Philosophy
as Spiritual Discipline
by
Robert A. McDermott
Philosophers and students of philosophy partial to Plato are fond of quoting A. N. Whitehead's suggestion that the safest characterization of the history of western philosophy is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato (1). Not so for Aristotelians, for whom the history of western philosophy might better be characterized as a series of corrections and improvements of the recurring versions of Platonism. Since Platonism and Aristotelianism repeatedly return to favor after each generation of critics and revisionists, it seems undeniable that each contains a portion of permanent truth not adequately expressed by the other.
Platonism and Aristotelianism in their many forms represent to each other the necessary philosophical polar opposite. Without the pole supplied by the other, the dynamic strength of each position would disappear. With some exaggeration, the polarity between Platonism and Aristotelianism can be expressed by a paraphrase of Kant: Platonism without Aristotelianism is empty, Aristotelianism without Platonism is blind. The exaggeration consists in the fact that Plato and Platonism provide volumes - indeed, universes - of content, and Aristotle and Aristotelianism have provided a profound vision of the processes of thought and nature. Nevertheless, the general tendency holds: Plato is akin to the imaginative (whether conceived as the dramatic or poetic, or, paraphrasing Emerson, artistry in the medium of theory), whereas Aristotle is akin to the factual, empirical and scientific, including the social scientific.
This polarity, which is at the base and throughout the history
of western philosophy, provides the content and modus operandi
of philosophy. It also accounts for the difficulty of philosophizing.
Our choosing to take sides with Plato or Aristotle may be
not much of a choice at all, but rather an expression of our
innate temperament as developed and expressed through our
social and intellectual biographies.
In "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy," the opening
lecture of his classic text, Pragmatism, William James divides
philosophies, and their exponents (whether accomplished scholars
or rank beginners) as divisible into "two types of mental
makeup":
The Tender-Minded
Rationalistic (going by "principles"); intellectualistic; idealistic; optimistic; religious. free-willist; monistic; dogmatical.The Tough-Minded
Empiricist (going by "facts"); sensationalistic; materialistic; pessimistic; irreligious; fatalistic; pluralistic; sceptical (2).
It is not difficult to see that Platonists as a group share several of James' tender-minded characteristics whereas Aristotelians share several characteristics with the tough-minded. Whether we read the history of philosophy, and contemporary philosophic disputes, in terms of the Platonic/Aristotelian polarity, or in terms of James' tender- and tough-minded temperaments, the difficulties and challenges remain: how to understand those philosophies of so markedly a different feel from our own, particularly since the most determining factor, our personal differences, are thought to be an inadmissable consideration in philosophic discourse. James again, sees the situation correctly:
The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments. Undignified as such a treatment may seem to some of my colleagues, t shall have to take account of this clash and explain a good many of the divergencies of philosophy by it. Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher, he tries, when philosophizing, to sink the fact of his temperament. Temperament is no conventionally recognized reason, so he urges impersonal reasons only for his conclusions. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the evidence for him one way or the other, making for a more sentimental or a more hard-hearted view of the universe, just as this or that principle would. He trusts his temperament. Wanting a universe that suits it, he believes in any representation of the universe that does suit it. He feels men of opposite temper to be out of key with the world's character, and in his heart considers them incompetent and "not in it," in the philosophic business, even though they may far excel him in dialectic ability' (3).
The situation which James refers to in 1907 as "The Present Dilemma in Philosophy" would seem to be at least as true of philosophizing today. Or, perhaps, considering that the analytic cast of mind which has dominated philosophizing in the English-speaking world for the past half century, in two respects the situation would seem to be worse now than in James' time: We may be even further from the ideal and goal of a coherent and comprehensive philosophy, and, aided by the contemporary return to a sophistic relativism, even less inclined to consider seriously and sympathetically positions at variance with our own.
Both the classic Platonist/Aristotelian and the more modern rationalist/empiricist polarities strongly suggest that polarities are essential for the content and process of philosophy. They also provide cause to despair of the philosophic enterprise: the polar contrasts of worldview, of significance, evidence and argument, seem so unbridgeable as to daunt the courage of beginning student and professional alike. Yet philosophy seems self-replenishing, and for good reason. The accepted limits to progress toward philosophical truth, as well as the value of philosophy (in light of these limits), are well summarized in Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy:
Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions which enlarge our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good (4).
Here, again, a polarity: on the one side, the inherent limits of philosophizing - that as a rule no answers can be known to be true - and on the other, despite this limitation, by attempting to reach the truth, the philosophical practitioner (whether student or professional) increases tolerance and capacity for contemplation of the Universe. It was in his capacity as a some-time Platonist that Russell wrote these lines - he who was after all, a mathematician, and therefore almost of necessity a Platonist. However, it was in his capacity as an empiricist that he helped Wittgenstein launch the analytic movement which effectively put an end to the influence of the idealists in particular, and metaphysics in general, in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition.
The effect of the analytic movement has been so decisive on philosophizing in the English speaking world because it struck at the conception of philosophy itself. Both logical positivism and linguistic analysis, in effect, refused dialogue with practitioners of traditional philosophical methods. The distinction between Platonic and Aristotelian was rendered inconsequential relative to the purpose and method of philosophy established in Austria and Britain immediately after the First World War (5). By this "revolution in philosophy," it became axiomatic that one give little or no quarter to a competing position, but so far as possible attempt to show that competitors are not really doing philosophy at all. In his masterful survey of contemporary philosophies, Philosophy and the Modern World, Albert William Levi notes that philosophers not only do not agree on specific points of epistemology or metaphysics, but refuse to grant each other's philosophical methods:
When we view the philosophic fashions of the past five decades, we must be struck, think, by the urgency with which the question of what philosophers ought to do and what philosophy is. has itself been put forward as one of the chief questions for philosophic debate. Nor is this simply the defensive strategy of strong-minded men who disagree. Aristotle disagreed with Plato with love and regret and did not find it necessary to deny that Platonism was a philosophy. Locke disagreed with Descartes as to the origin of ideas, hut he did not maintain that the use of a rational method inspired by the successes of mathematics disqualified a man from the practice of philosophy. Kant proclaimed his "Copernican Revolution" with deep sincerity and assurance. but this did not prevent him from paying his intellectual debt to the "celebrated Leibniz" and "the estimable Mr. Locke,' with both of whom he significantly differed. But the philosophic movements of the recent past are to be viewed as waves of successive reform beating upon an infinite shore, with each group of partisans committed to a conception of philosophy which assures them a virtual monopoly of its legitimate practice (6).
