The Relationship Between the Reality of the World and the Reality of Consciousness Nicolas Laos

Summer 2020

The Relationship between the Reality of the World and the Reality of Consciousness Nicolas Laos

Abstract Introduction he concept of being is the central concept ne of the most important problems in every T of philosophical inquiry. By the term “be- O philosophical endeavour is the analysis of ing,” we mean a reality that encapsulates every the relationship between consciousness and ex- kind of reality and is present in every field of ternal reality. The arguments that have been ar- philosophical inquiry. In the present essay, I ticulated with regard to this problem can be re- shall investigate the different aspects of being duced to two general philosophical “schools,” and the relationship between consciousness and namely: realism and idealism. the world. There are two general models The central premise of philosophical realism is whereby philosophers interpret the world: the the following: since experience provides human one gives primacy to the reality of the world, beings with images (irrespective of whether and it is known as philosophical realism, they are related or unrelated to each other) of a whereas the other gives primacy to the reality of reality that seems to be external to one’s con- consciousness, and it is known as philosophical sciousness, it naturally follows that this reality idealism. The monistic varieties of philosophi- (namely, the reality of the world) is the cause cal realism ignore important elements whose that generates the set of the given partial im- identification and analysis undermine the valid- ages, which exist in human consciousness. ity of the monistic varieties of philosophical re- Therefore, on the basis of the principle of cau- alism. The dualistic varieties of philosophical sality, there necessarily exists a mind-independ- realism lead to contradictions and logical gaps. ent reality. Idealism seems to be an arbitrary intellectual construction, which can be refuted on both sub- Realistic philosophical theories can be divided stantial and logical grounds. However, idealism into two categories: monism and dualism. Ac- has the advantage of allowing various philo- cording to monism, only one basic substance or sophical differentiations, which highlight the principle exists as the ground of reality. If this plasticity of idealism. In the present essay, I ______shall argue that the aforementioned two general models (realism and idealism) are not incom- About the Author patible with each other, but they complete each Dr. Nicolas Laos is a philosopher, religious vision- other, and their common function contains ele- ary, mathematician, and noopolitics expert and con- ments that underpin the mutual adaptation be- sultant, and he has taught courses in political philos- tween realism and idealism. My synthesis be- ophy and international relations theory at the Univer- tween realism and idealism is based on the use sity of Indianapolis (Dept. of International Rela- of the notion of “structure” (which refers to the tions). He is also a Freemason (regularly installed link between “substance” and “form”), and, Grand Hierophant–97ο of the Ancient and Primitive specifically, on the structural continuity be- Rite of Memphis–Misraim), and the Founder and Grand Master of the Scholarly and Political Order of tween the energies of cosmic/divine reality and the Ur-Illuminati (SPOUI). He is the author of sev- the energies of human consciousness. My con- eral scholarly books, including The Meaning of Be- ceptions of “intelligent activity” and of the “di- ing Illuminati (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, alectic of intelligence” elucidate a unique way 2019), in which he elucidates his research program of conceiving the synthesis between realism and of “Ur-Illuminism.” He can be reached at: Nicolas idealism, and they highlight the creativity of Laos, P.O. Box 9316, Athens 10032, Greece and also consciousness. at: [email protected].

