Myth of the given

I decided to start a new thread with excerpts from Jim's “spiritual vision” thread, as we're departing from Jim's vision and into a topic that deserves its own focus. Here are the excerpts:

Re: on a spiritual vision

kelamuni said Yesterday, 8:25 AM:

(quoting Marigpa): I remember being told that a  sense consciousness would perceive / apprehend an object directly then a split moment later the mental consciousness would impute onto the object. I can't remember which model or school of Buddhist philsophy this comes from… but Kela knows : ) … he referred to it on another thread… I think he may have said it comes from the Sautantrika model/school.

Actually, several schools hold to something like this. It may indeed trace back to the Sautrantika school, since they had a rather developed representationalist theory of perception. The reference I made was to Dignaga and Dharmakirti. Their school has been called “Sautrantika-Yogachara” by the Tibetans. Tsongkhapa was influenced to a signifcant degree by Dharmakirti. The idea that emptiness is “cognized” and that there are discreet “cognitions” of particular “emptineses” shows the influence of Dharmakirti. 

In Hinduism, the Mimamsa school associated the above doctrine with an early Advaita Vedanta school that no longer exists and that was closely associated with the Yogachara. It is this school that Kamalashila mentions and of which he has to say, “There is little difference between this school and us; their only fault is that they hold to an absolute Self.” We can see remnants of these early Advaita teachings in the Gaudapada Karika.

Re: on a spiritual vision

theurj said Yesterday, 12:58 PM:

From The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, CUP, 2007, p. 106:

Dharmakirti…holds that perception can only be non-conceptual. There is no determinate perception, for the judgments induced by perception are not perceptual but are just conceptual superimpositions. They do not reflect the individual reality of phenomena, but instead address their general characteristics….Hence for perception to be undistorted in a universe of particulars, it must be totally free from conceptual elaborations. This position implies a radical separation between perception…and interpretation of the object.

Dharmakirti's view of perception, however, is more complex, for he shared with Sellars the recognition that knowledge, even at the perceptual level, does not boil down to an encounter with reality, but requires active categorization. We do not know things by sensing them, for perception does not deliver articulated objects, but only impressions, which by themselves are not forms of knowledge but become so only when they are integrated within our categorical schemes.

Re: on a spiritual vision

kelamuni said Yesterday, 8:29 PM:

Dignaga and Dharmakirit define perception as bereft of conceptual construction, but like Kant's “intuition,” it exists only as an abstraction.

This portion captures the idea: knowledge, even at the perceptual level, does not boil down to an encounter with reality, but requires active categorization. We do not know things by sensing them [alone], for perception does not deliver articulated objects, but only impressions, which by themselves are not forms of knowledge but become so only when they are integrated within our categorical schemes.

I like the comparison to Sellars.  In the link posted by Jim on metaphysics, the author notes the quasi-kantian turn that things took after Wittgenstein among some anglo-american philosophers. The themes of “conceptual schemes,” “scheme and content” etc., are pervasive during and after the sixties.

Re: on a spiritual vision

theurj said less than 20 seconds ago:

So what's the purpose of defining perception as bereft of concepts, or as the CHC says, having a “radical separation between perception and interpretation,” if one cannot “know” anything about the supposed pure perception without conception? For all practical intents and purposes since we cannot know about a supposed pure reality without concepts then ontology and epistemology are inseparable. So why the radical separation in the first place?

Re: Myth of the given

Re: on a spiritual vision

Good question.

It may have to do with a kind of apologetics or accomodation or reconcilitation concerning a pair dogmas, one being that true knowledge is perceptual knoweldge, the other of  being that all worldly knowledge is conditioned.

Personally, I've never really understood why exactly they take this tack either, but maybe my knowledge of Dharmakirti is lacking. He is a tough nut to crack and our knowledge of him is deficient in general.

Basically, as I understand the teaching, perception (pratyaksha), which exists even if the definition is an abstraction, “touches” or is based on the real, what the Sautrantika-Yogacharas call the “pure particular” (svalakshana), but this intution is “covered over” or overlaid by “conceptual construction” (kalapana). Again, this sounds a lot like Kant

Dharmakirti did hold that there was something called “yogi pratyaksha,” a kind of pure perception of the truth. At the same time he set limits or criticized the concept of “yogic perception, in particular as it applies to other schools.

One can see the problem with such an “intutition” at once: as soon as we start talking about a “pure intuition of reality,” anything goes, and every man and his dog can start claiming all sorts of stuff, like channelling Sri Yukteshwar from Alpha Centuri.

Re: Myth of the given

From the draft of Chapter 8 in Integral Spirituality:

MONOLOGICAL IMPERIALISM AND THE MYTH OF THE GIVEN

If there is a common thread to the general postmodern current, it is a radical critique of monological consciousness-variously referred to as the myth of the given, monological empiricism, the philosophy of the subject, and the philosophy of consciousness, to name a few. As I started to indicate, what “monological” basically means is “not dialogical”-or not intersubjective, not contextual, not constructivist, not understanding the constitutive nature of cultural backgrounds-basically, not recognizing zones #2 and #4.

The myth of the given or monological consciousness is essentially another name for phenomenology and mere empiricism in any of a hundred guises-whether regular empiricism, radical empiricism, interior empiricism, transpersonal empiricism, empirical phenomenology, transcendental phenomenology, radical phenomenology, and so forth. As important as they might be, what all of them have in common is the myth of given, which includes:

–the belief that reality is simply given to me, or that there is a single pregiven world that consciousness delivers to me more or less as it is, instead of a world that is con-structured in various ways before it ever reaches my empirical or phenomenal awareness.

–the belief that the consciousness of an individual will deliver truth. This is why Habermas calls the myth of the given by the phrase “the philosophy of consciousness”- and that is what he is criticizing because it is blind to intersubjectivity, among other things. As we have been saying throughout this book, consciousness itself simply cannot see zones #2 and #4, and therefore is deficient in and of itself (e.g., “Not through introspection but through history do we come to know ourselves”). You can introspect all you want and you won't see those other truths. So consciousness itself is deficient- whether personal or transpersonal, whether pure or not pure, essential or relative, high or low, big mind or small mind, vipassana, bare attention, centering prayer, contemplative awareness-none of them can see these other truths, and that is why Habermas and the postmodernists extensively criticize “the philosophy of consciousness.”

–a failure to understand that the truth that the subject delivers is constructed in part byintersubjective cultural networks. This is why the myth of the given is also called “the philosophy of the subject”-what we also need is “the philosophy of the intersubject, or intersubjectivity.”

–the belief that the mirror of nature, or the reflection paradigm, is an adequate methodology. The recent move in spiritual approaches is to take the reflection paradigm (or phenomenology) and simply try to extend it to cover other realities (such as transpersonal, spiritual, meta-normal, planetary consciousness, complexity thinking, etc.). This is essentially the belief that the reflection paradigm, or monological empiricism and monological phenomenology, will cover transpersonal and spiritual realities. But the  subject does not reflect reality, it co-creates it.

All of those, the postmodernists agree, are shot through with the myth of the given. In other words, many approaches, wishing to get spiritual realities acknowledged by the modern world, simply take empirical methodology and try to extend it, make it bigger, push it into areas such as meditation, Gaia, transpersonal consciousness, brain scans with meditation, empirical tests of cognitive capacity with contemplation, chaos and complexity science, holograms and holographic information, the Akashic field, and so on. Although they might overcome one problem-such as Newtonian-Cartesian mechanism, for example-by introducing something like “mutually interdependent networks of dynamically related processes”-not a single one of those approaches addresses the more fundamental problem that the postmodernists are criticizing, namely, that all of those approaches are still caught in the myth of the given and the ignoring of intersubjectivity. Indeed, those approaches give no indication that they even know what it means.

Re: Myth of the given

P. 107 of the CUP goes on to discuss Dharmakirti in relation to Sellars myth of the given. It says:

This close connection between thought and language, inherited from Dignaga, differentiates Dharmakirti from classical empiricists, such as Locke and modern sense-date theorists, who believe in what Sellars describes as the “myth of the given….” Dharmakirti's philosophy is quite different, for it emphasizes the constitutive and constructive nature of language.

Thought identifies its object by associating the representation of the object with a word. When we conceive of an object we do not apprehend it directly, but through the mediation of its aspect. Mediation through an aspect also occurs with perception, but here the process of mediation is different. In the case of perception there is a direct causal connection between the object and its representation, but no such link exists for thought. There is no direct casual link between the object and thought, but rather an extended process of mediation in which linguistic signs figure predominantly.

Re: Myth of the given

Language, and this is where the parallels with post-Wittgensteinian and post-Heideggerian thought come in. In Mahayana, the world is constituted by prapancha (discursive proliferation), which is linguisitic in its basis, metaphysically and etymologically. In Advaita, the phenomenal world itself is called prapancha.

In Madhyamika, conceptual construction (kalpana) and “discursive proliferation” (prapancha) are mutually determined (anyonyabhava).

Re: Myth of the given

In the case of perception there is a direct causal connection between the object and its representation…

This is what I was talking about when I said that for Dharmakirti and Dignaga perception “touches” or is based on the real. (object here = svalakshana). 

Basically, for all the schools, perception (pratyaksha) is “valid cognition” (pramana) par excellance. Basically it means direct cognition. Some schools play with the concept a bit. The Vedanta Sutras define it in terms of scripture (sruti), ie the Upanishads.