Withholding methodological legitimacy from one's philosophic competitors as a way of assuring one's philosophical supremacy reveals the extent to which philosophers, perhaps to an even greater extent than practitioners of other disciplines, are prone to ideology and self-interested disputation. Admittedly, this is not the ideal time to expect that a search for truth might prove successful, but it might be the ideal time to return to the Socratic-Platonic conviction that the search is its own reward. We would then have to take seriously the fact that in the Platonic Academy, as in the The Republic (Book VI), aspirants to philosophy had to undergo a rigorous moral as well as mathematical training. One could only see the Forms -
Plato is akin to the imaginative (whether conceived as the dramatic or poetic, or, paraphrasing Emerson, artistry in the medium of theory), whereas Aristotle is akin to the factual, empirical, and scientific, including the social scientific.
Love, Truth and Beauty, and ultimately, The Good - by the transformation of one's capacity for intuition. A capacity for mystical-philosophical insight which combined intellectual knowing and spiritual vision could only be attained with the help of a teacher and decades of disciplined practice. Hence, Russell's suggestion that through philosophy the mind "becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good."
For us ordinary practitioners, however, what would be the practical and contemporary equivalent of philosophic contemplation? The term might at first sound forbidding, but with use, it could prove congenial: to contemplate means to observe deliberately and meditatively, to reflect upon openly and receptively. The term contemplation sounds unphilosophical - mystical, otherworldly, as well as, perhaps, vague, and passive - because it is usually associated with attention to some version of the Divine, of the Absolute, of Stillness.
As ordinarily understood, meditation and contemplation would
refer to the disciplined attempt to unite with ideas other
than one's own. Meditation and contemplation are essential
for this task because of the difficulty involved in getting
outside of one's temperamental predispositions and intellectual
assumptions. By the criterion of philosophy as a spiritual
discipline, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, James, Royce and
Whitehead, Buber, Steiner and Barfield, number among those
philosophers who are prized because, in quite different ways,
they show a willingness and ability to enter into the thoughts
of others and to think beyond the limits of self-interested,
merely dispositional preferences. They show the positive results
of a disciplined attempt at a wider, widening search in realms
of thought and experience at polar odds with the views which
it would have been easier, but less truthful, for them to
have accepted.
Such a practice might not only reward the practitioner with
a glimpse of truth - as the meditator is rewarded with a glimpse
of the divine - but in the process the practitioner might
expect some measure of transformation of character and capacities.
Yet no such discipline or practice is prescribed for those
who study or profess philosophy in our time.
What are the possibilities for contemporary Platonists and Aristotelians, rationalists and empiricists, tender- and tough-minded philosophers to meet each other's claims and contentions? Did Socrates and Plato hear the views of the Sophists? Did Aristotle sympathetically hold in view his teacher's theories? In our century, did James seriously consider the Absolute idealism of his colleague and friend, Josiah Royce, whose American version of Hegelian Platonism can be described by many of the characteristics of the tender-minded philosopher, as James' own philosophy falls on the tough-minded side?
These historical, and highly influential, thinkers offer excellent exhibits for our attempt to discern the spiritual qualities latent in the philosophic enterprise. Of all the philosophers who have attempted to combine the rational and empirical, tough-and tender-minded qualities, none offers such a rich array of polarities as does Plato, who holds the philosophical as well as generational middle position between his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle.
To begin with Socrates, who is at least symbolically, if not historically, the beginning of Western philosophy, we find an intriguing and seldom acknowledged polarity at the core of his mission. To a significant extent, the history of philosophy is at odds with Socrates, thought to be the archetypal philosopher, in that he begins and ends his career in a decisively non-philosophical fashion: He enters upon the philosophic quest on the directive of an oracle, and he concludes his life with a ringing affirmation of the afterlife even though he lacks philosophical knowledge of what will follow his imminent death (7).
In both situations, Socrates serves as a model of engagement
and existential seriousness, but not particularly of philosophic
purity. On either side of Socrates-the-philosopher is Socrates
who obeys oracles and Socrates who believes in the afterlife.
The complete Socrates must be seen in the existential, lived
situation - launching a career and facing death - as well
as in his role as questioner and searcher for truth.
Following Socrates, Plato built a dialectic into his philosophy
from the outset, not only in the way he arrived at his position,
but in his subsequent critiques, e.g., in his Parmenides,
of even those ideas which he and his followers regarded as
central to his position. Plato's dialogues are so full of
dramatic tensions and taut polarities that each generation
of students and professors of philosophy finds new problems,
resolutions and suggestions for novel thinking.
From the vantage point of more than two millenia, and countless philosophical systems, Asian as well as western, it is obvious that Aristotle was more Platonic than histories of philosophy would suggest: criticisms of Plato's Theory of Forms in Aristotle's Metaphysics were developed as an attempt to improve the essential components of Plato's thought (8). Furthermore, Aristotle shared with Plato classical Greek presuppositions concerning human nature, time and space, the polis and the nature of reason. In a way that seems paradoxical, but is in fact intelligible and predictable, these shared philosophical assumptions sharpened Aristotle's differences with his teacher. Differences within the context of a shared worldview press more forcefully, and yield more prescient results on philosophical inquirers, than do differences which are nearly total. Dialogue requires polarity - ends held in tension. Philosophical positions can only creatively meet when they share a sufficiently meaningful piece of reality to provide a common ground, a shared terminology and set of tasks.
Although Aristotle's Metaphysics might seem to us, as it certainly does to our students, an instance of Olympian calm, far removed from the existential drama of Socrates locked in dialogical struggle with his sophistic opponents, the same urgency attends Aristotle's attempt to solve the problem of form and matter. Can there be a more pressing task for contemporary thought than an adequate formulation of matter and spirit? On first hearing (or reading), Aristotelian ideas might seem removed, but a group of philosophers in dialogue, as well as a philosopher in a classroom living through the dialectic with and for his or her students, can show as vividly as a Platonic dialogue the urgency of questions such as the one and the many, or form and matter.