principle is material, then we talk about monism are the original, eternal, and transcendent arche- of the materialistic type (or materialistic mon- types of things, existing prior to things and apart ism), and, if this principle is spiritual, then we from them and, thus, uninfluenced by the be- talk about monism of the spiritual type (or spir- coming of the manifest world. On the other itual monism). On the other hand, according to hand, as Plato maintains in his earliest books dualism, two fundamental substances or princi- (including his famous Republic), the particular ples exist, which often oppose each other. objects that we perceive are imperfect copies or The second general cosmological model to reflections of the eternal patterns (ideas). At this point, Platonism follows the philosophical leg- which one can reduce the relationships between 3 consciousness and external reality is idealism, acy of Parmenides. and it developed mainly in the context of Mo- According to Parmenides, there are no interme- dernity. As opposed to realism, idealism does diate ontological degrees of being between be- not distinguish between external reality and ing4 and nonbeing: if being has become, it must consciousness. The basic argument of the ideal- either have come from being or from nonbeing; ists is the following: if the substance of external if it has come from nonbeing, then it has come reality were distinct from the substance of con- from nothing, which is absurd; if it has come sciousness, then we would not be able to know from being, then it has come from itself, which external reality. Idealism presents the world not is equivalent to saying that it is identical with as something reflected in consciousness, but as itself and, hence, has always been. Therefore, an extension and a projection of consciousness Parmenides argues that, from being, only being outside itself and as consciousness itself. can come, that nothing can become something else, and that whatever is always has been and Ancient Realistic Philosophy always will be, which means that there can be he earliest Greek philosophy (which ex- only one eternal, self-existent, unchangeable T tends from about 585 BCE to the middle of being and that the world of the senses, which is the fifth century BCE)1 is realistic, in the sense susceptible to change, is an illusion. that it orients the mind toward the external na- During the last period of his life, Plato (espe- ture; it is mostly hylozoistic, specifically, it con- cially in his books Timaeus, Critias, Philebus, ceives nature as animated; it is ontological, in and Laws) was arguably influenced by the cri- the sense that it inquires into the essence of tique of his philosophy by Aristotle. As a result, things; and it is mainly monistic of the materi- Plato qualified his previous thesis about the ir- alistic type, namely, it seeks to explain its phe- reducibility of ideas (namely, beings) and phenomena by means of a single material principle, nomena (namely, nonbeings), and he argued such as a single natural element or a concrete that reality is composed of beings and nonbe- combination of different natural elements. Mo- ings as well as of nearly beings and nearly non- nistic theories of the spiritual type were devel- beings. As Brann, Kalkavage, and Salem ex- oped much later in the history of philosophy as plain, in Plato’s Sophist, nonbeing is not any- extreme varieties of dualistic theories. more “unthinkable and unutterable, as Father Two characteristic examples of dualistic real- Parmenides asserted,” but it is interpreted as the ism are Platonism and Aristotelianism. Plato- “Other,” and, thus, it “ceases to be mere noth- nism2 is a paradigmatic type of realistic philos- ingness and becomes instead the source of articulated diversity in things and in thought. Par- ophy: according to Plato, the “idea” compre- 5 hends or holds together the essential qualities menides has been superseded.” Indeed, in common to various particulars. Plato argues that Plato’s Sophist, “the Other is Nonbeing posi- ideas are not mere thoughts (abstractions) in the tively understood,” and it “is in fact a necessary minds of human beings or even in the mind of ingredient in thought and speech,” since “it is God; in Platonism, even the divine mind is ori- still negative enough to help account not only ented toward the ideas, which exist eternally, for the diversity of kinds but also for differences and they may be considered as the energy (or in their dignity. An image or an imitation, be- the mode of being) of the deity. Platonic ideas cause it has a share in Nonbeing, is not merely

other than its original but also less. It is less in external to the agent of desire. “One” is para- genuineness and may even fall further into fal- digmatically what Intellect is, and Intellect is sity.”6 paradigmatically what Soul is. Thus, there are Finally, Plato asserts the existence of a series of two phases of the Soul’s existence: in the first, different ontological levels, which inspired Ne- it is turned toward Intellect, and, therefore, it oplatonism. Neoplatonism, mainly through the acts as its archetype and contemplates ideas; in works of Plotinus (ca. 204/5–70 AD), Proclus the second, it is turned toward the sensuous (412–85 AD), and Dionysius the Areopagite world, and, therefore, it is impelled to bring or- (one of the earliest Church Fathers), formulated der into matter. In his Enneads, Plotinus main- a religious and philosophical argument accord- tains that matter is to be identified with evil and ing to which there exists a series of fundamental privation of all form or intelligibility. However, substances such that: they are related to each according to Plotinus, matter is evil not in itself, other, either through emanation or through re- but matter is evil only when it impedes human- turn, and they compose an ontological hierarchy ity’s return to the One. In other words, Plotinus that starts from the One, namely, from the abso- maintains that matter is evil when considered as lute being, and ends in matter, namely, in the a goal or an end that is a polar opposite to the absolute nonbeing. One. The three basic principles of Plotinus’s meta- Furthermore, Proclus, by applying his views physics are called by him “the One” (or, equiv- about the place of matter in the metaphysical hi- alently, “the Good,” namely, the good-in-itself), erarchy and carrying long-held views, like those “Intellect,” and “Soul.”7 The One is the abso- of Timaeus, through to their conclusion, argues lutely simple first principle of all. It is both that matter is not the absolute nonbeing, but it “self-caused” and the cause of being for every- has a degree of being. In particular, Proclus ar- thing else in the universe. Plotinus was inspired gues as follows: Given that bodies are made of with the idea of the One by studying Plato’s Re- limit and unlimited, it naturally follows that public, where Plotinus’s One is named “the Idea matter is an unlimited, and form is a limit. If, of the Good,” and by studying Plato’s Parmen- therefore, as Proclus maintains, God substanti- ides, where Plotinus’s One is the subject of a se- ates every unlimited, it is evident that God also ries of deductions. Because of its absolute sim- substantiates matter, which is the last unlimited. plicity and transcendence, the One or the Good, From Proclus’s perspective, God is “the First is indescribable directly. Plotinus argues that we and Ineffable Cause of Matter,” and, “because can only grasp it indirectly by deducing what it everywhere the sensible exist by analogy to the is not. The universe is an emanation of the One, intelligible causes . . . likewise, the unlimited which is down-here [‘gross matter’] derives an inevitable overflow of the One’s infinite 8 power or actuality. The first emanation of the from the Prime Unlimited.” Moreover, Proclus One is Intellect. This emanation is a unified sys- argues as follows: “. . . the Prime Unlimited, tem of all the eternal and immutable entities that which is prior to the mixed existence (Being), is account for or explain the possibility of intelli- established at the summit of the intelligibles and gible predication, namely, the Platonic ideas. In from there it extends its irradiation as far as to other words, in the first stage of the divine em- the last things, so, according to it, Matter pro- anation, the One contemplates the pure ideal ceeds from the One and the Unlimited which is cosmos. The second stage of the divine emana- prior to Being . . . For this reason, matter is to a degree good and infinite, as well as that which tion is Soul, which is an image of Intellect and 9 less perfect than the original. In the highest life is most obscure and formless.” With regard to (namely, in the life of Intellect), we find the Dionysius the Areopagite, another major Neo- highest form of desire, because that desire is platonic scholar, it should be mentioned that his work consists in putting a “Christian dress on eternally satisfied by contemplating the One 10 through the entire array of ideas that are internal the thought of Proclus.” to it. The Soul is a lower level of life, since it is In general, within the framework of Neoplato- the principle of desire for objects that are nism, Plato’s dualism is transformed into a type

