Howdy, Stranger (always wanted to say that) and Lizard:

You’ve both been looking at the relationship between metaphysics and practical philosophy; I’ve been thinking about Esse from a different perspective, namely reflective or meditative. I see a parallel of sorts between the kind of seamless conceptual coherence that the Lizard is looking for and the mental clarity I find that contemplation of Esse can give me.

The meditative technique—if I can call it that—begins, as most do, with a relaxed but stable sitting posture with eyes closed. After focusing initially on the idea of Esse as the object of contemplation, the mind disengages from conscious thinking and becomes aware only of itself. The process then follows a path analogous to your description, in the “Genesis” piece, about the self, spontaneously aware of its singularity, becoming conscious of an external reality which (the mind having been primed to contemplate Esse) manifests itself in this instance as a generalised sense of existence. This state having been achieved—I call it “apex consciousness”—the mind focuses on the idea that existence is God and God is existence or Esse, and that Esse is eternal, with nothing before or after it. The object is to sustain this thought and no other for as long as possible.

The first time I tried this I was stunned by the feeling of transcendence it gave me (not to mention a particularly interesting physical side effect). I’ve tried it a few times since without the same intensity of impact, but I plan to keep practising with the aim of getting better at it, and developing the ability to use it as a psychological resource.

I’m not sure what, if anything, this adds to your conversation, or what role, if any, meditation etc. plays in your thinking about Esse.

Rody

Lizard,

As I said, the model can’t be applied holistically; the implementation must be sequential: that is, each component is implemented to address specific issues as they arise, be they metaphysical, spiritual or ethical. The components don’t fit together organically because we live in a post-synthetic age[1], where our thinking about life is informed more by empirical knowledge than by pure, internally consistent, reasoning. This is certainly the basis of my approach which (as I indicated in the personal anecdotes) has been shaped by the loss of my younger self’s religion-based world view and by subsequent attempts to understand life by examining the facts of my existence.

One of the characteristics of the post-synthetic era is a sense of flux and fragmentation

This is probably a good point to acknowledge one of the (no doubt many) shortcomings of my approach. It is, at its core, emotional rather than rational because it’s a response to a specific event—an existential crisis in my youth. No, I’m not playing the victim card; it’s a fact and I need to put it out there as a matter of full disclosure.

That said, I’m hardly alone. One of the characteristics of the post-synthetic era is a sense of flux and fragmentation. That has a basis in historical and cultural fact: it’s there in the modernist movement (think T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, Joyce’s “Ulysses”, Woolf’s stream of consciousness etc.) and in our own post-modernist, post-fact, post-truth, post-West, culturally relativist era. The coherence in the pluralistic model lies, perhaps paradoxically, in acknowledging its incoherence, arguing that the incoherence is consistent with the flavour of contemporary life, understanding the implications, and applying that understanding systematically in the way we think.

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn….

The way I do this is through the “Rule of Three”, which is my way of rationalising the incoherence of daily life into something manageable. It’s based on the idea that experience breaks down into three categories—change, continuity and crisis—and that the idea applies as much to general history as it does to individual lives. The model is consistent with this, as follows: change corresponds to the active, socially conscientious lives lived by my father’s side of the family, which I wish to emulate (ethics); continuity corresponds to the cultural affiliation to religion and tradition (“spiritual epistemology”) and crisis corresponds to the alienation that I’m trying to escape or overcome. For ease of reference, I commonly refer to change in this triad as “alpha”, continuity as “beta” and crisis (or disruption) as “gamma”.

There is of course a fourth element which is something of a special case—the metaphysical solution or Esse. This is associated with continuity or stability but, because of its theoretical pre-eminence, I assign it the unique status of “super-beta”.

At some stage, I’ll share some examples with you of how the Rule of Three works in practice but, for now, trust me, it does….

Cheers,

Stranger

[1] I’m thinking of Hans Reisenbach here, in “The Rise of Scientific Philosophy”. But I often wonder about the biggest project in physics today, the attempt to reconcile the general theory of relativity and quantum theory. Isn’t that a form of synthesis?

Pic source here

 

“Liz.” Seriously? After I asked you not to?

Anyway, you say that your model for the relationship between metaphysics and practical philosophy is pluralistic, but that it can provide a coherent perspective on life. How? You don’t explain. If this model is supposed to add up to something coherent, then surely all the individual components must fit together somehow—and yet, by your own admission, they don’t.

