Criticism

[Mark Tetzner]

JW,

I will say here, though, that at least you have not followed people like Rovelli down into the abyss of "emptiness of emptiness" as the Ground.

But JW did say more or less that Rovelli is the only philosopher of any importance today...

[Dojo Mojo]

This may have been brought up already, apologies if so.

In the recently posted Richard Smoley interview (which btw someone waved off as ‘the usual stuff’ - nope) Richard asked Bernardo to clarify how under analytical idealism there is not an implicit dualism going on if there is a noumena on the one hand and a representational or first-person phenomenal world on the other (or something like that) and Kastrup explained that the words used to describe each realm (out there and in here) are dualistic but only in so much as the metaphors of them are used. Kastrup then went on to explain that neither what we refer to as the noumena or the representations are meant to be understood as the substance itself (or something like that.)

edit: Just to clarify

Richard Smoley pointed out/asked -

“You did say that your philosophy is non-dualistic but you do, in your answer, speak often of representations of something else. If there’s a representation there must be something represented, so you still have two things. So what are these pixels representations of?”

Kastrup replied -

“When I talk of dualism I (don’t) mean substance dualism. Of course there are dualisms of every kind, hot and cold, light and dark, you know - fear and love - there are all kinds of dualisms. But what I mean that idealism is not is a substance dualistic philosophy. For idealism there are no two different kinds of existent, no different kinds of ontic categories as we say in technical philosophy. So everything is mind.”

[AshvinP]

But JW did say more or less that Rovelli is the only philosopher of any importance today...

Ok then I take that back Barfield really diagnosed that whole pattern of "post-structural linguistic philosophy", which I tried to highlight in my post, "Is Rovelli Dragooning the Human Spirit?" (my answer is yes... not him personally, but the core ideas of his philosophy)

[Eugene I]

In one resent video BK had a discussion about his dispute with Rovelli regarding Rovelli's referencing the transcendent dimension of reality in his philosophical works. BK's argument was that he has nothing against exploring the transcendent dimensions in personal spiritual endeavors; however, he sees his mission in battling materialism on the playground of analytical philosophy that has a set of clearly defined rules so that materialism can be confronted and refuted on its own territory using the same rules of analytical philosophy. However, as soon as we open the formal philosophical discourse to the transcendent, it goes against the rules of analytical philosophy so that materialists will say: "you play against the rules and so your arguments resorting to the transcendent are invalid". And he is right, materialists would just laugh at any arguments referring to "spiritual transcendent experiences" and dismiss them as hallucinations. I'm not saying that it is the best strategy to confront materialism, I'm just trying to clarify BK's position here (which is the position that BK deliberately chose for his work) so that we can understand where the limitations of BK's philosophy are coming from and why he calls his philosophy "analytical idealism". Obviously, when a philosopher chooses to stay within the boundaries of analytical philosophy, such philosophy will inevitably be limited by strict constraints of its rules.

So, the BK's philosophy may be a good starting point for people turning away from materialism and seeking other alternatives, and it is equipped with good argumentation for that. But I agree that it is too limited within the analytical constraints to be a useful practical and living knowledge for our personal spiritual development.

[Ben Iscatus]

Eugene - as so often, you hit the nail on the head. Well said.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Thanks - that is even more clear reference to the issue here. Notice he calls it "subjective exploration". He does not think it is a matter for any philosophical or scientific inquiry, which is objective. He thinks it can only be an "artform", like a composer who receives some dim inspiration from the transcendent realm before composing a song. The key difference is not what he thinks we can accomplish in this lifetime, which we all agree on, but what he thinks we cannot accomplish under any circumstances. Noticing that spiritual practice or art can establish a connection with transcendent meaning, which is practically something everyone agrees on, is not going to pull humanity back from the shores of nihilism.

I do agree, though, that BK started off more open to these possibilities of genuine spiritual exploration in this lifetime and has steadily foreclosed on that possibility as time moved on. As Cleric remarked, that is how it goes when thinking is conceived as abstraction - the thoughts steadily lead away from the Logos which imbues all forms of our experience with deep spiritual meaning, because they have artificially foreclosed on the possibility of moving in the other direction.