Although the Platonic/Aristotelian polarity might seem to contemporary students slightly less urgent than modern polarities such as theist/atheist. Marxist/Existentialist, materialist/idealist, creationist/evolutionist, neither in its original version, nor at any time since, has the dialectic between Plato and Aristotle, or Platonism and Aristotelianism, lost its existential bite. In this respect, it well serves as an example of philosophizing in general. Revising Whitehead slightly, we might suggest that the safest characterization of western philosophy is that it consists in the adding of footnotes to the dialogue between Platonism and Aristotelianism. And in the Asian philosophical tradition, although competing philosophical schools are not based on Platonism and Aristotelianism, something of the same dialectic of polar tensions has been at work in the Advaitist and Mimamsa traditions of India and the Confucian and Taoist-Buddhist traditions of China (9).
Although the history of philosophy seems to be best interpreted as a complex dialogue between competing positions such as the Platonic and Aristotelian, it does not provide many classic texts in dialogue form. We could suggest that all subsequent philosophers were discouraged from attempting dialogue form because Plato set the level too high, but this argument fails because Plato's and Aristotle's incomparably high level of philosophizing did not discourage their successors, any more than tragedians were discouraged by Sophocles or Shakespeare. The reason for the paucity of dialogues in the history of philosophy may be due to the extreme difficulty for most philosophers, and particularly philosophers passionately committed to establishing a specific position, of presenting competing ideas with vitality and credibility. Commitment to a truth may be the natural (though not fatal) enemy of philosophic dialogue.
David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (posthumously published in 1779), one of the obviously successful dialogues in the history of philosophic writing, would seem to have been aided by the author's skepticism and literary imagination. Although Hume could be dogmatic and argumentative, his Dialogues shows the best fruit of his two loves - the play of study and society. The Dialogues present the memorable dispute between Demea, Hume's version of a tender-minded Platonist who wants to prove the existence of God by an a priori argument based on an intuitive idea of the divine, and Philo, a tough-minded Humean empiricist and skeptic. Between these two is Cleanthes, an Aristotelian who combines empirical observation and rational principles, and thereby attempts to prove the existence of God by observation of the natural world and an argument by analogy. The entire dialogue is a masterpiece of listening and responding, as well as evading, misconstruing, and from beginning to end leaves room for the reader to continue in doubt as to the conclusion and as to Hume's own position.
Readers of these pages will probably be familiar with Owen
Barfield's Worlds Apart (10), too recent to be a classic,
but quite successful for bringing into focus the conflict
of competing philosophical paradigms. Without suggesting a
too simple, or directly casual, relationship between particular
personalities and their respective ideas, Barfield allows
us to experience a convincingly subtle (and in a few cases
not so subtle) connection between these characters and their
philosophical positions. Platonic and Aristotelian themes
abound, as do a variety of philosophical and scientific theories
such as Darwinism, Freudianism, and linguistic analysis, but
the value, and indeed, truth of the book lies in the exchanges,
the existential sticking points and failed opportunities.
As The Republic, Plato's most confident and systematic dialogue,
ends with a myth, Barfield's Worlds Apart ends with a dream.
With respect to the possibilities and limitations of philosophic
progress by dialogue, it would seem to be significant that
it is not until after the weekend symposium that through his
dream Hunter, the Christian apologist-theologian, finally
gets a glimpse of the position which Barfield (in the characters
of Burgeon and Sanderson) has been espousing. After the last
line, the reader continues in dialogue. Unlike most of his
characters (who are entirely believable in their resistance
to positions other than their own), Barfield shows in this
dialogue that he understands, with sympathy and insight, the
philosophical positions with which he disagrees. In this habit
of grasping from the inside a range of theories competing
with his own, Barfield is following the example of Rudolf
Steiner, whose Riddles of Philosophy (11) evidences his remarkable
ability to think with, and through, a host of philosophies
in competition with his own.
As a result of arguing for forty years with his friend C. S. Lewis (whose theological position resembles Hunter's in Worlds Apart), Barfield knew painfully well the tenacity with which even the most enlightened truth-seekers avoid confronting positions unfriendly to their own. Barfield remained frustrated with Lewis' refusal to read or seriously consider the spiritual-scientific research of Barfield's teacher, Rudolf Steiner. Markers in "the great war" (12) between Barfield and Lewis include Lewis' pointed remark that "Barfield changed me a good deal more than I him" (13); Barfield's dedication of his Poetic Diction (1973) "To C. S. Lewis: 'Opposition is true friendship'" (14); and Lewis' dedication of his Allegory of Love - to "Owen Barfield: Wisest and best of my unofficial teachers" (15). These dedications issue from decades of friendship, shared commitment to truth, and incessant dialogue concerning most - though not all - of their respective opinions. They stand out in our time as exemplary practitioners of the intellectual life as spiritual discipline.
Another example of this rare ability is to be found in Sri Aurobindo's one-thousand page metaphysical treatise, The Life Divine (16). Aurobindo so successfully grasps positions other than his own that his readers tend to be unprepared for the telling critique which follows each of the lengthy, sympathetic presentations of these positions. Since Steiner and Aurobindo share this ability with Plato, we should perhaps conclude that as a preparation for philosophical dialogue, training in mysticism and clairvoyance might be as important as training in disputation.
But what hope is there for philosophical dialogue for those of us who lack mysticism, clairvoyance and superabundance of philosophical plasticity? Do ordinary philosophical practitioners also evidence this ability to penetrate alternative positions? Perhaps the most innately sympathetic philosopher of the modern period is William James. It is James who gives us the characteristically American pluralistic definition of philosophy as "the habit of always seeing an alternative" (17). Although he did not write a dialogue, he certainly did develop his philosophical ideas in polar tension with Hegelian idealism as represented by Josiah Royce, his colleague and friend at Harvard (18).
The passionately conducted argument over idealism and the Absolute between James and Royce, who were neighbors in Cambridge for twenty-five years, is comparable to the Lewis-Barfield 'great war' in philosophical productivity as well as in longevity and intensity. While preparing the Gifford Lectures of 1900-02 (an honor for which he had previously recommended Royce), James showed that neither friendship nor a celebrated fascination with the varieties of opinion were sufficient bulwark against the stronger pleasure of establishing one's ideas against the opposition. James wrote to Royce:
When I write, 'tis with one eye on the page, and one on you. When I compose my Gifford Lectures mentally. 'tis with the design exclusively of overthrowing your system, and ruining your peace . . . (19).