Maybe spend less time on the silly name calling and more time thinking things through?

The Lizard.

Dear Liz (ha!),

If I understand your point correctly, it’s a good one: what is the relationship between metaphysics (or, as I often think of it, psychological theory) and practical philosophy? Let me bounce some ideas off you.

For some people, the big questions about life – Is there a God? Why are we here? – can be a distraction from daily living. In extreme cases the search for answers, and the failure to find them, can lead to anxiety, depression and dysfunction. Browning was being ironic when he wrote, “God’s in his Heaven—all’s right with the world!”, but the words reflect that, for many people, the idea of the existence of a God who has all the answers, even if He doesn’t fully reveal them, can be comforting enough for them to get on with their lives with peace of mind. In this way, the metaphysics—whatever they are, however they work—can be a way of quarantining the quotidian mind from disturbing thoughts.

Esse…provides a metaphysical answer that takes us beyond the traditional idea of God

So, to my way of thinking, the relationship between metaphysics and practical philosophy is that they are separate but symbiotic (it’s a two-way street: people need a metaphysical construct to help them get on with their daily lives, and the search for meaning gives effect to metaphysics).

Esse, to me, provides a metaphysical answer that takes us beyond the traditional idea of God to one that is secular (and, strictly speaking, atheistic—i.e., non-theistic), rational and humane. It’s something that I think the modern mind can accept, and then get on about applying itself to life.

But this is really looking at the relationship between Esse and day-to-day life from a theoretical perspective; what are the practical implications?

God and the World

I’m going to try to answer this by referencing Christianity, as it’s the religion we both know. In Christianity, God and the practical world are intimately connected. God is the metaphysical solution (creator of heaven and earth, with a plan for humankind) who is also involved in human affairs (showing the Hebrews the way to the promised land, making a gift of his son to the world). The West repaid the compliment by adopting Christianity as the religion of empires and nation states. The relationship between God and Man was engaged via the Church which, in turn, had an ambivalent but usually mutually supportive relationship with the State. That changed over time with the Protestant Reformation and the rise of non-conformism, both of which put more emphasis on the relationship between God and the individual. Christian Puritanism appears to have given particularly robust expression to the idea of God’s will working through the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

Christian Puritans: a robust expression

That’s the potted history, as I understand it. Now let me share with you how I see this relationship in terms of my own experience, beginning with a brief look at my childhood and later years (sorry to bore you, but please stay with me…).

God and the Individual: a Personal View

I was brought up as a Wesleyan Methodist, in which the sincerity of one’s relationship with God was front and centre—even more so (I would argue) than God or Jesus Christ themselves. The temptation to egoism was obvious. When I lost my faith, as one does, at the age of seventeen, the shallowness of my relationship with God was revealed to me in the most shocking way. It was easy for me from that point onwards to believe, aggressively, in nothing.

So that relationship failed, to be replaced in later life by a less personal, more institutionalised, brand of Christianity in the form of Anglicanism. The terms in which it expressed the relationship between God and the congregation—through pre- and post-Reformation traditions, the historic role of the Church of England in building the nation state and subsequent empire, the centrality of Christ the Redeemer, the effect of ritual in enhancing the sense of communion, and the practical and symbolic functionality of the Book of Common Prayer—were much more congenial to me.

What really attracted me to Anglicanism, however, was the way it presented the psychologically powerful idea that, through God’s unconditional love for humanity and Christ’s sacrifice, the “penitent” (receptive) spirit[1] can be rescued from alienation into a feeling of belonging. That worked for me: the beauty and the power of the idea—quite independently of any consideration of the existence of God, or whether the interpretation of Christ’s death was historically accurate, or whether Christ really rose from the dead—helped me to see beyond my own alienation to a relationship in which I was accepted, warts and all.[2]

Escape from prison/release from alienation

It is the idea, which for all I know might be entirely human in origin, that works for me, and not the supernatural apparatus associated with it. It remains, for me, affective and therapeutic, and is the reason why I continue to identify as Christian.

This acceptance of the psychological benefits of Christianity minus the supernatural trappings might properly be regarded as “cultural Christianity”—and that’s where I think I’m heading in describing the relationship between metaphysics and life at a practical day-to-day level.

