AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:02 pm
That's not my argument.
1) what is the either/or?
It is/was an interpretation of the text commented. "Until" was interpreted as implying that so far and globally, no sharing of perspectives (ie. communication) happens, and the text seemed to further qualify that communication requires full sharing of perspectives, and should such become possible in future, only then philosophy can move on from the humanist bubble to more general animistic philosophy. But if that is not your view, cool.
b) philosophy is limited to experience - you are usually the one criticizing Western metaphysics for going beyond experience to realms of "absolutes". I am criticizing philosophers who not only posit "absolutes" for humans but then extrapolate them to non-humans as well.
As far thinking is also experiencing, I agree. Perspectives, by definition, are not absolutes. Perspectives are relational.
3) I specifically said "until we have actually experienced their conscious perspectives". If an animist shaman in Finland has truly experienced a non-human animal's perspective, then I have no problem with that person philosophizing about what they have experienced.
If and when you see a non-human animal in trouble and suffering, your empathy is already a sharing of perspective. Mutually shared perspective of ability to feel pain. I assume that even in USA there is some legislation against mistreating non-human animals and causing them unnecessary pain. Some degree of non-humanist animism is philosophically and pragmatically acknowledged also by state jurisdictions.
In idealistic metaphysics, as far as M@L is sentient, with ability to feel, and not only metacognitive, we can define that sentient aspect as Spirit. From that definition follows that all sentient beings in their various costumes are manifestations of Spirit. Thus, we can conclude that empathy is ontological, and in some way or another shared by all sentient beings. With ontologically grounded empathy comes also ability of sentient beings to build various degrees and forms of empathy barriers, as necessitated e.g. by dietary habits etc. metabolism of sentient beings.
So yes, the discussion is only about degrees, not about absolutes. Each perspective on each level of experiencing has some degree of irreducible uniqueness. Various senses are already their own unique perspectives with very complex interrelations and degrees of sharing.
As you mention shamans, in the book
The Spell of the Sensuous, the author correctly observes that the main function of shamanhood (whether in individuated, distributed or other social form) is higher degree of sharing of perspectives, grounded in empathy. The function comes from pragmatic coherence theory of justification, grounded in pragmatically oriented participatory theory of evolution. Ability of a population to keep on reproducing depends from dynamical adaptation to an ecological balance. As even post-Cartesian scientism mostly acknowledges, it's poorly communicative humanist bubble is suffering from deep non-adaptive ecological crisis. New animism as an ethically and empirically grounded program to (re)learn better communicative abilities and strategies with other perspectives, both human and non-human peoples, follows directly from pragmatic coherence theory of justification.