All of James' writings on religion, metaphysics and philosophic method evidence the tension which he felt in relation to Royce's Absolute idealism. When it wasn't Royce on whom he focused. it was on other idealists - Hegel himself, or F. H. Bradley (20). As Gregory Bateson says of ideas developed in conversation - that they belong as much to the listener as to the speaker (21) - Royce and the idealists he represented in James' mind may rightly be said to deserve half credit for James' clear and forceful expression of pluralism and radical empiricism.
James and Royce might not pass as a model of philosophical
debate quite at the level of Plato and Aristotle, but they
surely represent the positive features of learning and clarifying
in polar relation to a competing position. What H. T. Costello
remarked concerning Royce applies equally to James, the archetypal
pluralist and comparativist: "Plato said you cannot really
learn philosophy from books; they do not explain or answer
back. They need the personal touch, and that is what Royce
gave us" (22).
To know an ideal, we need negative as well as positive examples.
Unfortunately, the most discussed philosophy book in several
decades, Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (23),
is a stunning example of non-dialogical thinking. Bloom's
book is overrun with passionately held opinions concerning
students, popular music, minorities, women - from which its
author seems to be estranged, or at least to be judging from
a distance. He does not read or evaluate his major philosophers
from a distance, but he fails dramatically as a teacher: he
reads Plato, Nietzsche and Heidegger with a highly subjective
filter and fails to render them any more intelligible or relevant
than they are in their own words.
In attempting to expose - and the book is entirely an exposé; it offers no solutions - the failures of contemporary American thinking and values, particularly as espoused and exemplified by the university, this book reveals a hostility toward the American culture he is attempting to analyze and reform. Consider a book concerned with the closing of the American mind, and subtitled "How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students," with no discernible influence of a single American philosopher. Bloom totally ignores Emerson and James, and refers to Dewey three times, inconsequentially and unsympathetically. Yet Bloom's thesis - that philosophical ideas and ideals have lost their power because American professors have bought into the success of the sciences and social sciences - found its expression in James' writings a century ago. And although Dewey's robust commitment to a naturalistic humanism made him an unsympathetic interpreter of classical philosophical thought, in theory and practice he offered more for the construction of a humane society than can be found in this book by a philosopher closed to the positive characteristics of the American mind (24).
But there is another problem in Bloom's book: like Huston
Smith and the Traditionalist-Perennialist position, Bloom
criticizes relativism, scientism and historicism - i.e., the
context, or contextuality, which stands in polar relation
to the Source, the Eternal and Ineffable. But unlike Smith,
and the Traditionalists generally (e.g., Henri Corbin and
Fritjof Schuon), he seems unaware of the need for a discipline
which would yield such an experience. Whereas Smith makes
me struggle - and want to know why I fail to experience this
timeless reality so forcefully that the historical context
pales by comparison - I react to Bloom's book with dismay.
What is the point of his attack against relative values when
he offers no examples of absolute values, nor access to philosophers
who have overcome relativism, nor a method or discipline by
which his readers could begin the journey from the relative
to the absolute. Rather, he uses his arsenal of European philosophy
to turn a general failure of our time into a complaint against
a culture which he reads from a privileged, uninformed perspective.
His account of both the American mind and "the souls
of today's students" is so selective, distorted and self-indulgent
that the entire book ironically makes a strong case for the
value of social sciences as a way of overcoming prejudicial
and stereotypical judgements.
But my concern in this article on philosophy as spiritual
discipline is not primarily to criticize Bloom's book - others
have done so brilliantly and at length (25) - but the degree
to which, and the ways in which, this book is a negative example
of the ideal I am espousing. Whereas my disagreement with
Huston Smith leads me to read his works, and the works of
those who have influenced him, with a healthy anxiety about
my own position, Bloom leads me to argue on the level of subjective
preference, life-styles (26) and popular culture. The book
is so subjective that it focuses our attention on the author
instead of on his philosophers, his arguments, or on his presumed
search for truth.
When a philosopher writes autobiography philosophically, with an eye for truth which combines, or reconciles, the individual and the universally human, i.e., when the philosopher is also an artist, the reader is engaged, and perhaps elevated both imaginatively and philosophically. Bloom fails to do this because he fails at dialogue: as I read this book I find its author learned and passionate, but unwise and intolerant. Bloom presents himself as a Socratic and a Platonist, but in The Closing of the American Mind he is no knower of the forms.
Bloom's book is an opportunity missed: a half million copies of a philosophy book sold in this time of philosophic indifference, and what does it offer but condescension and complaint - no guidance, no dialogue. We do get from Bloom that philosophy is terribly important, or ought to be, but little or no sense of how to go about it, or how to use it.
Unfortunately, the most discussed philosophy book in several decades, Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind is a stunning example of non-dialogical thinking.
the great thinkers to solve our most pressing problems. In the end Bloom recommends the "good old great books approach" (27) but gives few if any clues as to how, or why, the great books would solve our problems (except indirectly -by serving as instruments for intellectual sharpening). But as a result of his neglect of the historical context (or. more accurately, the context of the evolution of consciousness - a concept even further from Bloom's perspective), the great books of the past are recommended but with no indications as to how these books could be rendered contemporary.
If not to Bloom, then to whom should we turn for guidance in these philosophically impoverished times? Thinkers worthy of our time and effort would have to have earned their insights by patient, dialogical thinking, and be able to give hints as to how they are proceeding. In this respect, Plato and Aristotle remain our peerless teachers, but for Platonists and Aristotelians working with more contemporary materials, we should focus on those thinkers who have entered into the minds of their major alternatives. Martin Buber, for whom all living is dialogue, struggled throughout his life to reconcile, without losing either pole, such polarities as philosophy and religion, contemporary anxiety and Biblical faith, existential individuality and the self as defined by community (28).
In the American tradition, James looked deeply into both science and religious experience and sought to develop a position true to the best of both (29). Alfred North Whitehead, whose major works were written in conscious continuity with the insights of William James, can be read as an example of his educational ideal (30) - a combination of general ideas and concrete fact. On his Platonic side he held to eternal ideas, whereas his Aristotelian sensibility found expression in his Concept of Nature and in his account of "Nature and Life" in Modes of Thought (31). More recently, Gregory Bateson has written wisely concerning the obstacles to interpersonal dialogue and clear thinking, and the social context within, or by, which ideas are generated and shared (32).