On this idea of perception touching reality: we find this same idea in Advaita in the teaching that in every cognition, there is, always already, a direct contact with reality, in the form of the always already ever present consciousness (cit; chaitanya). In other words, “causal consciousness” is always already immanent in every act of cogntion. This idea is referred to in the comments made by Lol concerning perception, namely, that in perception, there is first an indeterminate moment that precedes the deteminate moment. As I say above, the early Advaitins in particular are associated with this teaching. And when the Advaitins talk about these two moments of perception, in particular Mandana Mishra, Shankara's great contemporary, they use the techincal terms nirvikalpaka (without conceptual construction) and savikalpaka (with conceptual construction), the same terms used by the yogic wing of the Indian tradition.  In classical Yoga the idea can be found in the teaching that “in between” the “mind moments” a pure consciousness “shines through”; the implication is that we need to “extend” the “interval” between the moments through the practice of yoga. It is also present in the definition of release that both Vedanta and Yoga hold to: the self-manifestation or uncovering or “shining” of the Self in its own effulgence and presence, a doctrine tracable to the Chandogya Upanishad. In Hinduism, we find the idea most fully developed in Kashmiri Shaivism, in the idea that in every cognitive moment, consciousness, Shiva, is always present: in this sense, Shiva is ubiquitous. And I think this brings us around to the Indian Mahamudra teachings and Dzogchenpo, which to me sound like Kashmiri Shaivism when they refer to the natural, spontaneous (sahaja), self-perfected consciousness.

There is the contra-punctual theme of “mysticism of light” present in these various strands, a theme I am personally attracted to, like a moth, I guess. Which reminds me of a Far Side cartoon that shows Superman coming home in the evening, his costume in tatters and his head spinning, and has Mrs. Superman saying, “Have you been circling the street-lamp again?”

Re: Myth of the given

The CHC quotes I've been using are from a chapter in the book written by George Dreyfus and Evan Thompson. You can find the article by itself at this link. 

In the article Dharmakirti does not assert a direct perception of the object; it is mediated through a representational “aspect.” Granted there is a causal connection between the object and the aspect, but they are not identical. Hence even perception is not direct but mediated.

Re: Myth of the given

Another aspect (mentioned in Jim's thread) to the MOG question is that what is given to our perception, even assuming a direct correspondence to objects, is incredibly limited. We know now about, with the advances of science, the existence of objects well beyond our perceptual capacity to register. The root of this perceptual MOG is that it arose in a time when we assumed that our perception revealed reality, as it is, in its totality. We now know that the so-called objective reality we perceive is an infinitesimal slice of what is there. And even the vastly broader objective reality revealed with our instrumentation is also infinitesmal to the rest.

Re: Myth of the given

Regarding the notion of “self-luminous” awareness, according to Dreyfus it has to do with the perceptual, representational “aspect.” He says that “an aspect is a representation of objects in consciousness, as well as the consciousness that sees this representation.” The implication is that “perception is inherently reflexive.”

As kela noted this goes back to the Vedantins. But Dreyfus notes an interesting difference in Dharmakirti: “…the inherently reflexive character of consciousness is not a consequence of its transcendent and pure nature, but of its consisting of the beholding of an internal representation.” There are two sides to this, internal and external. The external is what we've been discussing, the perception of an outside object. The internal though perceives our mental states. Yet they exist together in that consciousness is “aware of itself in being aware of its object.”

However reflexive consciousness, aka “apperception,” does not take “inner mental states as its object.” It is tied to external perception in that “a subjective aspect beholds an objective aspect that represents the external object within the field of consciousness. Self-cognition is nothing over and above this beholding.”

It would appear that for Dharmakirti there is no completely subjective, transcendent and pure consciousness free from objects.

Re: Myth of the given

Dreyfus also says the following on Dharmakirti and the myth of the given, from The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction, p. 35, fn. 26:

Let me start by saying that I agree that there are many elements of the given in Dharmakirti's view that bring him close to empiricism: the distinction between conceptual schemes and perceptual objects; the primacy of perception among the two allowable forms of knowledge; the insistence on grounding inference, the other form of knowledge, on perception; the requirement that perception apprehends real particulars; and so on. This is certainly enough to determine that Dharmakirti is a foundationalist, as I did in my book Recognizing Reality. But I would maintain that this is not enough to decide that Dharmakirti subscribes to the myth of the given in the full Sellarsian sense of the term because a crucial epistemological component is missing; the assertion that real external particulars are known directly and immediately by perception….In reality, perceptions put us in touch with external objects by being directly produced by external objects as bearing their likeness, not by directly cognizing them. Perceptions contribute to the cognitive process by providing sentience (the felling of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral experiences) and inducing perceptual judgments. It is only through these judgments, however, that perceptions provide knowledge concerning the external world.

Re: Myth of the given

Dreyfus' interpretation of Dharmakriti sounds about right to me. There is a strong “empiricist” element there and yet there are other elements that are clearly more resonant with some form of “idealism.”

Ken would probably call him a “flatland” Buddhist. :-)

Re: Myth of the given

On self-reflexivity: I believe we have discussed this elsewhere. It came up, I believe, when we were talking about whether or not it is possible to be “lucid” in the state of deep sleep. I expressed my doubts and brought up Shankara's position, which is that there can be no knowledge at all in the causal state, since there is no object of consciousness in such a state. Indeed, this is how the causal state is defined: as the absence of any object, any “other,” any second: not two. This is Shankara's conception of non-dualism. This idea goes back to the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad whose teaching is: the eye that sees cannot see itself. So… if there is to be lucidity, there must be reflexivity, self-consciousness. And this implies an object. Here, the object is “itself” i.e., the reflexive cognition: I am aware. Descartes “cogito.” This touches upon another critique I suggested in another thread, namely, that there is nothing at special about “lucidity.” In fact, it , as I suggest, is merely the intrusion of waking self-consciousness into the dream state. (And this critique is not  based on some a priori dismissal of such state on my own part. It is to a significant degree based upon my own search for a truly discrete state of consciousness. ) 

As an historical sidebar, the Chandogya Upanishad actually criticizes the Brhad Up on this account. What is the use, it argues, of having a causal state in which one is not self-aware?  How, in other words, can there be moksha if one is not aware that one is released? (Good point, dude!) This is the primary reason why the “fourth” state is revealed in the Mandukya Up.

I also suggested that the Tibetan teaching of  “taking the mirror mind into the state of deep sleep” was in fact merely an extension of an apriori doctrine, viz., the Yogachara doctrine of self-reflexivity. At this point, we get into the important question of whether or not some of these “teachings” are really just apriori idealizations, or whether they are in fact based on actual “experiences.” What I'm suggesting is the former, that it is sometimes the case that the “teachings” are stuff that looks good on paper, or coming out of the mouth of a Great Guroo, when they are, in fact, mere abstractions. That was the point behind the extensive analysis of the “always already” in the End of Enlightenment thread. In other words, the “always already” is really just the extension of a certain kind of thinking about being, what I call the “logic of being.” (At the same time, I think that this logic does jibe with a part of our brain, in the meaning centres, that says, “This shit's happened before. I know this shit already.” Plato's amnesis. Buddhist smriti/memory. Kashmiri Shaiva “re-cognition. Strong shit; but also available on nitrous.) And it is not just Vedanta: In both Vedanta and Buddhism, there is kind of “conditional” logic concerning nirvana: ”IF there is to be release, here is what we need….” And then we are off to the races with various teachings about how to “get enlightened,” not much of which is based on actual experience, as the mystical empiricists suggest, but a lot of which are in fact based upon  apriori speculation upon what is required.

What was I talking about initially? Oh yes, reflexivity…

We need to be careful when we talk about “self-luminosity” in regards to Mahayana and Advaita. The two ideas (sva-samvedana: Yogachara; sva-prakasha: Advaita)  are completely different. In Advaita “self-luminous” refers to the idea that the Self needs no other light than itself. “Self-luminous” means that the Self stands by itself, as the Absolute Subject (Shankara) or the Absolute Object (Mandana). In Mahayana, “self-luminous” refers to apperception, to the reflexivityof consciousness. In Mahayana there is no transcendental Self. Cosciousness (vijnana), which here is completely different from consciousness (cit) in Advaita, refers to mundane wordly consciousness… or cognition, to be precise. In Yogachara, it is part of the nature of consciousness (vijnana) to be self-reflexive. Shankara denies this, and he quotes Dharmakirti (as does everyone else) when he refers to the Mahayana doctrine. Shankara say this it impossible for consciousness to be self-aware, just as it is impossible for a tumbler to stand on his own shoulders. There is, to be sure, apperception. But this does not belong to the true Self. It is mere “aham-kara,” the mere reflection or “shadow” of the light of the true self in buddhi.  At this point Shankara begins to sound more like Kant. The Self, the nature of which is consciousness, is the transcendental condition of all experience. It would be impossible for the transcendental condition or cause of experience to itself be an experience, as this would imply that that experience has some other cause or basis. But for the Yogacharas, there is no problem here. Mundane experience is its own cause, or to be more precise, it has its “cause” in a colocation or network of mutually determined causes, which is the Mahayana's redefinition of pratitya-samutpada.

