I thought you might find these responses to a correspondent somewhat interesting:
Karl Jaspers had an interesting way of framing the problem. We encounter Being as something that is beyond our ability to fully rationalize, but that nevertheless reveals itself to us in some degree. We are left with reason to orient ourselves, and to create a public forum to share our encounters with Being. But reason can only reflect aspects of the encounter, and is forever trying to glean something about what lies beyond the horizon of consciousness. For Jaspers, the great philosophers can help us to come to terms with our deep yearnings to reach beyond the limitations of reason, and can afford us useful information about what can be gleaned, information that can help us to reason and act more authentically as human
beings...
Basically, there are two modes of knowledge. The first is intuition,
which is direct, and the second is inference, which is indirect. Now, it was observed long ago that sensation must be recognized to have a pattern, and such recognition is a first order of abstraction. Otherwise, instead of seeing a dog, for example, you would merely see numerous instances of animated sensation. Perception is, thus, intermediate between intuition and inference. There are two modes of inference: induction and deduction. Induction attempts to formulate concepts out of numerous instances perceived to be somehow related, by distinguishing between what is essential and what is incidental to
a class of objects. It is, in a sense, a refinement and articulation of perception. Deduction tries to draw out the implications of the concepts that we have formulated...
While it is true that we experience a fall in some sense as a whole compared to other wholes, it is also true that we "know" what to expect because of concepts that have already been formulated, and under which we can bring the novel sensation to make sense of it. We "know", that is interpret, what is happening to us even as we are
experiencing it, and the interpretation is, in fact, part of the experience. Thus, the expectation of bodily harm is incorporated as part of our experience of falling from a height, and thus fear is evoked. Even if we have never fallen in a similar manner, we know
that it is dangerous, and even if we have fallen in such a manner before, we will merely anticipate the same thing occurring unless the concepts exist to alter the experience (for example, grab that rope!)....Thus, even our most fundamental experiences are
colored by interpretation...
Now, I think that you are correct to note that there are perceptions of patterns that have not risen to the level of describability, and that they may never be quite amenable to a perfect description, because of subtleties that can be "felt", but not related to
common experience sufficiently. I would say that a degree of abstraction is involved even there, on the perceptual level, but that the abstractions are distilled from the sort of experiences that do not lend themselves to common discourse. How do you "describe" the color blue to someone who has never seen it? You can't, finally, even though it requires a degree of abstraction to know that it is blue. More importantly,how can you tell someone whose overall life experience is remote what civilization is like, or education, or many
other things that are not universal to human beings. And finally, suppose that there are things that are somehow true, or at least relevant, that have no words at all?...
You seem to think that there is a problem with the paradigm that prevents the explanation of various perceptions, experiences, or insights. I am saying that language is inherently a rough instrument, that communication doesn't depend primarily upon love, but upon shared referents. One understands because the intention behind the use of certain terms is known, that is, one knows what is being pointed to. We explain the unknown in terms of the known, either by
recombining concepts in novel ways, or through the use of analogy. If we did not know what was intended by the terms used, communication would fail. I am saying that there are certain things that are either outside of the range of common experience (although they may be discussable by a more limited group of people); or where the recombination of terms is so complex, or the novelty so
startling; or where the analogy is so inadequate or misleading, that there is no good way to talk about them, either with anyone, or with anyone outside of "initiation". I do not see how the attempt at a different paradigm solves this problem, since in the end, people can either derive sense from what you say by relating it to their own experience and extrapolations from experience, or they can't... |