To my mind, no thinker has so extensively and profoundly explored and extended the Platonic and Aristotelian perspectives without sacrificing either as has Rudolf Steiner in his multi-volume attempt to show the intricately, awesomely detailed, interpenetration of the spiritual and natural (33). For twenty-five years he conducted original and highly informative spiritual-scientific research (34). Readers of this journal know the works in which Owen Barfield and Georg Kühlewind have articulated the conditions, processes and fruits of conscious, willful spiritual thinking. In order to know of such things, Buber and James spent decades in diligent personal-dialogical research. I believe that Huston Smith and his colleagues are engaged in a similar research (36).
These thinkers exemplify the ideal of philosophizing as a
path to self-development, and thereby invite us to join in
a similar effort. The problem, however is simply that in daily
life - and it was true of their daily lives as well - we fail
at philosophy because it is too risky, and irksome, to subject
our favorite ideas to criticism and rebuff. Even relatively
pacific dialogue requires more philosophic effort. and risk,
than most professors of philosophy ordinarily care to invest.
Despite the presumably universal commitment to the ideal of
dialogue among philosophers, as a profession, philosophy shares
many of the attitudes of business, politics and athletics.
The mode of discourse at large conferences such as the American
Philosophical Association, which several thousand philosophers
attend annually in the largest hotels in major cities, reveals
the extent to which philosophy is a pugilistic profession.
In this environment, philosophers seem to value 'knock-down'
arguments and clever moves more than truth-searching or personal
development. Even the most scholarly, technical philosophical
discussions take on the mind-set typically associated with
corporation boards and political meetings. Regular participants
at most professional meetings (37) have learned that there
is little chance of genuine, sustained dialogue at conferences,
symposia and colloquia
populated by professors of philosophy.
Because it is so rare, and arrived at by such strenuous effort, genuine philosophic dialogue, when it does take place, deserves to be acknowledged. Congratulations then to the rash, but ultimately vindicated, organizers of an Esalen-sponsored one-week conference held for three consecutive years, with eighteen philosophers assigned the daunting task of "revisioning philosophy." The group was no doubt counting on the famed sulphur tubs and natural beauty of Esalen, on the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur, California, to soften the characteristically hard edges of philosophical argument. The Esalen atmosphere with two full decades of realizing its slogan, "Lose your mind, come to your senses," no doubt made a contribution to the civility which characterized more than forty hours in formal session and at least ten or twenty informal hours of philosophical discussion. More likely, however, the credit should go to the distinctive composition of the group: approximately half of the eighteen participants were committed to some form of spiritual teaching and/or practice, and brought to this symposium an interest in the relationship between philosophy and a spiritually-based epistemology.
Other dominant themes and approaches to philosophy - feminist, ecological, social and economic - clearly indicate that this was a non-standard group of philosophers. Non-standard concerns - those regarded as "soft" or "fringy" by philosophers at the center (which is still dominated by an analytic methodology and set of topics) - might help to account for the less contentious atmosphere at these symposia, but it seems more likely that most of the participants recognized that the activity of philosophy requires a special discipline, and that this activity when properly practiced is not only rewarding of philosophical fruits, but is its own reward. This recognition was not much discussed but it was noticeably practiced, as became obvious during the occasional lapses when the tone and style came more to resemble standard philosophical discussion.
In each of the Esalen-sponsored conferences which I attended within the past year (two in California, one in New Hampshire). Huston Smith, author of the classic text, The Religions of Man, and more recently of Forgotten Trurh and The Post-Modem Mind, was at the center of the philosophic debate (38). Professor Smith,
To my mind, no thinker has so extensively and profoundly explored and extended the Platonic and Aristotelian perspectives without sacrificing either as has Rudolf Steiner in his multi-volume attempt to show the intricately, awesomely detailed, interpenetration of the spiritual and natural.
who
is unfailingly polite and articulate, is diligently at work
on fundamental questions of great import for contemporary
values. He has written cogently and with conviction against
the shrinking of the modern western model of knowledge, and
is attempting to establish a perennialist ontology - i.e.,
an account of the real, or the universe, which is not reducible
to the relativism of perspectives, whether of history or language.
Huston Smith is an interesting exhibit for the question of
philosophy as dialogue and spiritual discipline because his
lifework is influenced and perhaps inspired, by the teaching
of the great religions. Yet I am not alone in criticizing
Huston for missing - not taking seriously enough - the perspective,
ideas and arguments brought against his position. One can
almost hear and feel the unvocalized response of Huston's
disputant: 'How can someone so inquisitive and careful not
see the force of this evidence brought against this perennial
philosophy?' In the introduction to an article in Religion
and Intellectual Life, Huston refers to this philosophical
stand-off:
What follows is a draft of a short section in the book I am working on in which I try to fend off assailants [representatives of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Derrida] so that I can continue on my way. Friends whom respect tell me that my adversaries will not recognize themselves in my depictions of them. I am prepared to believe that this is so. but I have nor been able to hear clearly from these friends where my readings err. (39)
In
the face of missed philosophical dialogue I am invariably
reminded of the dissertation written by my friend Patrick
Hill, the thesis of which is that each contributor to the
history of western philosophy has proceeded by acknowledging
the importance of his predecessor's thought, but not taking
seriously enough its distinctive idea (40). Huston Smith and
the Perennialists as a group seem to me a case in point: they
take the relativity of context seriously, but from the point
of view of a pragmatic, processive existentialist or evolutionist
perspective they do not take the relative seriously enough.
One can hear the identical debate between the exponent of
the Advaita Vedanta of Shankara (i.e., the non-dual or monistic
system of the ninth century Hindu saint-philosopher) and the
defender of the temporal, spatial and individual. For the
Advaitins, Shankara's commitment to the absolute unity of
reality, or Brahman, results in a doctrine of maya, all that
is not Brahman per se - all that appears to us, in our ignorance
(avidya) as plural and real but in truth is not plural at
all, but is Brahman. For the Advaitin, Brahman is The Absolute,
one without a second which, in its perfect unity, includes
the plurality of space, time, persons, and gods (41). In polar
distinction with the advaitism of Shankara is the "qualified
Advaita" of Ramanuja, the eleventh-century philosopher-saint.
For the unqualified Advaitins, Ramanuja's "qualified"
Advaitism gives too great a reality to the particular; it
"does not take seriously enough" the absolute unqualified
oneness of Brahman and the resulting relative unreality of
maya.