And in fact, Dharmakriti, who was perhaps the most brilliant philosophcial mind that classical India produced, picks up the pieces and runs with the argument:

“How is it that consciousness can produce its own object, ” asks the detractor. “”What the hey are you talking about when you say 'all is mind'?”

“Why should there be a problem with consciousness produciing its own object?” replies Dharmakirti. It does anyway. This is shown in the self-reflexive nature of cognition. In every cognition, we are always aware of ourselves, of what we cognize, and of the fact we are cognizing.”  What a clever boy, that Dharmakirti.

By the way, Dreyfus is the man. He is precisely what we have needed for some time: someone who can think, and who can read Tibetan, and who has the time and patience  and interest to cull the Tibetan commentaries for illuminating insights as to what Dharmakirti was on about.

over and out,
space cadet kela

Re: Myth of the given

Jim, I apologize for all the grammatical errors in the above. It was basically written stream of consciousness and then posted with little to no editing.

kela :-)

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, this is what I was saying – that perception is always mediated for D. However, he does admit this “yogi pratyaksha” animal into the mix.

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, this is what I was saying - that perception is always mediated for D. However, he does admit this “yogi pratyaksha” animal into the mix.

On pp. 28-9 of the above referenced article Dreyfus notes that Dharmakirti shifts between the Svantantrika and Yogacara conceptions of perception to fill in the gaps. D uses an ascending, hierarchical scale of interpretation, much like we talked about before, Yogacara being higher. Hence we have such phenomenalist and idealist notions as you mention, that deny “there are external objects over and above the direct objects of perception.”

However, given the hierarchy it would seem Madhyamaka supercedes Yogacara. Nonetheless we can still see traces of the latter in Tibetan Madhyamaka, which tries to “correct” some of the supposedly relativistic and nihilistic aspects in Indian Madhyamaka. Sounds a lot like Wilber's critique of green and reinterpretation of Nagarjuna, which is not surprising, given his Tibetan Buddhist indoctrination.

Re: Myth of the given

Also note Dreyfus’ comments from The Svantantrika-Prasangika Distinction, about Dharmakirti’s adherence in some ways to a given. While Dreyfus defends that Dharmakirti does not fully commit to the MOG he does admit to the latter’s foundationalism. And I’d say these same elements of Dharmakirt’s given are those retained in Vajrayana and what I’ve been criticizing all along.

Re: Myth of the given

Correction and clarification: Madhyamika and Yocacara are the two main schools of Mahayana Buddhism. Svatantrika is technically Madhyamaka, hence its distinction from Prasangika in the referenced Dreyfus text. It seems Dharmakirti though places Yocacara above Svantantrika in the hierarchy of Buddhist progression, whereas traditionally the hierarchy goes like this:

“On this model, the various schools of Indian Buddhist philosophy (principally consisting, according to such presentations, in the two “Ābhidharmika” schools of the Vaibhāikas and Sautrāntikas, and the two “Mahāyāna” schools of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka) are represented in an ascending hierarchy of progressively more refined positions, the proper understanding of each of which requires understanding its predecessors. Ascent through the hierarchy is characterized, most basically, by the progressive elimination of ontological commitments: the two Ābhidharmika schools divide over the question of what are to be admitted as “dharmas” qualifying for inclusion in a final ontology; Yogācāra further pares down this list to nothing but mental events; the “Svātantrika” Mādhyamikas are represented as retaining only the vestigial ontological commitments that are thought to be entailed by their characteristic deference to the dialectical tools of epistemology; until, with the “Prāsagika” iteration of Madhyamaka, we arrive at the school of thought for which the set of “ultimately existent” (paramārthasat) phenomena is an empty set.”

See the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Madhyamaka Buddhism.

Re: Myth of the given

I think the Tibetans classify Dharmakirti and Dignana as Sautrantika-Yogachara, though there may be a Svatantrika element in his final view that some do not recognize. The “empirical” or phenomenalist element comes from the Sautrantikas and the “idealist” element comes from the Yogachara, though many, like Guenther, will point to a kind of continuity betweeen the two. Shantarakshita and Kamalashila are, I believe, referred to as Svatantrika-Sautrantika-Yogachara. In other words, they took Dharmakirti's intial position and fused it with a Svatantrika conception of utimate truth. That was the received philosophical position in Tibet for some time. Then Tsonkhapa and others came along (Atisha?) and put the Prasangika position on top of the rest. And that is how we get the present hierarchy. I believe the entire mess is taught dialectically, ie through debate, in the Buddhist colleges. The schools are presented as if one position “leads to” the next.

Pho-wa!

Re: Myth of the given

Special Features of the Gelug Tradition at the Berzin Archives:

Svantantrika Madhyamaka

Svatantrika Madkyamaka has two distinct dividions, Yogachara Svantantrika (propouned by such masters as Kamalashila, Shantarakshita, haribhadra, and Vinuktisena) and Sautrantika Svantantrika (propounded by such masters as Bhavaviveka). Except for Karma Kagyu, the non-Gelug traditions do not make this clear distinction. They divide Madhyamaka in various other ways.

Only Sautrantika Svatantrika accepts external phenomena; Yogachara Svatantrika does not. The non-Gelug traditions say that Svatantrika accepts external phenomena.

Only Yogachara Svatantrika accepts reflexive awareness (rang-rig); Sautrantika Svatantrika does not. The non-Gelug traditions say that Svatantrika accepts reflexive awareness.

Neither Yogachara Svatantrika nor Sautrantika Svantantrika accepts alayavijnana (kun-gzhi rnam-shes, all-encompassing foundation consciousness, storehouse consciousness), even as a conventionally existent phenomenon. The non-Gelg traditions say that Svatantrika accepts alayvijnana as a conventionally existent phenomenon; but unlike Chittamatra, it does not assert it as being truly existent.

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, of course. I was constructing my compounds backwards (tsk tsk).

Bhavaviveka: Sautrantika-Svatantrika-Madhyamika
Shantirakshita: Yogachara-Svatantrika-Madhyamika

and

Dharmakirti: Sautrantika-Yogachara

These are a bit artificial but they are useful classifications.

Re: Myth of the given

In the following excerpt we can see the retention of Sautrantika ideas within Gelug Prasangika-Madhyamaka. This is what I've been talking about, how they retain the same elements of the given Dreyfus elucidates.

From the Berzin Archives:

All Tibetan traditions accept that in cognizing an item (dngos-po), mental activity (sems, mind) simultaneously gives rise to (shar-ba, produces) a cognitive object (yul) and cognitively engages (‘jug-pa) with it.

For example, in cognizing an orange, mental activity simultaneously produces the sight of an orange and sees it. What we actually cognize is a visual image of an orange - a sight (gzugs); although in order not to contradict convention (tha-snyad), we would need to assert that we also see the orange. Cognition of an orange, however, does not create the orange.

Producing a cognitive object and cognitively engaging with it are two aspects of the same mental activity, two ways of describing the same phenomenon. It is not that production of a sight comes first and then, a moment later, the seeing of it occurs

(1) The superficial truth (kun-rdzob bden-pa, conventional truth, relative truth) about a phenomenon is its appearance.
(2) The deepest truth (don-dam bden-pa, ultimate truth) about a phenomenon is how it actually exists.

Correspondingly, mental activity (mind) has two aspects, each of which is valid for cognizing only one truth about a phenomenon. They are the aspects:

(1) valid for cognizing superficial truths (kun-rdzob rtogs-pa'i tshad-ma),
(2) valid for cognizing deepest truths (don-dam rtogs-pa'i tshad-ma).

The Prasangika-Madhyamaka distinction of individual aspects of mental activity valid for cognizing each of the two truths parallels the earlier Sautrantika presentation.

The Mahayana traditions - Chittamatra and Madhyamaka - present the two truths as two aspects of any phenomenon. The Hinayana schools - Vaibhashika, Sautrantika, and Theravada - present them as two different classes of phenomena.

According to Sautrantika, the two true phenomena are:

(1) objective entities (rang-mtshan) - namely, forms of physical phenomena and ways of being aware of something,
(2) metaphysical entities (spyi-mtshan) - namely, nonconcomitant affecting variables and static phenomena.

Since Sautrantika asserts that objective entities exist unimputedly, whereas metaphysical ones exist merely imputedly, the two true phenomena are knowable in valid bare cognition (mngon-sum tshad-ma) by two different aspects of the cognition:

(1) Direct apprehension (dngos-su rtogs-pa) validly cognizes objective entities, nonconceptually, by giving rise to a cognitive appearance of them.
(2) Indirect apprehension (shugs-su rtogs-pa) validly cognizes metaphysical entities, nonconceptually, without giving rise to a cognitive appearance of them.

For a valid cognition to give rise to a cognitive appearance of a metaphysical entity, it needs to be conceptual, as in the case of valid inferential cognition (rjes-dpag tshad-ma). Thus, the two true phenomena are directly apprehensible by distinct valid ways of knowing:

For a valid cognition to give rise to a cognitive appearance of a metaphysical entity, it needs to be conceptual, as in the case of valid inferential cognition (rjes-dpag tshad-ma). Thus, the two true phenomena are directly apprehensible by distinct valid ways of knowing:

(1) Objective entities, as deepest truths, are directly apprehensible by valid bare cognition.
(2) Metaphysical entities, as superficial truths, are directly apprehensible by valid inferential cognition.

