Practical Metaphysics—dealing with the lie of modern Philosophy in Practice (abbreviated version)
Introduction
It is my view that if modern Philosophy in Practice[1] is not to be a lie[2] it must have a metaphysical foundation.[3] This may seem surprising as it would be more common to expect an ethical basis—after all, what is more practical than the concerns of human conduct, and what less practical than the remote concept of something beyond our knowledge? However, an ethical basis for Practical Philosophy is, I believe, a remote possibility. The scope of philosophy and its historical span have created an inherent diversity of appreciation so wide that it provides a natural mitigation of any one ethical system or ideology. Where the right outcome of human existence is seen in a philosophical range that runs from self-destruction to obedient worship, it seems unlikely that philosophy will provide anything ethically graspable. The alternatives are stark though—faith based belief or metaphysics. In its absence of faith, a rational understanding of an underlying system of reality is the only reasonable alternative—and a lost man will not be so lost if he has an idea of where he has come from or is at least part of. Without this ‘sense of place’ there is no rationale or creditability for anything which we may ‘practice’, and there is no philosophical grounding for anything ‘practical’. With it there is not only something philosophically and practically coherent in an internal sense (a rational sense) but there is also the possibility of an ethical outcome. The rational pursuit of a seemingly inaccessible reality can lead to the most improbable of results—increased metaphysical place with meaningful human consequences. Discovery of improbable results may be considered an act of creativity, and as such to find itself in conflict with a rational approach. However, creativity cannot also regulate the processes if thought which bind together a sense of coherence necessary for a convincing view of that which is not apparent.
What follows is an explanation of the practical aspects of the route I believe runs from a state of belief to the experience I call ‘value-unity’. This route and its ultimate point of arrival is how I see the practice of philosophy. Neither this description nor what it describes can be said to be strictly ‘philosophical’. These thoughts are drawn from a lifetime of doing philosophy and being under its influence, and is produced from my distillation of it all, at different times of the rejection of it all, of a feeling that everything is not quite how it seems, and of a feeling that how it seems might not be the best of how it can be. In this way it is both an expression of doubt and of hope.
‘Conscious beings’ and ‘human beings’
1. The value in knowing others lies in directly making contact with the consciousness of others and, although this can be in long lasting loving relationships, it is also found in brief loving contact with the conscious other while having reduced interest in the other as human being.
The Metaphysics
The Necessity of Belief
1. Every philosophical pursuit should have a coherent rationally formed belief at its base. If this is not so then the pursuit is vacuous for it does not centre on anything of human importance. Of prime importance to us as humans is ‘meaning’—it is the seed around which all our conduct and action is formed. There is no point in using philosophy as a methodological approach to a topic of concern unless it appeals to some sense of meaning. We associate meaning with the ‘real’ and often appeal to a sense of what we consider most meaningful to be also most ‘real’.
2. If our philosophical aim is increased contact with, or knowledge of, reality then the process we employ in this pursuit should rest on a rational and coherent belief system. If this is not so then any progress would be un-directed and unfocused and any result from such an enquiry would have no contextual grounding.
3. If something of reality is our philosophical aim then its nature is necessarily unknown for reality is unknown. This is not because of the way we define it—it could be that we are in a state of reality now even though we think otherwise—but because even if this was the case we clearly do not know it; this inability to recognise truth means that whether or not we are in reality we are obviously in error.[4] If we are in reality now but do not know it then reality contains the fundamental error of our misperception of it. If we are not in reality now we can suppose that it does not contain the level of error we are presently in. Because it seems that there is so much error in the world we inhabit it is reasonable to assume that this world falls short of something more ‘ideal’—something more ‘real’.[5] This is a Platonic view and it is an element of his thinking to which I subscribe.[6]
4. On this view we live in a world of error, but the system of reality which motivates our philosophical process must be metaphysical as it is formed from ideas beyond the world of error. In other words, we are necessarily separated from the objective state we aspire to have knowledge of.
5. It may be that entertaining reality is a figment—a hope or wish—but this cannot be known. That we have this idea in mind is sufficient to justify the possibility that such a thing exists.[7] Even though reality is beyond our world we are still entitled to hold a belief in it if that belief has rational appeal.
6. Rationally appealing belief in something is not a faith. Faith rests upon an unquestioning belief and need not have any rational foundation. Belief is based upon a rational idea which appears to us coherent and convincing.[8]
7. Practical Metaphysics provides a believable rational foundation for a variety of practices which open us to reality beyond the world of error. One such practice is ‘Exchanging the Word’ (Rochelle, 2008), though there may be many more.