In a similar way, in the course of the recent Esalen conference, "Revisioning Philosophy," I heard myself complaining to Huston Smith that he "did not take seriously enough" the evolution of consciousness. Convinced, as I am, of the qualitative differences between the thinking - or rather perceiving and imaging, and not-yet thinking - of the Egyptians, Hebrews and early Greeks, I felt that Huston was admitting to evolution (read as change of species and cultural forms), but "not taking seriously enough" the struggle of humanity to achieve a new and advanced level of consciousness. Following the lead of Sri Aurobindo and Rudolf Steiner (as well as, to a lesser degree, the evolutionary thought of Teilhard de Chardin and the process philosophers, particularly Henri Bergson and A.N. Whitehead), I argued against Huston Smith's claims for an unmediated experience of Truth and Reality, and in favor of an evolutionary process by which each experience of Truth and Reality is a function of a dialogue between the temporal and eternal.
For those who reject the spiritual altogether - which includes the vast majority of philosophers and professors of philosophy (and, it seems, an increasing number of theologians and professors of comparative religion) - my disagreement with Huston Smith must seem like an argument between Baptists and Methodists as observed by a Marxist or secular humanist. Typically, the arguments closest to home are the fiercest. When I engage in philosophical dialogue with exponents such as Huston Smith or James Cutsinger (professor of religion, University of South Carolina, author of a recent study on Coleridge (42), and an enthusiastic reader of Owen Barfield), I think that they should accept my complete package, evolution and all. Playing James to their Royce, Barfield to their Lewis, I find it perplexing that they stubbornly persist in taking more seriously than I the experience of the eternal, ineffable divine reality. So within the framework provided by the affirmation of spiritual reality, they continue to espouse and represent Perennialism or Traditionalism whereas I espouse and represent spiritually-based evolutionism.
With the Perennialist, I agree that more did not come from less, but rather less (matter, time and space) came from more (the divine source of all). This position meets head-on the concept of naturalistic evolutionism according to which mind evolved from matter. But, against Perennialism, and with Aurobindo and Steiner (as well as with Hegel and process thinkers such as Bergson and Whitehead), I am arguing that the material evolved from the spiritual (or Logos, Geist, Mind or Spirit, or an ontological prior by another name). The difference in these two positions, then, does not involve the reality or value of the spiritual source of evolution, but rather the degree of reality, or degree of value, attached to the change of consciousness from earliest times to the present - and into the future. Whereas I argue that the struggle of the evolution of consciousness toward love and freedom represents not only a change, but an intelligible, appropriate progression, the Traditionalist position remains convinced that this change from one mode of consciousness to another does not essentially alter the value of the mediated reality relative to the ineffable eternal.
As this dialogue with Huston Smith and the Perennialist position
progresses, we can also hope that it will provide an opportunity
to realize the ideal and the fruits of philosophizing as a
spiritual discipline.
The beauty of the Esalen-sponsored symposia is that the same
participants sat in the same room for six days, returning
again and again to the most basic and challenging philosophical
issues. Symposia which are more focused can be even more productive,
particularly, when, as in the following symposium, all of
the participants were well prepared by position papers distributed
in advance, and most, if not all, of the participants were
committed to the positive relationship between a meditative
practice and intellectual inquiry.
In March, 1988, The Elmwood Institute (44) sponsored a symposium on "Cognition and Creation," featuring particularly the views of Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics (44). Turning Point (45), and Uncommon Wisdom (47), and Georg Kühlewind, author of Stages of Consciousness (48) and Becoming Aware of the Logos (48). Although there were a dozen others of us at this symposium, the writings and contributions of these thinkers provided the polar tension of the essential topics, metaphors and terms of reference.
From the perspective of philosophy as a spiritual discipline, one of the intriguing developments in this symposium was the use of models, paradigms and broad scientific-philosophical contexts which formed the key concepts and points of reference for the symposium. The entire group presupposed the negative influence of Cartesian dualism, but Capra and Kühlewind brought with them, or embodied, a distinctive background which somehow took up residence in the group. In addition to the working papers by Fritjof Capra, Georg Kühlewind, Tyrone Cashman, Charlotte Linde, Friedemann-Eckart Schwarzkopf and Francisco J. Varela, most of the participants were familiar with the philosophical and scientific context from which, or out of which, Capra and Kühlewind were working. Although he has been profoundly influenced by Steiner (and to a lesser extent by Zen and Heidegger, linguistics and a host of other studies), Kühlewind neither referred to Steiner nor in any way used him as an authority figure. Capra was no less his own person, speaking, it seemed, entirely from his own personal experience and intellectual research. For the purposes of the symposium, however, he built up his post-Cartesian view with the aid of Gregory Bateson and the Chilean biologists, Humbert Maturana and Francisco Varela, co-authors of the Santiago theory of cognition according to which cognition is a continual bringing forth of a world (as knowledge) by the process of living.
As in all philosophic discussion, we as participants were called upon to hear and respond to the opinions and arguments of others, and simultaneously (in varying degrees, depending on the extent of our familiarity with these sources) to come to terms with the philosophical and scientific contexts within which these two thinkers, and other participants, were working. Since all philosophers, even those such as Capra and Kühlewind who are noticeably free of disciplic and derivative thinking, offer ideas which inevitably carry presuppositions, historical associations and weighted terminology, philosophic dialogue as spiritual discipline in this context required that we come to terms with the positive and negative influences of previous paradigms.
Many of the same positive qualities which characterized the
Esalen symposia were in evidence at this Elmwood Institute
conference. These four symposia have given me hope concerning
the possibility of practicing philosophy as a spiritual discipline
within a diverse group of opinionated philosophers. It also
adds support to my conviction that philosophizing could become
a spiritual exercise peculiarly appropriate and needed in
our time. When approached as a spiritual discipline, philosophy
will be seen to resemble the ideal expression of varied sciences
and arts - for when philosophy, sciences and arts are in ideal
form, they issue harmoniously from sympathetic imagination.
In perfect expression, both interpersonal and international
affairs can be regarded equally as science or art. (Hence
the affinity of Dag Hammarskjold, diplomat of peace, and Martin
Buber's "I-thou' philosophy of interpersonal relations)
(49).