of theoretical spiritualism, since the One, or the not been completed yet, and it may be only at idea of Good, is considered to be the absolute its initial formative stage, but it is already firmly being, whereas matter, as such, has neither oriented toward a specific purpose (“end”). Ac- form, quality, power nor unity, and it is consid- tuality is that state of being in which a being’s ered, even by Plotinus, as the absolute nonbe- existential program has been completed, and the ing, until Proclus is led to assert the value and completion of this program determines both the goodness of both stable matter, as a cosmic sub- corresponding being itself and the correspond- stratum created by the One, and unstable, ing being’s behaviour. For instance, as long as “gross” matter found in the world of the senses. a pot remains stored in a cabinet, it exists potentially, but, when it is used in accordance with Aristotelianism is a dualistic realism, since it is the purpose for which it has been constructed, it based on the equality between two elements that exists actually. Furthermore, Aristotle distin- are related to each other, namely: matter and guishes between “primary substances” (those form. All objects are composed of a certain ma- which exist only as subjects and never as predi- terial arranged in a certain way. The material cates) and “secondary substances” (species and they are composed of is their matter, and the genera); for instance, Socrates is a primary sub- way it is arranged is their form. In other words, stance, while man is a secondary substance according to Aristotle,11 all objects have matter (man is predicated of Socrates). (namely, a material of which they are composed) and form (namely, they are characterized Medieval Realistic Philosophy by a certain way in which their matter is ar- and the Rise of Idealism ranged). The form of a thing makes a thing what it is. For instance, form allows us to distinguish he Aristotelian theory of form and matter between a vase and a sculpture. T played a decisive role in the medieval philosophical clash between philosophical realism Whereas Plato asserts the separation of the form and nominalism. During 268–70 AD, Porphyry, of a thing from the thing itself, Aristotle argues a Syrian pupil of Plotinus, wrote his Introduc- that every form is, like the Platonic “idea,” eter- tion to the Categories of Aristotle.12 Boethius’s nal, but, instead of being outside matter, it is in Isagoge (sixth century AD), a Latin translation matter; they coexist. In particular, form is the of Porphyry’s Introduction, became a standard manner in which matter exists. Thus, according medieval textbook in European schools and uni- to Aristotle, reality itself is formed within the versities.13 world of the senses by matter and by the manifestation of a spiritual factor, specifically, form As he was writing his commentaries on (or species). Within the framework of Aristote- Porphyry’s Introduction, Boethius came across lianism, when we say that an object changes its the problem of universals. By the term “univer- form, we do not mean that form itself changes, sals,” we mean general or abstract qualities, since no form (species), as such, can change characteristics, properties, kinds or relations into another form. Change occurs when the ar- (for instance, being male/female, solid/liq- rangement of matter changes, namely, when it uid/gas, or a certain color, etc.) that can be pred- assumes different forms. In other words, the icated of individuals or particulars, or that indi- original form of matter does not change into an- viduals or particulars can be regarded as sharing other form, but a new form fashions matter. or participating in them. The following sentence in Boethius’s Latin version of Porphyry’s Intro- Intimately related to the distinction between duction ignited an ongoing controversy in me- form and matter is the distinction between “ac- dieval philosophy: “Next as to genera and spe- tuality” (“einai emergeia” = “being actually”) cies, do they actually subsist, or are they merely and “potentiality” (“einai dynamei” = “being thoughts existing in the understanding alone; if potentially”). In particular, Aristotle identifies they subsist, are they corporeal or incorporeal; actuality with form, while identifying matter are they separate from sensible things or only in with potentiality. Potentiality is that state of be- and of them?”14 The two major general philo- ing in which a being’s existential program has sophical positions (“schools”) that emerged in