Re: Myth of the given

And this, also from the Berzin Archives:

Further, various masters within each Tibetan lineage have interpreted the assorted Indian Buddhist tenet systems differently. In general, Sakya, Kagyu, and Nyingma share an earlier interpretation. Regarding Madhyamaka, this earlier interpretation relies especially on the Yogachara Svatantrika slant of the two Nalanda masters who introduced Indian Buddhism to Tibet: Shantarakshita and Kamalashila. Because of that, non-Gelug has a great deal of Chittamatra terminology in its presentation of tantra. Tsongkhapa, relying on the works of another Nalanda master, Buddhapalita, radically reinterpreted the tenet systems, especially Sautrantika and Prasangika. Gelug follows his interpretation.

Re: Myth of the given

From Jeffrey Hopkins (1996), Meditation on Emptiness, Wisdom Publications, pp. 362-3:

…Shantarakshita founded the Yogachara-Svantantrika-Madhyamika system. He is similar to a Yogacharin, or Chittamatrin, in that he shows that external objects do not exist either conventionally or ultimately and that objects conventionally are of the same entity as the perceiving consciousness. He is a Svantantrika because he holds that phenomena only conventionally exist inherently and a Madhyamika because he accepts that all phenomena do not exist ultimately. Similarly, Bhavaviveka's Svatantrika-Madhyamika system is called Sautrantika-Svatantrika-Madhyamika because, like a Sautrantika, he asserts the existence of objects external to a perceiving consciousness-that is, gross objects which are aggregates of particles. (Prasangikas assert conventionally existent objects that are external to a perceiving consciousness but are not aggregates of particles, only imputed to them.)

Just as nagarjuna and Bhavaviveka were anticipated in their teaching by other scholars who, however, did not open a broad path for the chariots of their systems to travel, so Shantarakshita was anticipated by others. Vimuktisena's view is clearly that of a Yogachara-Svatantriks-Madhyamika, and Maitreya's Ornament for Clear Realization, which was brought to the world by Asanga on his return from the Joyous Pure Land, manifests the same view. Also it is clear that the Yogachara-Svatantrika-Madhyamika system was present during the time of Bhavaviveka who was a definite predecessor of Shantarakshita. For he refuted it, saying that to accept mind-only first and then to pass on to the view of no ultimate existence is like spreading mud on the body and then washing. Avalokitavrata interprets Bhavaviveka's referent as Chittamatra, but the only system that passes through the gradation of realizing first mind-only and then no ultimate existence is Yogachara-Svatantrika. Also, Yogachara-Svatantrida was present later when Shantarakshita was examining to discover which type of Madhyamika was the best. He made this choice and through his extensive works founded the system that was the final major development in the Madhyamika system, the Yogachara-Svatantrika-Madhyamika. Chandrakirti's Prasangika-Madhyamika, however, held sway, ultimately becoming the dominant system throughout Tibet and Mongolia.

Re: Myth of the given

Sara McClintock (2003), The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction, “The role of the given in the classification of Santaraksita and Kamalasila as Svatantrika-Madhyamikas”:

Now, an initial reading of the Buddhist pramanavada tradition indicates that the contents of perceptual awareness might very will quality as a variety of the given. For one thing, Dharmakirti and his followers, including Santaraksita and Kamalasila, hold that perception is a kind of nonerroneous and nonconceptual awareness, which, with the help of other factors, can and does lead to correct propositional judgments. As a mental state, perception is also decidedly noninferential, thus aligning perceptual apprehension with that aspect of the given….The prioritization of perceptual awareness in the pursuit of knowledge in this way resembles the prioritization of the given by sense-data theorists, and seems to echo their foundationalist tendencies (pp. 128-9).

For the dGe lugs pa scholars under consideration, acceptance of the given is extremely problematic, although not for the same reasons as it is for contemporary philosophers like Sellars. That is, while Sellars and company reject the given on epistemological grounds, the dGe lugs pa objection is rooted in ontological concerns. In short, for these Buddhists, the notion that ther is something-anything-that is immediately and nonerroneously given to consciousness implies the existence of something unassailably real; yet these thinkers also maintain that acceptance of an unassailably real entity is antithetical to the highest expression of Buddhist thought, Madhyamaka….The apparent acceptance of a version of the given in perceptual consciousness by such thinkers as Bhavaviveka, Jnanagarbha, Santaraksita, and Kamalasila thus relegates them, in the eyes of these dGe lugs pa critics, to dubious sorts of Madhyamikas (131).

Tsong kha pa and his followers can continue to admit Bhavaviveka and the other Svatantrika into the Madhyamaka fold…[based on] the distinction of the two truths, for Tsong kha pa and others charge Svantantrikas with acceptance of the given not on the ultimate level, but only conventionally (131).

[McClintock then goes into a discussion of the “sliding (and ascending) scale of analysis (139 et al.) used by Sataraksita and Kamalasila, following Dharmakirti. McClintock notes that Dreyfus uses this as well, as we have already noted above. In this sliding scale S & K do commit to a given on the first two levels of analysis, the Sautrantika and Yogachara. But on the Madhyamaka level (Balder take note)]:

Perception no longer is nonerroneous or even trustworthy in any manner. Yet sense contents still appear. What does this mean? Madhyamaka, after all, is the highest level of analysis, which purports to tell us about the way things really are, characteristics that imply that Madhyamaka is ultimate. At the same time, Madhyamaka remains a human construct, a linguistic endeavor, a transaction aimed at communication-in short, Madhyamaka as a philosophical system remains conventional. One may arrive at the Madhyamaka level of analysis through reasoning, but without cultivation of one's understanding through meditation one will still lack nonconceptual realization, one will remain in the realm of the conventional, and one will not have eliminated the ignorance that causes images to appear (144).

[Now this seems to be arguing in a circle, for the very notion of nonconceptual awareness is part of the given, yet this is somehow bypassed with meditation and direct experience of, if not a given, then what?]

[And is it only ignorance that causes images to appear? Or is it that the “ultimate truth” of Madhyamaka is that images are not extricable from experience and to separate them, posit one as ultimate and the other as relative (ignorance), by nature positing a given? ]

Re: Myth of the given

Now one thing obviously wrong with McClintock's argument is that the Gelug include meditation and nonconceptual cognition in their teaching. So one might assume that within their over thousand year history they might've considered this tack in response to the given in Dharmakirti, Santaraksita and Kamalsila. So why didn't they?

Perhaps it has to do with how the Gelug describe nonconceptual cognition. Let's look at how Tsongkhapa does so, from Sonam Thakchoe's recent book (cited below):

“The two kinds of knowledge, that of conventional truth and that of ultimate truth…are, according to Tsongkhapa's epistemology, complimentary. They are yoked together and cannot be isolated from one another” (161).

“Tsongkhapa considers empirically valid cognition [aka conceptual wisdom] and ultimately valid cognition [aka nonconceptual, meditative equipoise] as the two verifying consciousnesses….” (The former knows conventional truth, the latter ultimate truth.) “Coherent knowledge of either truth…requires the two verifying consciousnesses to support each other” (162).  Keep in mind though that “Tsongkhapa's ontology treat the two truths as mutually entailing” (160), not distinctly separated like Gorampa, and that epistemically the two cognitions are likewise “yoked together.”

Distinguish this with Gorampa and some other non-Gelug Tibetan Prasangikas. I found the following, quoted excerpt from Thakchoe interesting:

“Central to Gorampa's doctrine of nonduality are several key idealistic conceptions. He does not hesitate to reconcile conceptions derived from the Yogacara or Vijnanavada School….Alayvijnana is characterized as…self-luminous and self-knowing, and is the primary cause of all sensory experience….According to both Gorampa and…Yogacara Idealism, it is transcendent of the dualism of subject and object [and the other dualities].

“Sogyal Rinpoche explains that…'This is because the nature of mind is the very root itself of understanding. In Tibetan we call it Rigpa, a primordial, pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always awake.' This is in complete accord with Gorampa's views” (118).

Thakchoe, Sonam (2007). The Two Truths Debate: Tsongkhapa and Gorampa on the Middle Way. Boston: Wisdom Publications.

Re: Myth of the given

Good stuff Edward.

kela

Re: Myth of the given

Thanks. And there's more.
 

Let's look at how C. W. Huntington sees the Madhyamaka relationship between perception and conception, and likewise between samantha and vipasyana meditation. From The Emptiness of Emptiness, University of Hawaii Press, 2003.

“Purification of the mind…is not accomplished solely by the practice of samantha, however, for within the Buddhist tradition meditative stabilization of the mind is only a foundation for the practice of vipasyana (insight)” (77).

“Feyerabend…offers us a useful vocabulary for exploring the relationship between philosophy and meditation in the Madhyamika: ‘Experience arises together with theoretical assumptions, not before them'” (78).

“The rigidity of the so-called empirical world evaporates under closer inspection, when we begin to fathom the extent to which sensation and perception are completely bound up with language and conceptual thought” (78).

So how does (Huntington's) Candrakirti view nondual knowledge in this light?