That what is beyond our natural world is more real than the world in which we live and that our natural world is a world of error
1. There is always the possibility that our natural world is real and any other world is less real. There is always the possibility that our natural word is the real world and any other world is the world of error. Our reference to the ‘more real’ beyond our natural world is based on the idea that we sense error in our world and conjecture a world without it. Anything we sense which has the purity of no error we associate with the ‘more real’ world. There is no foundation for this belief other than the human inclination for something better than what is. As with the possibility of the real itself, this idea provides some justification for entertaining the view at the same time it can also be misleading.
Scale and the beyond-within
1. The universe is the entirety of things. Much of this seems beyond our perception but this is not true. In being conscious we are part of the entirety of things including reality. The structure is both beyond us and within us. It is a mistake to believe that most of the structure lies beyond us on some grand scale which makes us small in comparison.
Reality lies within the detail
1. Having made this assumption about reality we next need to wonder how such a reality can be detected—it does after all seem to be defined as inaccessible. I believe that reality can be found in the detail of some aspects of the world of experience and it can be located by what I call ‘Practical Metaphysics’. By combining two separate and apparently contradictory terms we are encouraged to see the possibilities inherent in their joint framing.
2. Practical metaphysics explores the detail of the world in which we find ourselves. Such details include aspects of the world commonly or habitually ignored.
3. The truest perception we can have within the world of error is our detailed perception of another or via that detailed perception.
4. Our experience of love is one of an abundance of detail linked to the other that sets aside wholly or partly other areas usually of concern or interest.
5. Love exists in the world of error even though it is a part of reality.
6. Love is the only intact visitor the world of error receives from the world of reality
The nature, process and experience of love
1. True perception is without error and perception of true love is without error. This experience is both a validation of the existence of love and evidence of the part it plays in connecting us to the reality that is beyond the world of error.
2. Love emanates from the world of reality.
3. Love brings in its train further threads of reality.
4. We have a greater sense of ‘closeness’ to another when we experience love than with any other human experience.
Time, the physical world of structure and error
1. Time is unreal.
2. The physical world of structure is unreal.
3. Reality is made up of an atemporal, non-physical series of perceptions held between mutually perceiving selves in love or by a self perceiving the natural condition of the world in a loving way.
The Practical
Practical Metaphysics—the principles
1. Having a practical philosophy is having a practical view of living that directs us to increased awareness and knowledge of reality—itself derived from increased association with reality.
2. A truly practical philosophy may have little to do with what we commonly think of as ‘philosophy’, though it may be drawn from philosophy and may use the rational method of philosophy as a basis for understanding and interpretation.
3. A truly practical philosophy means nothing without an underlying metaphysics—a foundation built on the belief that reality is more truly real than the world as it appears to us.
4. Without an underlying metaphysics, practical philosophy is trapped in the world of error and cannot reveal the route to reality that is its purpose.
5. A rational belief in reality beyond our current experience provides us with a motivation for practical philosophy in the sense of doing practical philosophy and in the sense of practising in order to comprehend something more real.
6. To ‘do’ practical philosophy we must apply ourselves with some discipline and certainty for it is not easy. We must look outwards from ourselves in order to see anything of reality. Although any knowledge of reality becomes within us if we perceive anything of it; it is, for most of our time, beyond us.
7. In the sense of ‘practising’ philosophy in order to comprehend something more real, we must attune ourselves to the nature of what reality may be by concentrating on the detail of the world. We must learn to see in that detail the fragmentary parts of reality that lie beyond the world of error.
8. Reality is beyond the world of error and will remain so until all error is eradicated.
9. Because we live in the world of error any hints of reality will be shaped within the world of error. These will necessarily be misshapen caricatures of reality but these fragmentary parts will, nevertheless, be so different from the world of error that we will be able to recognise them as hinting at something of reality.
10. We will find these hints of reality bound up in the detail of the world of error.
11. The detail lies mainly in others as perceiving conscious individuals and it is others who should be our focus.
12. Reality is not in the structure of the world as we generally know it—which is erroneous and misleading—it is in the conscious perceptions we have of others and the relational correspondence we can have with the manifold of perception inherent in us perceiving others who themselves perceive us and others. This is the nature of detail within the other.
13. Error is the dominating framework of the world structure.
14. Consciousness is an aberration of reality in the field of error which besets the world. Concentration on the mental world of others is the primary key we have to unlocking any glimmer of reality that may intrude into the world of error.
15. The structure of the world—temporal and physical—is particularly misleading because, as part of it, we feel a natural affinity with and inclination towards its seemingly unavoidable structure.
16. Concentration on the structure—on form, or nature, or silence—only leads us further astray into the confusing domain of error. Though this can be confusing as sometimes the natural world of error produces very strong sensations of what seems like reality. Sometimes, though, when the structure represents our close association with a condition of nature, we can perceive something of reality.