I'll only add here that creating art, whether as poetry or music (alas these crippled fingers have limited the music playing), or just the art of living meaningfully, born of the revelatory realization of the ever-present origin of the creative spirit, is precisely what dispels the naysaying of the nihilists. And not surprisingly, it is the artist-philosophers that have most resonated with this psyche. In that regard, BK has also been so artistically inspired ...

[AshvinP]

Thanks - that is even more clear reference to the issue here. Notice he calls it "subjective exploration". He does not think it is a matter for any philosophical or scientific inquiry, which is objective. He thinks it can only be an "artform", like a composer who receives some dim inspiration from the transcendent realm before composing a song. The key difference is not what he thinks we can accomplish in this lifetime, which we all agree on, but what he thinks we cannot accomplish under any circumstances. Noticing that spiritual practice or art can establish a connection with transcendent meaning, which is practically something everyone agrees on, is not going to pull humanity back from the shores of nihilism.

I do agree, though, that BK started off more open to these possibilities of genuine spiritual exploration in this lifetime and has steadily foreclosed on that possibility as time moved on. As Cleric remarked, that is how it goes when thinking is conceived as abstraction - the thoughts steadily lead away from the Logos which imbues all forms of our experience with deep spiritual meaning, because they have artificially foreclosed on the possibility of moving in the other direction.

I'll only add here that creating art, whether as poetry or music (alas these crippled fingers have limited the music playing), or just the art of living meaningfully, born of the revelatory realization of the ever-present origin of the creative spirit, is precisely what dispels the naysaying of the nihilists. And not surprisingly, it is the artist-philosophers that have most resonated with this psyche. In that regard, BK has also been so artistically inspired ...

What humanity needs, and by "humanity" I mostly mean the younger generations who will inherit the world we leave behind, is genuine spiritual knowledge to work back from the brinks of perpetual nihilism and totalitarianism - not abstract or even artistic knowledge that there is a spiritual reality somewhere out there with meaning, but concrete knowledge that a meaningful life with continuity of experience goes on beyond physical death and that the Spirit-Soul which lives in each individual is eternal. Confidence in that kind of knowledge only comes from direct perceiving of the spiritual realms and beings across the threshold who have structured and will continue to structure our daily experience. It is just that direct perceiving and knowing which most modern philosophies and sciences claim is impossible.

[findingblanks]

I think Eugene's very helpful comments also point to why BK's claims become increasingly less supported when he steps outside of his expertise. This is to be expected and this forum is a good place to try to track the degrees to which such steps can be linked, valued, argued, and integrated.

[Soul_of_Shu]

This may have been brought up already, apologies if so.

In the recently posted Richard Smoley interview (which btw someone waved off as ‘the usual stuff’ - nope) Richard asked Bernardo to clarify how under analytical idealism there is not an implicit dualism going on if there is a noumena on the one hand and a representational or first-person phenomenal world on the other (or something like that) and Kastrup explained that the words used to describe each realm (out there and in here) are dualistic but only in so much as the metaphor of them is used. Kastrup then went on to explain that neither what we refer to as the noumena or the representations are meant to be understood as the substance itself (or something like that.)

Indeed, this is hardly the first time that BK has made this point, that his take on idealism is monist, and that the apparency of a relational subject><object dynamic with all its spatiotemporal phenomena, as a function of so-called 'dissociation', is more an example of a dynamic polarity than a dichotomous duality, absent which there is no relational experience.

[Eugene I]

What humanity needs, and by "humanity" I mostly mean the younger generations who will inherit the world we leave behind, is genuine spiritual knowledge to work back from the brinks of perpetual nihilism and totalitarianism - not abstract or even artistic knowledge that there is a spiritual reality somewhere out there with meaning, but concrete knowledge that a meaningful life with continuity of experience goes on beyond physical death and that the Spirit-Soul which lives in each individual is eternal. Confidence in that kind of knowledge only comes from direct perceiving of the spiritual realms and beings across the threshold who have structured and will continue to structure our daily experience. It is just that direct perceiving and knowing which most modern philosophies and sciences claim is impossible.

I totally agree with that