“According to Madhyamika a…subtle relationship holds between any two dichotomies…[that] find their meaning in the context of their elusive relationship with each other and with an interrelated network of other such concepts. The structure that they give to all experience-a structure that seems “to emerge from the things themselves”-is also dependent on an illusion similar to the Necker cube, where each image finds its meaning and existence only in the context of its relationship to partners that must always remain out of sight. The critical difference is only that the context of everyday life in which these other relationships are embedded is infinitely more complex, for it embodies an indeterminate number of historical and circumstantial factors shared by the sociolinguistic community in which this vocabulary is used and thought and perception take place….so it is pointless to refer our concepts and perceptions back to any a priori, uninterpreted ground” (121).

Re: Myth of the given

Huntington's depiction of a contextual nonduality reminds me of Habermas' lifeworld. Habbie describes it thusly:

“This [lifeworld] background, which is presupposed in communicative action, constitutes a totality that is implicit and that comes along prereflexively–one that crumbles the moment it is thematized; it remains a totality only in the form of implicit, intuitively presupposed background knowledge. Taking the unity of the lifeworld, which is only known subconsciously, and projecting it in an objectifying manner onto the level of explicit knowledge is the operation that has been responsible for mythological, religious, and also of course metaphysical worldviews” (pp. 142-3).

This is reiterated by Martin Morris, who says:

“…the lifeworld…[has a] quasi-transcendental nature. The lifeworld itself cannot be the proper theme of communicative utterances, for as a totality it provides the space in or ground upon which utterances occur,  even those that name it explicitly…it remains indeterminate…even for theory, which hence cannot adopt a transcendental approach to the lifeworld's structures themselves” (236).

When we speak for this lifeworld (or truth, or reality) the following inevitable happens:

“…there is no natural identity among differentiated social identites that can claim the right to represent the wholeness of all….But some identities do claim this right and achieve hegemony….the operation of hegemonic identities depends on successfully taking the place of, and representing, this constitutive absence” (242-3).

Habermas, Jurgen. Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992.

Morris, Martin. “Between deliberation and deconstruction: The condition of post-national democracy.” In The Derrida-Habermas Reader. Chicago: Uinversity of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. 231-53. 

Re: Myth of the given

Huntington (cited below) criticizes the entire Tibetan doxographic system in that it attempts to establish schools based on tenets of “established conclusions that one will not pass beyond” (69). This is in direct opposition to what Huntington thinks Nagarjuna was all about, that is, to not set up “established conclusions” at all. The very unexamined, presumed premise of doxography, that there is a timeless, universal set of unassailable conclusions that can be organized hierarchically, is at question here when Nagarjuana is examined historically. The latter approach is “far removed from the carefully contrived ideal paradigm presented by Orthodox Tibetan scholars” (71). In fact Bhavaviveka, following Dignaga and Dharmakirti, is considered the progenitor of the Tibetan doxographical tradition (75).

Candrakirti refuted Bhavaviveka. Candrakirti asserted that “the Middle Path emerges as an attitude of non-clinging based on the understanding that there is nothing (no form of ontological reality or epistemological truth) that should should be held onto and defended, either conventionally speaking or in any deeper (ultimate) sense. ‘Truth' and ‘reality' are seen as equally indeterminate at both levels, and the search for any kind of absolute certainty-logical or otherwise-is soteriologically misguided, as it only perpetuates the root problems of attachment and aversion” (77).

According to Candrakirti the Madhyamika “have as their only function the annulment of someone else's thesis. They have no independent ontological or epistemological force; such language is of exclusively practical value and is to be understood entirely on the basis of its success in undermining someone else's claim to knowledge and certainty….[they] are motivated by compassion and not by a desire to prevail or ‘get it right'-to out-logicize the logicians. Their purpose is merely to serve as an aid to liberation by destablilizing the linguistic/conceptual grounds of attachment and aversion. This purpose is the sole and final aim of a very strict soteriological pragmatism that is radically incommensurable with Bhavaviveka's logical method” (81).

It seems Nagarjuna was a pure deconstructionst, for he never tried to objectify the lifeworld into explicit knowledge. And the rest is, not history, but the doxographical project of building a “theory of everything.”

Huntington, C. W. Jr. “Was Candrakirti a Prasangika?” In The Svatantrika-Prasangika Distinction, pp. 67-91.

Re: Myth of the given

“…the lifeworld…[has a] quasi-transcendental nature. The lifeworld itself cannot be the proper theme of communicative utterances, for as a totality it provides the space in or ground upon which utterances occur,  even those that name it explicitly…it remains indeterminate…even for theory, which hence cannot adopt a transcendental approach to the lifeworld's structures themselves”

This is very interesting. I have often thought along these same lines. We can, of course, substitute “intersubjectivity” for “the lifeworld.”

Here is the implication:

In this case, subjectivity and intersubjectivity are not equal, not at par with each other. Intersubjectivity is the condition of the possibility of subjectivity. They are not “two opposing sides” that must be “balanced” in in some game of 4-square AQAL. To suggest that they are is to miss the point of post-Wittgensteinian and post-Heideggerian thought, and to use the concept of intersubjectivity in this manner distorts the meaning of the relationship between intersubjectivity and subjectivity. The idea that they are “not two” and “equal,” that “both must be taken into account”  is as an abstraction based on pre-conceived notions, such as the idea that non-duality means “balance” and “harmony.”  This kind of move constitutes an attempt to reassert the philosophy of the subject.

Re: Myth of the given

Kela, I think that's a good point.   Wilber's description of the “emergence” of sentient beings - his claim that any time one sentient being “shows up,” it always does so in the context of other sentient beings - has also struck me as problematic.  It seems also to be privileging the subject, this time in 3p language.

But I'm not sure that the AQAL model depends upon the presupposition of the philosophy of the subject - that it is incoherent without it.  I want to return to this in my next post.

I wanted to ask you or Edward for your opinions, since I'm not sure what has been said about this elsewhere:  just as intersubjectivity is understood as the condition of the possibility of subjectivity, is there also any”thing” that serves as the condition of the possibility of intersubjectivity?

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Hi Balder,

At the same time (and here I am in dialogue with myself), I think that the idea of intersubjectivity as some kind of quasi-transcendental “condition” is problematic. My sense is that both Wittgensteinian and Heideggerian thought imply something like this – a kind of inheritance from Kant. I have successfully argued this interpretation of them in the past. Philosophers like K.O. Apel use such ideas to bridge Anglo-American and Continental thought. But, as I say, such notions are also problematic. For one, their postulation constitute a kind of foundationalism of sorts, and certainly speaking about “conditions” in this manner implies the old-fashioned metaphysics. There is a quote from the later Heidegger in which he says that in his later thinking he was “fleeing from the transcendental horizon” that he thought characterized his earlier thinking. As to whether Derridean thinking implies “transcendental conditions” of this sort, well, interpreters are split. One debate in the nineties was between those who said yes (Christopher Norris) and those who said no (Richard Rorty). Rudolph Gasche seems to be saying that though Derrida uses transcendental arguments, this does imply that he is suggesting trancendental grounds. Indeed, the entire movement is toward the “deconstruction” of such grounds. I think we find a similar tension in Prasangika thought.

To bring my other comments of today into the mix, the myth of the given seems to be inextricably bound with the notion of self-certainty. And to be sure there is an element of self-certainty involved in the Prasangika notion of pratyatma-vedya – a concept lifted from the Lankavatara Sutra, a work with several (“nonBuddhistic”) “representationalist” assumptions running through it, such as the idea of the finger pointing at the moon, and so on.

Re: Myth of the given

Here is an abstract reflecting some of the issues that I'm on about.

Re: Myth of the given

I will respond later this evening or tomorrow, when I'm at home and have access to the book, about Derrida's notion of khora as this quasi-transcendental non-ground. That discussion is explored later in the above referenced Martin Morris article in The DHR.

For now, kela noted that there was a similar tension in Prasangika thought between the transcendental and its deconstruction. Huntington talks about this in the SPD article in that Candrakirti was particularly on this razor's edge:

“Candrakirti's ideas nevertheless took shape in an intellectual environment structured around an uncritical acceptance of the ahistorical, scholastic view of tradition presented in Bhavaviveka's writing. He took for granted Bhavaviveka's use of the word madhyamaka, which he further associated with a particular philosophical system or school called sunyatadadariana or madhyamakadariana.

“Candrakirti himself was adamant about the dangers of holding any drsti, but this did not stop him from using the word madhyamaka as the formal name of a dariana. In his time it had become commonplace to speak in terms of philosophical schools or systems, and it was equally commonplace to understand Nagarjuna's thought as defining one such system-albeit the highest-among others….but it came with invisible strings attached, for every diatribe he penned against their addiction to logic and their reification of Nagaujuna's thought was vitiated by metaphysical presuppositions about truth and reality epitomized in his own use of the word dariana” (75-6).

By the way, one can view the entire article above, and several others from this volume, at Google Books free preview.

Re: Myth of the given

The idea of a darshana is itself poly-valent. Shankara plays precisely with this very ambiguity. When it suits him, “darshana” refers to final “realization”; at other times it refers to the teaching (upadesha) of advaita, and at other times it refers to his own system, to his interpretation of Vedanta.

The tension  between a “soteriological teaching” and a “philosophical system” is at the heart of Huntington's writings on Chandrakirti, which is perhaps why he refers to Rorty's disitnction between systematic and edifying philosophy as much as he does. He seems interested in a kind of defense, or perhaps a “most generous reading,” of Chandrakirti.

It is true that the Indian tradition tends to speak of positions as static reified timeless stances: the uttara paksha and purva paksha is the usual dialogue form. This makes the doxgraphic format somewhat artificial.