The Individual and the Good Life

In this theoretical model, Esse is a self-contained metaphysical solution with no affiliation to any religion, and Christianity is regarded as a strictly cultural phenomenon with powerful and humane psychological benefits.[3] The two are quite separate. Both impinge on the life of a thinking individual, however, and I believe they can do so positively, with Esse satisfying the intellectual curiosity about first causes and destiny, and a cultural version of religion (Christianity, in my case) providing the spiritual richness and moral grounding necessary for a good life.

But let’s drill deeper: how does the model play out for the individual who is looking to create a life for himself/herself, and wondering how to fill the hours in each day in a way that will help, eventually, to achieve that goal?

As an existentialist, I’m reluctant to be prescriptive about this: we all must decide who or what we want to “be” (hence the deliberate vagueness with which I wrote about “life” and “goal” in the preceding paragraph). For this reason, I’m going to refer again to my own experience as I try to formulate an answer (still awake?).

As I think about it, I realise that I need to go back beyond my own experience to that of the people who shaped me—my family. The two sides of my family were quite different: Methodist and quietist on my mother’s side, Baptist (or was it Congregationalist? Or Presbyterian, even?) and socially active on my father’s. When I think of them as models for my own choices and behaviour, I lean towards my father’s side, because the people on it were more dynamic and outgoing and had a real, positive impact on those who knew them.

My father’s aunt and uncle were teachers who worked during the 1930s Depression in a particularly disadvantaged area of Britain[4], where children would turn up to school each day unwashed and in the same clothes minus shoes (their parents couldn’t afford them) and hungry (their parents couldn’t afford food). My great aunt and her sister (my paternal grandmother) started a soup kitchen and joined the Labour Party. My great uncle joined too, and nearly became a Member of Parliament. Perhaps his greatest political achievement was to prevent the Communist Party from establishing a foothold in that part of the country.

Only Hollywood would ever think of building a coal mine at the top of a hill

The sense of justice that motivated them owed at least as much to their religious beliefs as to their political ideology (as well as their own personal decency). They were boots-and-all believers for whom God was a moral, driving force. I don’t share their idea of God but I admire them and what they did and I share a lot of their values. I aspire to be like them, although there’s nothing religious in my motivation, just a sense that doing good with integrity and conviction is a worthy way to live.

Pluralistic, but Coherent

In summary, I see the relationship between metaphysics and practical philosophy as pluralistic, consisting of three separate and independent elements—God-as-existence/Esse (metaphysics), a “cultural” version of a religion (a form of spiritual epistemology) and behaviour modelled on exemplars from one’s personal background or tradition (ethics). Because of their separateness these various elements must be applied sequentially rather than holistically, but I think they can still add up to a coherent perspective on life.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Stranger

[1] The penitence being symbolised by, and enacted on behalf of all people through, Christ’s sacrifice.

[2] In my state of mind at the time, the idea—which I assume to be human in origin and the work of a genius—restored my faith in humanity.

[3] The role of creativity in the individual’s engagement with religion and pursuit and attainment of grace is an important concept in Esse which merits separate consideration rather than a partial discussion here.

[4] The Rhondda Valley, South Wales—an important coal mining centre at the time.

Pics

• American Gothic, by Grant Wood
• St Peter Released from Prison, by Gerrit von Honthorst (1592-1656)
• Still from How Green Was My Valley (1941), 20th Century Fox

Hi, DLL – you’re right, it was different from our usual posts. As you know, Esse and the ideas behind it are works in progress, and this piece was an attempt to pin down some of the metaphysics involved (it was clearly labelled “first draft”). The style was abstract and the tone was stilted and the whole thing was rather jejune but, as we’ve agreed, we’ll have more fun using the blog as a way of openly sharing our ideas in the raw so that we can all try to thrash some sense out of them. As the S said to me the other day, it’s a bit like a Socratic dialogue or symposium (no false modesty there!).

Personally, I’m feeling more confident about the idea that Esse could serve as a bridge between religions and the secular public space, Esse being the “god of reason” while the God of Abraham etc. is the god of creativity. The offending post, for all its faults, has been helpful to me in that respect. I’m thinking of working up this theme for a future post of my own but I have no idea when I’m going to find the time to do it.

Meanwhile, why don’t you think of posting something in response to the “Genesis” piece? I was intrigued by what you were saying at Anne’s the other day about the Old Testament account of creation and The Fall reflecting ancestral memory of the Neolithic revolution. I’d be interested in reading something about that.

Cheers,

Rody

PS I’ve started a correspondence section so we can keep these exchanges a bit separate from actual posts.