projecting our usual metaphysical framework onto a people to whom the concept would be entirely foreign. Robert’s intention in the essay is reclaim a naive sort of idealism by which the Pre-Socratics experienced the world as mind:

“Ancient common sense, like modern common sense, was a consequence of direct experience, but the nature of direct experience has changed. Ancient common sense was a consequence of the mentality of natural phenomena being directly perceived, somewhat like the way we detect the mentality that lies behind the utterances of people. But experience has changed, and we no longer have that sort of direct experience of mind in nature.”

He can only make that claim by describing the gods as “behind” the physical world as non-material minds. The Greeks at that time had no such concept and mind could not exist separately from a body - physis had not yet been split. The gods were physical living beings whose physicality included minds, but they represented elemental forces, not non-material consciousness.

The point I want to emphasize is that cosmic mind only becomes a possible thought when we disembody Ideas from the physicality, and with it mentality from the body. That is what the Socratics introduced to the world and the metaphysical that error that Kastrup continues. I reject that error and look to a wholly non-metaphysical experience. It comes down to Roberts desire to recapture what he describes as experience of mentality versus what I describe as experience of physis and non-reductive engagement of Being.

JW,

Scott did make clear in his last response to you that he was not referring to the pre-Socratics, but the general population prior to that time. There was overlap, of course, and Idea was still experienced as more immanent in the sense-perceptible world by the pre-Socratics than it is for us today (which is also what you are saying), but the Axial Age really marks the time when "original participation" was being lost and the Idea was becoming inwardly experienced rather than outwardly. But it would take another 1500-2000 years or so for that inward process to be fully completed and the ideal element stripped from outer appearances in Nature altogether.

You are taking "behind" too literally. Scott provided context in bold. Language is the best example here because it concretely illustrates the ideal power of Logos working in Nature. When someone speaks to you, you don't literally perceive their inner mentality as being "behind" the words which imprint into your consciousness, but you can differentiate between the symbolic words and that inner mentality which they symbolize. The same was the case for sense-perceptible appearances in the outer world for the ancient participatory consciousness. They distinguished symbol from Reality "behind" symbol without dividing them completely and confusing the symbols for the "actual reality" as we do now. Again, I don't see you saying anything different.

I have reservations about Jasper’s theory of Axial Age, but for here I’m limiting my discussion to the Greeks from Homer to Socrates, which is in that time frame. All we know of the Greeks of that time is from the fragments of poems and philosophy and can make no conclusions about how the general population might have differed.

It isn’t a matter of taking “behind” literally, but noting its structural role impeding a real understanding of that time. It is difficult to avoid using metaphysical concepts because it is so hard for us to think without them; and when we slip up we project our habits of thought onto a time when they didn’t exist, and thus block our own view. There was no metaphysical “behind” to nature; everything that existed was visible. You commit that error when you claim the people of that time perceived logos in nature. Rather, logos occurred when nature revealed itself in experience. Logos was man’s apprehension, not something hidden by or behind nature and certainly nothing as static as an idea.

The few glimpses we have of their thoughts of elemental reality are in stark contrast to the consciousness of idealism. The best example we have is probably the Dionysian follower Pythagoras. Dionysus was his god, but not in any sense we recognize today. For Pythagoras, music of the heavens was the ontological primitive, if we can even apply such an inelegant term. All was made up of music, and Dionysian revelry was the path to ultimate truth. Well, that and not eating beans, which he strictly prohibited in his sect. Heraclitus saw fire as the elemental layer of the universe existing in ever-changing becoming, which in his use was very near the concept of energy. What these these notions have in common is that they are irrational, physical, not conscious, and always available to the senses in their entirety. Accordingly, your comment about the ideal element stripped from nature is exactly your imposing the metaphysical notion of ideal on a people who had no such concept.

[ScottRoberts]

I have reservations about Jasper’s theory of Axial Age, but for here I’m limiting my discussion to the Greeks from Homer to Socrates, which is in that time frame. All we know of the Greeks of that time is from the fragments of poems and philosophy and can make no conclusions about how the general population might have differed.

I did not conclude the general population differed. I am saying they all, poets, philosophers, and peasants, were naive idealists. They certainly did not call themselves idealists. I only mean they experienced themselves as being in a world of spirit, not mindless matter. Similarly I call modern people naive dualists because we experience ourselves as being in a world of both our thoughts and feelings, and mindless rocks.

It isn’t a matter of taking “behind” literally, but noting its structural role impeding a real understanding of that time. It is difficult to avoid using metaphysical concepts because it is so hard for us to think without them; and when we slip up we project our habits of thought onto a time when they didn’t exist, and thus block our own view. There was no metaphysical “behind” to nature; everything that existed was visible. You commit that error when you claim the people of that time perceived logos in nature. Rather, logos occurred when nature revealed itself in experience. Logos was man’s apprehension, not something hidden by or behind nature and certainly nothing as static as an idea.

First, I do not consider ideas static, but that's another discussion. You say "everything that existed was visible". Are you saying they saw the arm and hand of Zeus throwing lightning bolts? That they saw in the sense of photons striking their eyes the spirit of a grove? What I am saying is that they did sense Zeus and grove spirits, but not with their eyes, much as I sense the meaning of your words when all that is visible consists of dark pixels on a white background.

The few glimpses we have of their thoughts of elemental reality are in stark contrast to the consciousness of idealism. The best example we have is probably the Dionysian follower Pythagoras. Dionysus was his god, but not in any sense we recognize today. For Pythagoras, music of the heavens was the ontological primitive, if we can even apply such an inelegant term. All was made up of music, and Dionysian revelry was the path to ultimate truth.

What is music without the conscious experience of it? So I would call Pythagoras an idealist, granted the term didn't come into being for another 2000 years.