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, Kela, that helps – because it did appear to me that that argument was making a foundationalist appeal.  That it might be taking intersubjectivity as some form of given. 

The four quadrants refer to perspectives, not to pre-existing or founding conditions.  The suggestion that we need to take account of subjective as well as intersubjective perspectives therefore does not have to be read metaphysically, as a reference either to given “individual subjects” or a founding “intersubjective ground.”

Re: Myth of the given

Similarly,  we should not take the critique of subjectivity as some kind of suggestion that there is “no such thing” as subjectivity. The problem of dreaming has traditionally been a bit of a problem for those who argue from intersubjectivity. One way of dealing with dreams is to dismiss them as non-experiences. But the reality of lucid dreaming renders this argument absurd.

Subjectivity is particularly important where personal meaning is concerned. My own sense is that, at this point, it becomes necessary to consider which kind of language is most appropriate. The “inner life” seems to need its own “language.” It is perhaps here that metaphor, myth, and conceptions of “soul” become relevant.

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Yes, well said, and this is why I still think Wilber's differentiation of AQ(AL) is viable and remains useful. 

Re: Myth of the given

Regarding Habermas' intersubjective lifeworld via communicative reason as a form of foundationalism inherited from Kant, Habbie has this to say in PT:

“The concept of communicative reason is still accompanied by the shadow of a transcendental illusion. Because the idealizing presuppositions of communicative action must not be hypostatized into the ideal of a future condition in which a definitive understanding has been reached, this concept must be approached in a sufficiently skeptical manner. A theory that leads to believe in the attainability of a rational ideal would fall back behind the level of argumentation reached by Kant. It would also abandon the materialistic legacy of the critique of metaphysics. The moment of unconditionality that is preserved in the discursive concepts of a fallibilistic truth and morality is not an absolute, or it is at most an absolute that has become fluid as a critical procedure. Only with this residue of metaphysics can we do battle against the transfiguration of the world through metaphysical truths…Communicative reason is of course a rocking hull-but it does not go under in the sea of contingencies, even if shuddering in high seas is the only mode in which it copes with these contingencies” (144).

Morris is not convinced though. Habermas tries to preserve the lifeworld from being radically indeterminate with his communicative reason, which, as we have seen, still leaves traces of a Kantian rational ideal. Haberams fears that without this quasi-transcendent, “rocking boat” form of reason we'd be lost in the “high sea of contingencies.” Whereas Morris says Derrida embraces radical indeterminacy without intersubjective agreement and it doesn't have the dour consequences Habermas supposes.

Morris says: “For Derrida, by contrast, what is indeconstructible [khora] is rather the formless, structureless space in-between, the abyss or chasm ‘in' which the cleavages between the sensible and intelligible, body and soul, can have a place and take place. It is this shuddering spacing without end and without bottom which gives rise and receives-give form by receiving imprint and inscription or by containing, without being either surface or receptacle, mother or nurse. It would only be this level, the spacing of deconstruction itself, that could be beyond the operation of the latter. This is not difference or differance, nor is it God, but it might be the condition of all, the condition for the very existence of politics and God” (DHR 242).

Now by the sound of it khora might be considered some form of at least quasi-transcendental foundation, the likes of Wilber's consciousness per se, as the completely open ground from which phenomena arise. But the latter suggests a foundational ground that existed prior to phenomena. Buddhist emptiness might likewise be considered a similar foundational ground if reified. But much like the emptiness of emptiness non-doctrine that prevents such reification, where emptiness itself is dependently arisen, so too with khora because it does not exist in as a fixed thing in anterior temporality. To the contrary its metaphor is more one of the empty spacing of the interval between sounds in music, without which they'd have no meaning or context. Or the spacing between words in this sentence and in the surrounding “margins” of the page. Hence it is the metaphor of the “margins.” However, without the words and their meaning a black page is nothing in itself. And that nothing is neither Buddhist emptiness nor Derridean khora.

Another perspective on this is “the non-identical condition of all identities. Every identity is non-identical in itself because it depends on difference with and to an other; no identity exists a priori or can be constituted in a singularly original way. This is not quite an assertion of the unavoidability of intersubjectivity but rather that of the radical incompleteness of any identity or subject, for non-identity is required to complete any recognition at all” (DHR 247).

So how then do we use such radical indeterminacy and openness to practical effect? How do we keep if from being just a flaland pluralism wherein everything is equal since there is no universal ground upon which to judge? I will let Morris and Derrida speak here, as they are far more articulate than I am:

“A democratic vision consistent with these unsettling and critical conditions must promote the recognition and exploration of the non-identical ‘grounds' of identity…. The result is a ‘philosophy of the limit' whose quasi-transcendental universal call denies the possibility of any metalanguage while trying to achieve ‘the effects of metalanguage'…. [it] need not, however, produce consensus or be oriented toward agreement as the result, but rather primarily intends understanding and an opening to the other….the call for a profound understanding that arises from the irreplaceable place in which identities gather themselves is a call for an openness to the new, to the unique other: ‘it should be anticipated as the unforseeable, the unanticipatable, the non-masterable, non-identifiable, in short, as that of which one does not yet have a memory'.

“This is why all insights into radical indeterminacy should not lead to utterly relativist or merely ‘social constructionist' conclusions: identity is and is not identical (with itself). There is no having one without the other. One deconstructs down to nothing (for no referent exists, finally), but the fact that there is no true origin or reliable stability to any identity does not mean that what identity names historically is not material and that its existence is not important for the political response to questions of recognition and understanding.

“More than this, however, the stress on the dynamic relations of identity and non-identity is also key if the positive effective of a deconstructive universal are to be realized. Speaking of the idea of ‘Europe', Derrida argues against the reconstitution of Europe's ‘centralizing hegemony' but also against a mere anti-hegemony of particularist assertions. One must not simply ‘multiply the borders, i.e., the movements and margins. It is necessary not to cultivate for their own sake minority differences, untranslatable idiolects, national antagonisms, or the chauvinisms of idiom'. But, he continues, responsibility consists

‘in renouncing neither of these two contradictory imperatives. One must therefore try to invent gestures, discourses, politico-institutional practices that inscribe the alliance of these two imperatives, of these two promises or contracts: the capital and the a-capital. That is not easy. It is even impossible to conceive of a responsibility that consists in being responsible for two laws, or that consists in responding to two contradictory injunctions. No doubt. But there is no responsibility that is not the experience and experiment of the impossible…. European cultural identity, like identity or identification in general, if it must be equal to itself and to the other, up to the measure of its own and immeasruable difference with ‘itself,' belongs, therefore must belong, to this experience and experiment of the impossible' (DHR 248-9).

Re: Myth of the given

The following excerpt reminds me of how Derrida's description of khora is again like Nagarjuna's anti-thesis via the tetralemma. From On the Name, Stanford: SUP, 1995, p. 89:

“One cannot even say that it is neither this nor that, or that it is both this and that.”

Re: Myth of the given

John Caputo in Deconstruction in a Nutshell (New York: Fordham UP, 1997) elaborates on Derrida's khora:

In the first excerpt we can see that it is not a higher, dialectical integration of opposition.

“Derrida will not, in the manner of Hegel, look for some uplifting, dialectical reconciliation of the two [Plato's ideal, intelligible paradigms versus the sensible world of form] in a higher third thing, a concrete universal, which contains the ‘truth' of the first two. Instead, he will look around-in the text itself-for some third thing which the distinction omits, some untruth, or barely true remnant, which falls outside the famous distinction, which the truth of either separately or both together fails to capture, which is neither and both of the two” (84).

So what is it exactly then? Is it the line that demarcates the opposition? And how do we “know” it?

“But where, then, is khora on the line? What place is occupied by place ‘itself,' if it has an itself? Where to locate on or in the divided line that which is neither sensible nor supersensible, although it is in a certain way both? By what faculty is it apprehended? On what place in the line is khora to be found-or is the line in the khora?” (86).

Or perhaps it is more like that primordial awareness we've heard so much about?

“It receives all and becomes none of what it receives, like the air that remains free of the light by which it is suffused, like a mirror that remains unaffected by the images that come and go across its surface” (95).

Re: Myth of the given

Caputo continues, showing us the groundless ground:

“For Derrida, khora may be taken as one of those ‘places” in the history of philosophy where the difference by which all things are inhabited wears through, where the abyss in things opens up and we catch a glimpse of the groundlessness of our beliefs and practices” (98).

And like Huntington above, how this ground is utterly contingent on everything else, the dependent origination of all things (and not just words):

“That meaning and reference is a function of the play of differences is confirmed in a perfectly serious and quite commonsensical way every time we use a dictionary. The ‘meaning' and ‘reference' of a word in a dictionary is set in terms of other words with which it is internally related. A word has a ‘place' in a dictionary, not only the one that you have to ‘look up,' which is a function if its graphic setting (its spelling), but also a semantic place or setting, a position, a range of connotation and denotation relative to other words (places) in the language. The meaning of a word is defined differentially, relative to the meaning of other words. What you will never find in the dictionary is a word that detaches itself from these internal relationships and sends you sailing right out of the dictionary into a mythical, mystical thing in itself “outside” of language, wistfully called the ‘transcendental signified' (100).