17. Concentrating on others—being closely focused and intimately engaged with others—allows us sight of something of reality. Sometimes this is the merest hint but, because it is something of reality, the world of error is, by comparison readily and sometimes glaringly shown up as the fake it truly is.
18. Any hint of reality will become part of us when we know it, but it will not be discovered within us before it is first found in our intimate focus on another.
19. Looking within for reality is mistaken. Although in due course we may contain detail sufficient to constitute something of reality, self-analysis is unlikely to reveal this as self love has limited potential.
20. Love allows us to be intimately close to another.
21. Focus on a beloved can produce the strongest hints of reality.
22. We must learn to see the other as our beloved.
23. The continued existence of our beloved is our highest aim.
24. Continuance of self is the route to reality which exists outside the world of error in time. Reality will be known when our focus on others leads us to knowing all others they know and them each knowing us and all others we know.
25. Even existing, as we do, within the world of error, there is no mistaking anything that is part of reality although self-deception often camouflages this.
26. Reality, and any part we can have of it, persists outside time and the physical structure of the world.
The goal of Practical Philosophy—Value-unity
1. Value and not wisdom is the goal of the philosophical life and the object of practical metaphysics.
2. It is an error to think that wisdom is the primary philosophical aim of the reflective life.
3. Valuing something is different than being wise about it. Sensing value is an experience of the individual, whereas wisdom is an experience which, because its attribution is on the mind of another, is not an individually held experience.
4. Unity is of the greatest value because it combines its components in an integrated and meaningful way.
5. Our appreciation of life gives meaning to our being.
6. Our best appreciation of life gives the greatest meaning to our being.
7. Value-unity is at the centre of our best appreciation of life.
The experience of value-unity
1. We do not acquire value-unity in any way similar to how we might be considered to have acquired wisdom. Wisdom relies upon time, progressive experience, ability to balance, discriminate and fairly judge. Value-unity can be experienced immediately upon direct perception of another—usually their detail (and their own implicit perceptions) through love.
2. Because it is connected to reality, value-unity leads to a state of peacefulness of mind. This is because it is only in the world of error—time and structure—that confusion arises, and value-unity is an experience of love that derives from non-temporal non-physical reality.
3. Peacefulness of mind is a state which involves others in the general emanation of kindness and ease—a personal state of calm derived from value in the face of the clatter of the world, or life, or the omnipresent silence of death.
4. In the world of error peacefulness of mind is unlikely to last.
5. In the world of error any experience of peacefulness of mind should be regarded as an experience of the world of reality that is only presently available in a fragmentary way.
6. Even so, the most fragmentary experience of reality is of immense personal value compared to the general experience of the structure of the world of error.
REFERENCES
Anselm, St. (2001). Proslogium, Monologium, Cur Deus Homo, Gaunilo's In Behalf of the Fool. In S. N. Deane (Ed.): Open Court.
Berkeley, George, & Ayers, Michael. (1980). Philosophical works, including the works on vision (New ed. revised and enlarged / introduction and notes by M.R. Ayers. ed.). London: Dent.
Helm, Paul. (1999). Faith and reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis. (1921). The nature of existence. [S.l.]: C.U.P.
McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis, & Broad, C. D. (1927). The nature of existence. [S.l.]: C.U.P.
McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis, ed. and with a new introduction by Gerald Rochelle. (1997). Some dogmas of religion. Bristol: Thoemmes.
Plotinus, MacKenna, Stephen, & Dillon, John M. (1991). The enneads. London: Penguin.
Rochelle, Gerald. (1998). Behind time: the incoherence of time and McTaggart's atemporal replacement. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Rochelle, Gerald. (2008). Exchanging the Word -- contact with reality 'beyond within'. Practical Philosophy, 9(2), 99-100.
Ross, W. D. (1953). Plato's theory of ideas (2nd edition. ed.). Oxford: Clarendon.
Whitehead, Alfred North. (1929). Process and reality : an essay in cosmology: Cambridge University Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, & Russell, Bertrand Works edited translated or with contributions by this Author. (1922). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung) ... With an introduction by Bertrand Russell. Ger. & Eng: pp. 189. London.
NOTES
[1] The distinction between what we might call ‘academic’ or university-based philosophy and modern Philosophical Practice lies in application—academic philosophy can be seen roughly as a pursuit in itself whereas Practical Philosophy implies some actual involvement with the world and usually with another or others. The modern movement of Practical Philosophy started in the 1980s and has spread mainly though not exclusively within Europe and the USA and mainly though its application as Philosophical Counselling. The journals Philosophical Practice and Practical Philosophy give flavour to the areas Practical Philosophy recognises as central to its remit.