Philosophy, along with other distinctly human activities,
requires and advances by sympathetic exploration and speculation,
by listening and dialogue. Unlike most other disciplines which
are dependent upon personal qualities, however, there is little
or no attention in professional philosophy to the cultivation
of personal - i.e., other or more than intellectual - capacities
which would enable the philosophical practitioner to know
more truly and profoundly.
What is the possibility for such a discipline, practically
as well as theoretically considered? Building on James' call
for a candid confession of temperamental differences and an
equally forthright embrace of the pluralism which must follow
such differences, it would seem that we need to develop the
ideal and habit of philosophizing within the strengths and
limits of our personal histories and orientations. The differences
of philosophic outlook, like the differences of temperament
and personal preference in other areas of life, can be considered,
and acted upon. as opportunities for personal and philosophical
growth. At a time in our cultural life when virtually every
activity and skill has been packaged as an inner activity
and path, philosophy remains a curious exception. It would
seem to be time to follow James in restoring consideration
of personality to philosophic dialogue -and time to emulate
the mystics and great spiritual teachers in transforming personality
by spiritual discipline.
In the tradition of Plato, or more accurately Plotinus and
Neo-Platonism, the work of J. N. Findlay stands out as perhaps
the most original and significant (50). The extent of his
commitment to the practice as well as the theory of meditative
philosophizing is evident in all of his writings, but most
particularly in his Gifford Lectures of 1965-66, revealingly
entitled The Discipline of the Cave and The Transcendence
of the Cave. Findlay's use of the cave metaphor is truer than
Plato's brief, and rather misleading, allegory of the cave
(51) in that Findlay is at pains to show the struggle to integrate
the mystical into a systematic ontology and epistemology.
Plato of course, was no less detailed and patient in his attempt
at rendering mathematical and spiritual insights in dialectic
form, but for purposes of philosophy, the allegory itself
has left as a permanent deposit in the western mind - on all
of the 'footnotes' constituting the history of western philosophy
- too sharp a dualism between ordinary thinking and thinking
outside the cave, in the Sun which is the Good. Findlay is
one of the most careful and convincing exponents of a philosophic
method by which to ascend to the divine, to the One (52).
As Findlay is on the Platonic side, Rudolf Steiner is on the
Aristotelian side of the attempt to provide a complete account
of reality by active - Steiner would call it free or spiritual
- thinking. Although he started his life work as an idealist
(his doctoral dissertation was on Fichte) (53), his work on
Goethe's natural science (54) in combination with his own
natural-scientific clairvoyance, led him to develop a method
of thinking which would restore the subjective and spiritual
to empirical science. For Steiner, philosophy, science and
the arts all follow ideally - and necessarily, if we would
achieve a truth which is at once personal and universal -
from the one capacity of imaginative or intuitive thinking.
Ultimately, if one were to follow Steiner's indications for
a new method of imaginal thinking, it would lead to a transpersonal
mode of perception, of supersensible perception (55). Philosophy
would be transformed into conscious, willful clairvoyance
because the philosopher would be thinking by a newly developed
capacity reminiscent both of the great philosophers such as
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, but equally of the initiates
and avatars, alchemists and mystics. Because he is a philosopher-initiate
of our own century, however, we can evaluate the fruits of
his spiritual scientific work and, if so inclined, test the
method by which he claims to have produced these achievements.
A thorough empiricist in his philosophy and spiritual-scientific
research, Steiner insisted that his readers should believe
nothing that he said (in his three hundred and fifty volumes
of disclosures), but rather conduct their own research. In
this regard, Steiner extends the contributions of Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle (and the footnotes' appended to them),
exemplifies the post-religious ideal of scientific objectivity,
and would seem to represent perhaps the fullest contemporary
reconciliation of philosophy, science and art as a three-fold
expression of spiritual discipline.
NOTES
(The second date in parentheses refers to the date of original publication.)
1
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality. Corrected Edition,
eds., David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (NY: Macmillan.
1978. p. 39). This remark, quoted almost always inaccurately
and incompletely in college level texts concerning Plato is
more qualified - and, in fact, more revealing - than ordinarily
indicated. The full text reads;
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical
tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to
Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which
scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude
to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His
personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience
at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual
tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization,
have made his writings an inexhaustible mine of suggestion.
Thus in one sense by stating by belief that the train of thought
in these lectures [i.e., in Process and Reality, which were
the Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh,
1927-28] is Platonic, lam doing no more than expressing the
hope that it falls within the European tradition. But I do
mean more: I mean that if we had to render Plato's general
point of view with the least changes made necessary by the
intervening two thousand years of human experience in social
organization, in aesthetic attainment, in science, and in
religion, we should have to set about the construction of
a philosophy of organism [which is the most accurate single
term description of the metaphysics set forth in Process in
Reality.] In such a philosophy the actualities constituting
the process of the world are conceived as exemplifying the
ingression (or "participation") of other things
which constitute the potentialities of definiteness for any
actual existence. The things which are temporal arise by their
participation in the things which are eternal. (pp. 39-40)
2
William James, Pragmatism, WORKS OF WILLIAM JAMES (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) p. 13.
3 Ibid., p. 12.
4 Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (NY: Oxford
University Press, 1959). p. 161.
5 J.O. Urmson. Philosophical Analysis: Its Development between
Two World Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956).
6 Albert William Levi, Philosophy and the Modern World (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press, 1959). p. 444.
7 In Plato's Apology (21a and 23b-c) Socrates defends himself
against attack by reporting that the Delphic Oracle told Socrates'
friend, Chacrephone, that Socrates was the wisest of men.
Socrates took this pronouncement as justification of his mission
to search for truth by cross-examining others thought to be
wise. For Socrates' confrontation with death, see Plato, Apology,
40d and Phaedo, 177c.
8 See Werner Jaeger. Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History
of his Development (NY: Oxford University Press, 1948), pp.
171-176, and Frederick Copleston. A History of Philosophy,
Vol.I, Part 11. pp. 30-45, pp. 113-20.
9 For a one-volume survey of Asian philosophies, see Hajime
Nakamura, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples (Honolulu, HA:
University of Hawaii Press, 1964).
10 Owen Barfield, Worlds Apart (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University
Press, 1963).
11 Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy (Spring Valley.
NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1973; 1923).
12 Lionel Adey, C.S. Lewis' "Great War" with Owen
Barfield British Columbia: University of Victoria [English
Literary Studies Monograph #14], 1978).