Another metaphoric reference to Buddhism:

“Difference [like khora] is a quasi-condition of possibility, because it does not describe fixed boundaries that delimit what can happen and what not, but points a mute, Buddhist finger at the moon of uncontainable effects” (102).

And by means of deconstruction, the praxis, we are opened to the new, to possibilities yet undreamed, to boldly go where no one has gone before! (Star Trek theme plays in the background.)

“Hence, if Derrida is not an essentialist, neither is he a conventionalist, for conventionalism is just an alternate way of regulating and containing the place of traces. Deconstruction is, rather, an unconventional conventionalism, an in-ventionalist, bent on giving things a new bent or twist, on twisting free of the containing effects of both essentialism and conventionalism, in order to release certain unforeseeable effects, looking for ‘openings,' making room for-giving a place to-what is unforeseeable relative to some horizon of forseeability” (104).

For reference we have to call it something, just as we name emptiness in Buddhism. It's ok, as long as we don't, like with emptiness, invest it with too much or attach to it.

“Difference is the nameless name of this open-ended, uncontainable, generalizable play of traces. And khora is its surname” (105).

So can we say that khora is a given of sorts, despite Derrida's best intentions to the contrary? Does he succeed in “the effects of a metalanguage” while “denying the possibility of a metalanguage?”

Re: Myth of the given

Edward, thanks, I've been enjoying reading your ongoing updates.  I don't think I am familiar enough with Derrida's work to be able to answer your question, though you've said enough to reawaken my interest to review his work.  (I've only read On Grammatology.)

You wrote:  “But where, then, is khora on the line? What place is occupied by place ‘itself,' if it has an itself? Where to locate on or in the divided line that which is neither sensible nor supersensible, although it is in a certain way both? By what faculty is it apprehended? On what place in the line is khora to be found-or is the line in the khora?” (86).

Or perhaps it is more like that primordial awareness we've heard so much about?

From the explanation above, no, I don't think this is like “primordial awareness.”  Though the language used here has interesting parallels.  Using Panikkar's terms, maybe we could posit a homeomorphic equivalence of sorts?

To your knowledge, has Derrida ever written anything addressing the “hard problem of consciousness”?  Is it a non-problem for him?  He seems to start from the “given” condition of conscious, human, language-using agents, rather than offering any speculations about the evolution of consciousness or awareness or language use in the cosmos, to my knowledge (which, admittedly, is rather meager!). 

Re: Myth of the given

Balder,

I am only slightly more familiar with Derrida than you are. So no, I don't know if he's written on the hard problem of consciousness. I'll do a bit of digging.

I'm not even quite sure what it is, so if you wouldn't mind providing a brief explanation? And also how Buddhism, at least the Buddhism with which you are familar, answers the hard problem in light of all of the above on the MOG.

Re: Myth of the given

The hard problem of consciousness is essentially the mind-body problem.  It deals with the question of the relationship of consciousness to matter, and the question of why material systems should “give rise” to consciousness or “experience” at all.

Buddhism gets around this problem by denying that there is an “origin” to consciousness at all.  It argues that, in causal chains, only consciousness could give rise to consciousness; non-conscious causal factors could not produce consciousness.  The Buddhist resolution appears quasi-dualist: physical systems are understood as cooperative causes or necessary supporting conditions, but not the causal origin, of consciousness.  But both consciousness and physical things are understood, ultimately, to be empty – interdependent and empty of self-existence.

Re: Myth of the given

My guess is that Derrida would not buy into the flatland materialist notion that the material “gives rise” to consciousness. But I'd also guess that he would not posit consciousness as an originary existent either. From what I've posted above it seems to me that they “arose” together interdependently. And this would naturally have to allow for the ongoing evolution of more complex materials (like brains) as well as the concomitant complex consciousness.

This might lead to the question: But what about before there was matter, before the big bang? Wasn't consciousness self-existent then, by itself, as the first cause of the universe? I don't think so, as it seems much more likely that dark matter was existent and condensed to such a degree that the pressure caused the big bang.

Another question might be well how far down do we ascribe “consciousness” to matter, if they arise together? It of course depends on what we mean by consciousness. Certainly not the higher forms of consciousness experienced by humans. But it would seem if we mean some type of awareness of and response to the environment then yes, this type of consciousness seems to go all the way down, even to the dark matter before the big bang.

As to Sellar's MOG though, it seems more geared toward a direct and pure experience of the subject with the object. McClintock above (SPD) notes it's a distinction between epistemology on the one hand and ontology on the other. She claims Sellars is more concerned with the former while the Buddhist notion of empty self-existence is a more ontological matter. So while the self (consciousness) is not really real, it is conventionally real and dependently arisen nonetheless. And McClintock, like Buddhists generally, still contend a direct perception of the object, even it is has no self-existence apart from its object. I still don't see how it avoids Sellars MOG.

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, Wilber also argues that Buddhism falls prey to the myth of the given in a number of areas, in spite of its teachings on emptiness and lack of inherent existence.  I would agree that it does not appear to have given rise to some of postmodernism's insights into intersubjectivity and the constructedness of worldviews.  However, there are suggestions of this sort of understanding in Buddhist literature, as in the mythological example of how “water” is perceived by beings in different realms:  water, lacking inherent self-existence, is experienced as burning acid by some beings, a home or dwelling by other beings, and nectar by yet others.

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The “hard problem of consciousness” seems to be a problem primarily for so-called Anglo-American or “analytic” philosophy.

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Some of the presuppositions that inform it have Continental roots.

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I asked Gregory to join us here with his expertise on Derrida but he said he's been very busy. It doesn't appear he will join us but I posed Balder's question and he responded with the following and said I could post it. He said:

“In my opinion, everything Derrida has written has to do with the problem of consciousness in one way or another. For Derrida, consciousness, presence, and being–as these terms have been used in Continental philosophy–all circulate around the general problem Derrida refers to as “the metaphysics of presence.” And in general, the deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence turns on a deconstruction of all the traditional philosophical oppositional tensions (such as presence/absence; being/nonbeing; subject/object; true/false, appearance/reality, etc). Insofar as the Kantian “subject” may be identified with “consciousness,” Derrida (and deconstruction) does not annihilate the subject but instead asserts only that the subject is not what it says it is. This is a direct strike against phenomenology. For Derrida there can be no “science” of consciousness as phenomenology might wish it. For Derrida, everything that is is of the being of the “trace” (a complementary blend of presence/absence–complementary in the sense of wave/particle). This does not resolve the hard problem of consciousness so much as transfer that problem to every philosophical oppositional relation while also displacing the traditional way in which oppositional tension is understood. Saying more specifically what this new way of understanding oppositional relation is lies beyond what I can say briefly here. Suffice it to say that relation may well be as brain-stumping yet pragmatically reinforced by the evidence of experience as the wave/particle duality in physics.”

Re: Myth of the given

Some of the presuppositions that inform it have Continental roots.

Hmm. We would expect, then, to see the question addressed by more continental thinkers. Presumably, you are referring to Descartes. Yes, the Cartesian project informs analytic philosophy. Typically, though, “Continental thought” refers to the stream that flows from Kant, Hegel, and Husserl. For Hegel the idea that consciousness is some kind of “stuff,” a substance, is a kind of misnomer; it denotes a reification of that which is not a “thing.” For Hegel “consciousness” refers primarily to culture and socio-historical phenomena. For Heidegger, the question of whether or not consciousness “exists” doesn't really arise. He typically refuses to engage in such discussions as they deal with the “ontic,” what Derrida refers to as “presence,” and Heidegger is interested in the “ontological,” which he relates to understanding. Husserl brackets the metaphysical question of the existence of consciousness, though, at the same time, “consciousness” is indeed a presupposition of phenomenology.  In any case, we really don't find much discussion of the question in this stream of philosophy. That's simply a descriptive fact, not a point of contention.  Perhaps the important question is why this is so. It's possible that some post-moderns are materialists. They certainly donwplay the subject in favour of the object.

Re: Myth of the given

Edward, thank you for posting Gregory's comments.  They're helpful – and I hope to read more by him sometime (Gregory, not just Derrida).

Kela, I agree that it is an interesting question why the “hard problem” isn't much discussed, in the terms in which it is framed by Chalmers and others, in certain postmodern, Continental streams of philosophy.  In some ways, it seems it is simply presupposed as a function, while questions of its ontic status (as a substance or a thing-in-itself) are eschewed (if not critiqued or deconstructed).    

On the other hand,  I think the enactive paradigm represents a relevant, constructivist or postmodern approach to the question of consciousness that faces the “hard problem” more directly.  As a follow-up to the little symposium on enactivism we just had, I posted a blog and a post featuring an essay on the subject that may be worth exploring a bit.

Re: Myth of the given

I just had a look at the paper on enactivism and consciousness.

I find the idea that consciousness is actively involved in things likes information processing and in purposive behavior interesting if only because it flies in the face of the traditional teaching that consciousness is not an agent (akriytva) and by nature a “choiceless” witness (sakshin).

On the other hand, traditions like Kashmiri Shaivism accept that “will” (iccha) and “action” (kriya) are essential features of consciousness.

Here is how the article describes the tension:

Consciousness is an enacting of rather than a passive reaction to the physical events which serve as its substratum; but neither is it the non-physical half of an ontological dualism.

