‘Perennial Philosophy’ and Embodiment

July 3rd, 2006 Fred McVittie

The universality of embodiment inevitably produces a similar universality of conceptual and cognitive structure, both in terms of the phylogeny of the human species, and the ontogeny of the individual human. Shared evolutionary history has given us all the same mental toolkit. Introspective and intuitive methods of developing knowledge; ways of thinking which draw only on this toolkit; also therefore inevitably produces similar models for the organisation of that knowledge. This is most evidently true when considering models of the psyche, and the relationship of psyche to the rest of existence.

Introspective methods for considering the organisation of the psyche, whether this introspection take place within a scientific, religious, or philosophical context, have tended to postulate very similar organisational structures. Pundit and founder of ‘integral philosophy’ Ken Wilbur has mapped and charted these correlations in great detail, referring to the general similarity in psychic structure which emerges as evidence for what he calls the ‘Perennial Philosophy’ (1). Wilbur goes on to suggest that the degree of similarity between the numerous different models of psyche and world is indicative of some kind of absolute or archetypal truth, that the psyche really is constructed in the way these models suggest. However, another way of looking at this correlation is to consider such overlap an inevitable consequence of embodiment. Such models inevitably draw on familiar structures of organisation mapped metaphorically from physical embodied experience, utilising such features as levels/hierarchies, part/whole distinctions, nested categories, chains, gradients, and spectra. These concrete features, experienced sensorially and kinesthetically by our bodies and those of our genetic ancestors, form the metaphorical features which shape our cognition.

Wilber,Ken - A theory of everything : an integral vision for business, politics, science and spirituality. Shambhala Publications. 2000

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Perennial Philosophy as Embodied Folk Science

July 4th, 2006 Fred McVittie

‘Perennial Philosophy’ uses the strategies of comparative religion and comparative anthropology to identify common themes running through diverse cultural traditions. Although originally coined by Leibniz, the term has become more widely associated with Aldous Huxley, whose book by that title attempted to distil the wisdom of the world’s religions into an essential set of perennial truths. The perennial philosophy movement includes such figures as Rene Guenon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Martin Lings, Fritjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Marco Pallis, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Jacob Needleman. The extensive research on comparative mythology/psychology/philosophy carried out by Ken Wilbur, and referred to by him as ‘integral psychology’ is a modern reworking of this idea and ideal.

I would argue, however, that rather than illuminating some transcendent truth or pattern outside of human cognition, an ‘ultimate reality’ if you will, Perennial Philosophy and its cognates (Traditionalism etc.) might better be thought of as ‘embodied folk science’, that is, the body of knowledge we, as humans, create to explain the ‘big picture’ of human existence using the meagre tools of human sense and cognition. The degree of correspondence in the world’s great religious and philosophical tradition is not an indicator of a hidden truth, but a reflection of what truths are constructed when the tools for answering the big questions are common sense and common embodiment.

Posted in Huxley, Aldous, Naive Physics, Perennialism, Universals, Wilbur, Ken | No Comments »

The Changing Status of ‘Psychology’

July 14th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The history of psychology as a science is very brief. It is usually thought to have begun being considered as a body of material knowledge, apprehensible by scientific means, with the work of William James. The status of psychology as a science, whilst subject to great debate and much fluctuations in esteem, continued throughout the 20th century. Prior to its embrace by science, any consideration of those entities and processes we now think of as the subject of psychology; identity, consciousness, dreams, rapture, mental illness etc.; were part of the discourse of philosophy and/or religion. Even throughout psychology’s time in the light of science there have been elements of psychological theory and practice, the work of Wilhelm Reich for example, and some would say all of psychoanalysis, which have been distinctly non-scientific. Because of the ill-defined, and largely non-experimental nature of psychology however, these practices have never been completely excluded from discourse in the way that heretical physics or heretical chemistry would be. Instead, psychology has been a bastard science, drawing information and knowledge from where it can, even if some of these places would be off-limits to scientists following more stringent maps to knowledge. As these practices continue into the 21st century there seems to be some evidence that psychology as a term is losing some of the scientific patina of respectability that it acquired post-William James, and is rediscovering its roots in philosophy and mysticism. University college courses and institutions are finding that ‘psychology’ is not a good recruiter of those students who want to study serious science, so we see college departments sprouting schools of ‘brain science’ and quietly losing the ‘p’ word. Also, there is an increasing use of the word ‘psychology’ to be used in contexts or to refer to concepts where it would not have been used previously. The writer Ken Wilbur for example, refers to his theories as ‘integral psychology’. This work, exemplifying as it does an ambition to pull together knowledge from across the disciplines of science, religion, and philosophy (east and west), and give this bastard knowledge a good name, would in all likelihood not have been able to qualify as ‘psychology’ without the reversion in meaning that the term has had. In fact, in earlier works outlining broadly the same ideas, Wilbur tended to call these ideas ‘philosophy’ and avoided the use of the other ‘p’ word.

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Mind and Space

September 12th, 2006 Fred McVittie

“Space is all one space and thought is all one thought, but my mind divides its spaces into spaces into spaces and thoughts into thoughts into thoughts. Like a large condominium. Occasionally I think about the one Space and the one Thought, but usually I don’t. Usually I think about my condominium.” - Andy Warhol, In Perspective

The spatial model of the mind in which mind and space are coterminous is found is (primarily non-scientific) discourses such as the writings Genpo Roshi (Big Mind), a concept adopted by Ken Wilbur and others, and reflected in some of the writing of Alan Watts, ‘I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware’. Here other concepts of mind which utilise spatial metaphors, central point, focal point, ectoplasm, are ignored or suppressed in favour of the MIND IS SPACE metaphor, with its consequent entailments. The prioritisation of this metaphor is associated with the condition of enlightenment.

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