[2] And there is little even ‘noble’ about this lie. Because of its concentration on Philosophical Counselling, and more commonly the teaching of Philosophical Counselling and training of Philosophical Counsellors irrespective of the actual amount of Philosophical Counselling that take place, modern Practical Philosophy has very quickly lost sight of the general gains to be made by doing philosophy in a common sense and accessible way. There are no data on this but judging by the numbers of counselees reported in case studies and general works it seems reasonable to conclude that there is only a small amount of philosophical counselling taking place worldwide and that there is an overprovision of ‘trained’ Philosophical Counsellors.
[3] Contemporary Philosophical Practice draws largely upon the practices of the Ancient Greek Sophists (in Ancient Greece teaching individuals the techniques necessary for winning arguments in courts of law). At the same time it is common for Practical Philosophers to identify Socrates as their philosophical mentor and inspiration (as someone of great insight and wisdom who is at the same time out-of-step with ‘mainstream’ philosophy). It is true that Socrates attacked the Sophists though he was himself accused of being one. It is also true that Socrates was a tenacious and successful arguer who did not earn money from his philosophising. Plato was responsible for the establishment of the philosophical ‘establishment’ and there is a connection from this time to the modern day where philosophy, in its methodology drawing more on the tradition of Aristotle than anyone else, is used mainly as an analytical tool with a largely secular application. In parallel to this, religion in various forms has tended to satisfy the ‘spiritual’ (and ethical) needs of the individual who have found it in themselves to believe. Modern Philosophical Practice upholds philosophy (or exposure to philosophy) as a route to a wise life; a route others may think more properly laid out by religion.
[4] This ‘veil of perception’ doctrine has a long antecedence in philosophy. Plato and Plotinus saw it as an obstacle to knowing reality, Aristotle saw it as a problem answerable by a certain interpretation of memory, Sextus Empiricus and Cicero interpreted the Cyrenaics’ idealist doctrine of a world constituted only of sense perception, Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics accepted objects but also recognised the difficulty of apprehending them. Pythagoras was said to have taught from behind a screen or veil. A.J. Ayer, Russell and G.E. Moore found phenomenalism compelling in the face of the non common sense view that the world is not as we know it, but contemporaries like McTaggart and Whitehead and their precursor Hegel, strongly upheld the opposite view. The difficulty of reconciling our mental perception with the object of that perception is a subject common in literature and is explicit in the work of Shelley, Tennyson and T.S. Eliot.
[5] I accept that prima facie all that exists is real on the basis that all that is is, and anything that is must be universally admitted as real. My meaning of ‘real’ here is that it is a world constituted of that which is for most if not all of the time not apparent.
[6] Plato describes the world of reality as one constituting perfection—the Forms. The world of Forms or Idea is a world in which sorts, types or kinds (of things) may exist and be independent of there usual association with things—in other words the idea may exist in itself. Although initially associated with Plato’s thoughts on the virtuous man it became much extended to cover many types. No better exposition of the theory can be found than in the classic treatment by Ross (Ross, 1953).
[7] This is the basis of the ontological argument for the existence of God—invoking the idea that God exists from the fact that I have in my mind the concept of his existence (Anselm, 2001). It is also the substance of the Wittgensteinian view that only what we can think of can be real (Wittgenstein & Russell, 1922). This seems like conjuring up a reality from a wishful thought. But we cannot think about things that are not possible. If we imagine the many other possibilities that we cannot think about it seems reasonable to say we cannot think about them because they are not ‘there’ to be thought about. If we accept this then we can accept that we can accept that we think about things which although unknown we can think about only because they must somehow exist; our conscious thinking patterns and systems work only on the existence of consciousness. I believe consciousness is fundamental to the universal structure— the world is only known because of consciousness of it. Following this it seems only right to accord it the potential for known contact with what is there. This idea is expressed by many idealist philosophies, for example Berkeley’s world constituted only of ideas (Berkeley & Ayers, 1980), A.N. Whitehead’s view of existence as an organism (Whitehead, 1929), McTaggart’s system of selves (J. M. E. McTaggart, 1921; J. M. E. McTaggart & Broad, 1927), Rochelle’s description of timeless reality in a McTaggartian world (Rochelle, 1998), Plotinus’ world structure of spiritual existence (Plotinus, MacKenna, & Dillon, 1991). All these ideas have their roots in Plato’s theory of ‘Forms’ or ‘Ideas’ and the belief that the world we perceive is not the whole or true world.
[8] McTaggart provides a full discussion on the place of dogma in faith from an idealist point of view (J. M. E. McTaggart, ed. and with a new introduction by Gerald Rochelle, 1997). An outstanding collection of essays on faith can be found in Helm (Helm, 1999).