Actually, this is precisely the distinction between the conceptions of consciousness we find in Samkhya, Patanjali Yoga and Shankara Vedanta on the one hand, and Yogachara, Kashmiri Shaivism, and Vajrayana on the other. In the latter case, conciousness actively creates its own reality.

It would seem to me that this latter model of consciousness has become the preferred one. The question in my mind is what happens to the teachings of Samkhya, Shankara, et al. It would seem that the “witness” must be relegated to lower rung in the inclusivist scheme of experience.

Re: Myth of the given

I'm hesitant to mention Stephen Wolinsky (a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj), since his work is rather New Age and I don't give it much credence, but he has moved in this direction: his quantum psychology reframes the Vedantin witness as an active, creative agent, not simply a passive observer of whatever arises. 

On another note, I recall reading the other day that either Howard Gardener or Daniel Goleman (I don't recall which; both were being discussed) suggests that “will” should be included as a category along with cognitive and emotional forms of intelligence, but they have hesitated to do so formally because most current models of consciousness do not have a place for it.

Re: Myth of the given

reframes the Vedantin witness as an active, creative agent

This would be in line with what I have called the “tantricized” Vedanta of Ramana and Nisarg.

I guess one question I'm posing is what kind of sense it makes to say that consciousness is a both witness and that it is actively creative. These are different conceptions. The perennialist may wish to reconcile them, but they are often at odds with each other.

Re: Myth of the given

One of the most important issues with respect tot the myth of the given has to do with the degree to which we are “given” to ourselves. In other words, how transparent are we to ourselves? To what extent is self-knowledge acutally possible?

There appears to be an assumption that nothing could be more immediate to our self than ourselves, that our own consciousness is transparent to itself. We find this assumption at work, I think, in the notion that we, as “witnessness,” can perfectly reflect our own consciousness. And yet, what this view often neglects is the degree to which self-deception can play in our own self-presentation.

The question, or problem, of self-deception is actually an important topic in analytic philosophy.

Re: Myth of the given

Kela, here, are you referring to various contents of consciousness, and if so, can a meaningful distinction be drawn between such contents, which are mediated, and what appears to be the givenness of the fact that some kind of knowing or experiencing is going on?

Re: Myth of the given

While the distinction may hold, I think we can address both sides of the issue.

I'm not sure what kind of value “knowing that one is knowing” holds. It seems to be an indeterminate knowing that something is going on.

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Kela writes:

Re: Myth of the given

One of the points I've been trying to make is that consciousness cannot be cleanly separated from its contents, just as mind cannot be cleanly separated from the body, etc. Granted consciousness appears to be contentless, present and given awareness, but that's the myth.

So when Balder asks if Derrida assumes consciousness as a given he certainly does not in that sense. It does seem that Derrida assumes that consciousness and its objects co-exist interdependently, so can that be considered a “given?” At least to the degree that objects/subjects have been around since the beginning of time (which for practical purposes is eternity)?  Perhaps so. He doesn't assert that we can be post-metaphysical in the sense of not having metaphysical assumptions at all. He certainly seems to be making both ontological and epistemological claims, so that's a given of sorts. But.he seems only to make them with less certainty, more contingency and more open-endedness. Sort of a given-and-taken that cannot be taken for given.

Warning: If you use that last sentence as a meditative mantra and repeat it 30 times without break it will lead to the pure Self witness of which there is no object. I AM proof. (Or is that poof?)

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, when I ask about distinguishing consciousness from its contents, I actually do not mean distinguishing it as another “object” – as another content, another experience.  Krishnamurti, for instance, insists that consciousness is its contents.  I'm asking here about the “givenness” of cognizing, of knowing, whatever word you want to use.  Even the self-deception Jim mentions presupposes a cognitive act, an enactment.

Re: Myth of the given

 Jack Reynold says in Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity, Ohio UP, 2005:

“Derrida suggests that there is an important correlation between the mind-body problem and the speech-writing hierarchy….he contends that the sensible and the intelligible controls metaphysics in its totality….[Derrida says:] ‘The outside bears with the inside a relationship that is, as usual, anything but simple exteriority. The meaning of the outside was always present within the inside, imprisoned outside the outside, and vice versa'…. Derrida argues that inner and outer are irrevocably intertwined, and, like Merleau-Ponty, he is hence obviously dissatisfied with the conception of a monological  consciousness that resides beneath our embodied exteriority and that somehow might be disclosed” (29-30).

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, it seems you might be right – perhaps Derrida accepts, implicitly, some form of panpsychism or panexperientialism or pansemiotics.  I was thinking earlier of Bohm's model of soma-significance and signa-somatics, and that seems to fit with what Reynold is saying.

When I asked about Derrida's take on the “hard problem of consciousness,” I wasn't asking whether he believes in a disembodied “mind” existing independently of the play of differance – it's clear that he does not – but rather, I wanted to find out if he presupposes any sort of understanding of the “place” of consciousness in the order of things.  Panexperientialism or pansemiotics is one such understanding.  Emergentism is another.  Etc.

Re: Myth of the given

Actually, Merleau-Ponty is a good example of a Continental thinker interested in the “mind-body” problem, if only from  a phenomenological perspective. For him, there must be a body for there to be perception. He also makes use of a number of arguments concerning the necessity of context and gestalt in perception. The Phenomenology of Perception is a classic in the field. Unfortunately, I've never got around to studying it, ever since I was forced to drop the course as an undergrad. I did however take a course on James J. Gibson. Gibson thought that we perceive things directly.

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Yes, good point – I agree.  Merleau-Ponty was one of Varela's influences in the formulation of his enactive model.

Re: Myth of the given

HI,

Just a quick note, then I'll be back. This looks kinda interesting.

kela

Re: Myth of the given

Yeah, that looks like a fantastic resource.

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Thompson and Varela say in Between Ourselves, Imprint Academic, 2001:

“But as Merleau-Ponty points out, subjectivity is not a ‘motionless identity with itself'; rather, it is essential to subjectivity to open itself to an other and ‘to go forth from itself.' As he tells us, it is precisely my own experience as such that makes me open for what I am not, be it the world or the other. Subjectivity is not hermetically sealed up within itself….rather it is relation to the world…an openness towards others.

“…subjectivity is essentially incarnated. To exist embodied is, however, neither to exist as pure subject or as pure object, but to exist in a way that transcends both possibilities. It does not entail losing self-awareness; on the contrary, self-awareness is intrinsically embodied self-awareness, but it does entail a loss or perhaps rather a release from transparency and purity, thereby permitting intersubjectivity” (163).

Sound a lot like Derrida to me. Hence Reynold making those connections.

Re: Myth of the given

Yes, Merleau-Ponty was no ordinary phenomenologist. He was continually in dialogue with other streams, like Hegelianism and structuralism. While in the popular imagination, Sartre was considered the pre-eminent thinker of his generation, among actual philosophers, that title is often given to Merleau-Ponty.

Re: Myth of the given

I've copied-and-pasted some excerpts below from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philsophy entry on Merleau-Ponty. It touches on several of the themes we've been discussing in this thread.

From IUP:
 

In The Visible and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty suggests that the Phenomenology of Perception was ultimately unsuccessful in getting beyond this dualistic way of thinking.

What is clear however, is that The Visible and the Invisible does attempt to effect a transition from something like a phenomenology of consciousness (which is basically just an analysis of how the objects we perceive present themselves to us), to a philosophy of Being.

This earlier text is typified by numerous phenomenological descriptions of our everyday activity and the situations that confront us, and his later work is more concerned with ontological matters.

…his thought his changed to the extent that the notion of subjectivity, and its controlling place, is further diminished. References to the body-subject are also conspicuously absent in his later philosophy, and he seems to have decided that such terminology is inadequate.

Merleau-Ponty also makes one other important comment about the Phenomenology of Perception, and his reasons for writing a new ontology, which is worth exploring. According to him, a major factor behind him setting out upon this different path, was the conviction that the tacit or pre-reflective cogito of his earlier philosophy is problematic (VI 179). The pre-reflective cogito is basically just the idea that there is a cogito before language, or to put it crudely, that there is a self anterior to both language and thought that we can aim to get in closer contact with. The notion of a pre-reflective cogito hence presumes the possibility of a consciousness without language, and it exhibits something of a nostalgic desire to return to some brute, primordial experience. This is something that thinkers like Irigiray have criticized Merleau-Ponty for, and in The Visible and the Invisible he has come to share these type of concerns.

Rather than maintaining a traditional dualism in which mind and body, subject and object, self and other, and so forth, are discrete and separate entities, in The Visible and the Invisible Merleau-Ponty argues that there is an important sense in which such pairs are also associated….he suggests that rather than involving a simple dualism, this divergence between touching and being touched, or between the sentient and the sensible, also allows for the possibility of overlapping and encroachment between these two terms.

The Visible and the Invisible highlights that “in the body's touching of itself is found a differentiation and an encroachment which is neither sheer identity nor non-identity” (MPHP 110).

For Merleau-Ponty then, lived experience may partake in contradiction on account of a residue of this difference between the act of speaking and what is spoken of, as well as a correlative divergence between a latent content and a manifest content. This divergence that he theorizes hints at a predicament that seems closely related to what Jacques Derrida has more recently insisted upon in his strategy of deconstruction, in that both philosophers point towards the inevitability of a philosophical expression containing contrary elements within it. While Derrida has also impli