the context of the aforementioned medieval liberated from the corporeal passions. Also, philosophical controversy were medieval philo- when he writes that “true philosophers practice sophical realism (or essentialism) and nominal- dying,” since “they desire to have the soul apart ism. by itself alone” (Plato, Phaedo, 67e), he means that the soul must be liberated from the senses, Medieval philosophical realists were based on a because a soul that is enslaved to the senses can- peculiar variety of rationalism according to not sense the truth (Plato, Phaedo, 114c). which Aristotle’s general concepts (universals) were interpreted like Platonic ideas, namely, From the perspective of original Platonic phi- like entities totally distinct from the material losophy, the knowledge of ideas by the human world, and they interpreted Plato’s ideas like being is ultimately a mystical experience, con- logical substances, which was absurd. Thus, sisting in one’s participation in divine energies medieval philosophical realists endowed ab- (ideas), and not merely the result of correct syl- stractions of genus with ontological autonomy. logistic reasoning. Hence, intimately related to In fact, medieval philosophical realists, specifi- Platonic epistemology is Platonic love, namely, cally, essentialists, failed to understand that, far a pure philosophical experience of mystical un- from being identical with concepts (abstract ion. On the other hand, realistic medieval phi- thoughts), Platonic ideas are the energy (or the losophers interpreted Platonic ideas like logical mode of being) of the deity (the good-in-itself), substances, thus establishing and proclaiming a and that, for this reason, Plato argues that the peculiar worship of reason (rational thinking) knowledge of ideas by the human being presup- and giving rise to social systems and poses not only logical accountability but also worldviews that are oppressive exactly because psychic cleansing. The issue of psychic cleans- they are logically closed systems, in the sense ing was methodically studied by Plato in his that they are accountable only to the system’s book Phaedo. In Phaedo (74a–c), Plato made intrinsic rationality. The reason why the medie- the first presentation of his theory of ideas as val Papacy was the major source of oppression autonomous entities and as the archetypal real- was the fact that, in the context of scholasticism, ity of beings. Additionally, in Phaedo (65e– the Papacy’s major theologians subscribed to 66a), Plato studies the problem of the the aforementioned variety of rationalism, thus knowledge of ideas, where he argues that “he transforming Saint Peter’s Church into the ma- who prepares himself most carefully to under- jor guardian and provider of rationalism in the stand the true essence of each thing that he ex- Middle Ages. amines would come nearest to the knowledge of Indeed, in the Middle Ages, the scholastics’ ra- it,” and that this would be done most perfectly tionalist approach to philosophical realism (spe- by employing “pure, absolute reason” and by cifically, essentialism) was used by the Vatican removing oneself, “so far as possible, from eyes in order to consolidate its power and authority. and ears, and, in a word, from his whole body.” Using the scholastics’ variety of realism as an In this way, Plato integrated the Orphic Myster- instrument of cultural diplomacy, the Pope ies’ tradition of cleansing into philosophy. managed to impose his plenitudo potestatis. On According to Plato, the soul suffers because it is the basis of the scholastics’ philosophical real- mixed with the body and its appetites, and it can ism, the Pope could behave like his archetype, be cured with psychic cleansing. Plato under- namely, like his most abstract form, which was stands psychic cleansing as “purification and God himself. In general, the argument that the purgation” (Plato, Cratylus, 405a), and, from individual is significant and valuable only if and this viewpoint, he speaks about the acquisition to the extent that it serves the universal implies of “a pure mind” (ibid, 396c) and about “mak- that the authority that represents the universal ing a man pure in body and soul” (ibid, 405b). has the right and the duty to suppress the indi- Hence, when Plato writes that “they expel the vidual in order for the universal to be served ac- lot and leave the soul of their victim swept cording to the judgment of the established au- clean, ready for the great initiation” (Plato, Re- thority, which is (supposed to be) the exclusive public, 560e), he means that the soul must be image of the corresponding universal. The