13 C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (NY: Harcourt Brace, 1956),
pp. 189-90.
14 Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction: A Studs' in Meaning, 3rd
ed. (Middletown. CT: Wesleyan University Press. 1973).
15 C.S. Lewis. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958) (1936).
16 Sri Anrobindo, The Life Divine, Centenary Edition (Pondicherry,
India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, 1972) (1935).
17 Henry James. Jr. The Letters of William James (Boston:
Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920). I, 190 quoted in John J. McDermott,
ed., The Writings of William James (NY: Random House, 1967),
xi.
18 For the relation between James and Royce, see Ralph Barton
Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (Boston,
MA: Little Brown, 1935), I, pp. 797-824.
19 William James to Josiah Royce. quoted in 'The Text of The
Varieties of Religious Experience, in William James. The Varieties
of Religious Experience, THE WORKS OF WILLIAM JAMES (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 533.
20 F.H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality (Oxford University
Press, 1930), (1893).
21 See Bateson on deutero-learning in Steps to an Ecology
of Mind (NY: Ballantine Books, 1972), and in Mind and Nature:
A Necessary Unity (NY: EP. Dutton. 1979).
22 Harry T. Costello, "Recollections of Royce's Seminar
on Comparative Methodology," The Journal of Philosophy,
LIII (February 2, 1956, pp. 72-73.
23 Forward by Saul Bellow. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
24 For a rendering of the contemporary significance of James
and Dewey, See John J. McDermott Culture of Experience.
25 See Richard Rorty, "That Old-Time Philosophy,"
The New Republic (April 4. 1988). pp. 28-37; Martha Nussbaum,
"Undemocratic Vistas," The New York Review of Books,
34 (Nov. 5), pp. 20-26.
26 With characteristic grumpiness, Bloom writes: "Lifestyle
justifies any way of life, as docs 'value' any 'opinion,'
The Closing of the American Mind. p. 235.
27 "Of course, the only serious solution is the one that
is almost universally rejected: the good old Great Books approach
. . .; trying to read them as their authors wished them to
be read" (p. 344).
28 See Martin Buber, land Thou, trans. Walter Kaufman (NY:
Scribners, 1970) and The Prophetic Faith (NY: Macmillan, 1945).
29 See The Varieties of Religious Experience and Essays in
Physical Research, WORKS OF WILLIAM JAMES, as cited above,
note 19.
30 Alfred North Whitehead, Aims of Education (NY: Macmillan,
1945).
31 Alfred North Whitehead: The Concepts of Nature (Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1964) (1920) and Modes
of Thought (NY: Free Press, 1938).
32 Gregory Bateson, Steps Toward an Ecology of Mind (NY: Bantam
Books. 1972).
33 For an annotated guide to Steiner's writings, see Robert
A. McDermott, ed., intro., The Essential Steiner (NY: Harper
& Row, 1984), pp. 359-450.
34 For an account of Rudolf Steiner's life and thought. respectively,
see Stewart C. Easton, Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch
(NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1980) and Man and World in the
Light of Anthroposophy (NY: Anthroposophic, Press, 1975).
35 For writings by and about Barfteld and Kuhlewind, see previous
issues of this journal.
36 For a biography for, and selection of writings by Perennialist-Traditionalist
thinkers, see Jacob Needleman. ed.. The Sword of Gnosis: Metaphysics,
Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism (NY: Penguin Books, 1974).
37 Since both of the small societies with which lam familiar,
Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and The Society
for the Advancement of American Philosophy, are exeedingly
collegial and foster genuine philosophic discourse, it may
be that specialized societies, most of which are loosely affiliated
with the American Philosophical Association, are generally
more humane.
38 The Religions of Man (NY: Harper & Row, 1958); Forgotten
Truth: The Primordial Tradition (NY: Harper & Row, 1867);
Beyond the Post-Modern Mind (NY: Crossroad, 1982).
39 Huston Smith. "Is Onto-Theology Passe? Or Can Religion
Endure the Death of Metaphysics?" Religion and Intellectual
Life (Spring 1986), p. 7. For a moving example of Huston Smith's
reinterpretation of a thinker as a result of philosophical
dialogue, see "A Note on Teilhard de Chardin," in
his Beyond the Post Modem Mind, pp. 124-27.
40 Patrick J. Hill. The Structure of Philosophical Controversy
(Boston University Ph.D dissertation, May 1969).
41 For Advaita Vedanta, see S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy,
2 volt. (NY: Macmillan. 1962) (1923), and Eliot Deutsch and
J.A.B. van Buitenen, Source Book of Advaita Vedanta (Honolulu,
HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1971).
42 James S. Cutsinger, The Form of Transformed Vision: Coleridge
and the Knowledge of God (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press,
1987).
43 The Elmwood Institue, P.O. Box 5805, Berkeley, CA 94705.
44 The Tao of Physics: An Explanation of the Parallels between
Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (Boulder, CO: Shambala,
1975).
45 The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture
(NY: Simon & Schuster. 1982).
46 Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People (NY:
Simon & Schuster, 1988)
47 Stages of Consciousness (West Stockbridge, MA: Lindisfarne
Press, 1984).
48 Becoming Aware of the Logos (West Stockbridge, MA: Lindisfarne
Press, 1985).
49 Meyer Levin, "The Sage Who Inspired Hammarskjold,"
Ness York Times Magazine (December 3, 1961), 43 ff.
50 John J. Findlay, The Discipline of the Cave (NY: Humanities
Press, 1966) and The Transcendence of the Cave (1967).
51 The Republic, 7.514.
52 In addition to the Gifford Lectures, See Ascent to the
Absolute (NY: Humanities Press, 1970).
53 Truth and Knowledge: Introduction to Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity, trans, Rita Stebbing, ed., Paul M. Allen (Blauvelt,
NY: Steinerbooks, 1963) (1892)
54 For Steiner on Goethe, see his: A Theory of Knowledge Based
on Goethe's World Conception, trans. Olin D. Wannamker (Spring
Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1968) (1896) and Goethe's
World View (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1985) (1897).
55 For the transition from philosophy to spiritual science,
see The Philosophy of Freedom: The Basis for a Modern World
Conception, trans. Michael Wilson (London: Rudolf Steiner
Press, 1970 (1894) and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and
Its Attainment (NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1947).
Back to The Faculty Page