oppressive and authoritarian nature of medieval and he argues that humanity’s salvation consists Western realism is not due to realism itself, in the soul’s elevation into the intelligible namely, it is not due to the very belief in a mind- world. Augustine’s thought signals a philosoph- independent reality, but it is due to the fact that ical shift from the natural world to the soul. The medieval Western realism identified Platonic aforementioned shift resembles Plotinus’s ideas with logical substances, thus endowing thought, but it is something different. Plotinus logical concepts with substance, and, therefore, (contra Plato’s Phaedo and Porphyry’s Intro- it equated the degree of reality with the degree duction to the Categories) maintains that the of generality (level of abstraction). On the other mind (nous) does not simply participate in the hand, Plato, by refusing to identify his notion of essence of cosmos, and it is not simply related an eternal, mind-independent world of ideas to the essence of cosmos, but, since, according with the world of logic, and by conceiving ideas to Plotinus, the mind dynamically contains a as divine energies rather than as logical sub- multiplicity (the forms) and a duality (knower stances, gives rise to an epistemology, a moral and known, or intellect and intelligible), it con- theory, and a social theory that, instead of being stitutes the essence of cosmos, which implies an founded on the oppression that stems from log- active and creative consciousness. In Plotinus’s ical necessities and their “vicars,” are founded own words, “no distinction exists between be- on an enlightened intuition, which underpins ing and knowing,” and “the truest life is such by the mystical union between humanity and the virtue of intellection and is identical with the good-in-itself in the form of humanity’s partic- truest intellection” (Plotinus, Ennead III, 8). ipation in the world of ideas (namely, in the de- However, the previous Plotinian syllogism does ity’s mode of being). not lead to Augustine’s intellective individual- ism, because Plotinus argues that the mind In order to understand the controversy between (namely, the quintessence of the human being) philosophical realism and idealism in the con- is essentially divine, and, therefore, the subject text of medieval and modern Western philoso- cannot become ontologically autonomous, phy, we must bear in mind that, since the era of namely, it cannot be ontologically individual- Augustine (354–430) who was Bishop of Hippo ized (it cannot become a “pure subject”). Ac- Regius (located in the Roman province of Af- cording to Plotinus’s Ennead III, God (the ab- rica), Western thought has been oriented toward solute One) is pure spirit, and He creates the the thesis that the certitude of self-conscious- soul (the second level of the divine emanation); ness forms the basis of truth. Thus, as I have al- the soul is the effect and image of pure spirit ready argued, inherent in the medieval scholas- (and, like every effect or image, less perfect tics’ variety of philosophical realism is rational- than the original), it is supersensuous and intel- ism, which, in turn, expresses the medieval ligible, it is active and has ideas, and, by con- scholastics’ endorsement of the thesis that the templating the ideas, it forms the cosmos in the certitude of self-consciousness, specifically, of ideas’ image. The soul produces matter (the the soul’s rational faculty, forms the basis of third and lowest level of emanation), which is truth, which runs counter to Plato’s, Aristotle’s, absolute impotence and privation, in order to act and the Neoplatonists’ own varieties of philo- on it and, thus, form the world. sophical realism. Original Platonic realism is primarily founded on mystical experience (par- According to Plotinus, the world per se is nei- ticipation in a transcendent reality) and the ther good nor evil; it is good in the extent to quest for divine illumination (existential salva- which it participates in being, and it is evil in tion), whereas the scholastics’ “Platonism” is the extent to which it participates in matter. Be- primarily founded on logical abstraction and fore Plotinus, Plato, in his Sophist, had already the quest for a rational way of organizing life. argued that being and nonbeing are the extreme terms of an ontological series, whose interme- From the distinction between the sensible and diate terms are the nonbeing of being and the the intelligible worlds, Augustine infers that the being of nonbeing. Hence, the vision of truth is soul knows bodies only through an inward ex- achieved through the sensation of the world, perience and not through its relation to the body,

and the ancient Greek notion of beauty signifies was different from the theology that prevailed the triumph of spirit, namely, the triumph of the in medieval West, the knowledge of God con- ideas over the amorphy (formlessness) of non- sists in humanity’s participation in God’s mode being. By contrast, Augustine maintains that of being, and, hence, in a metaphysically knowledge is in no way derived from the senses, grounded experience of freedom from every but it is only derived from the ability of the soul (logical and natural) necessity.15 On the other to contemplate immate- hand, for the scholastic rial, moral, and aesthetic From the perspective of the West, the knowledge of truths within itself, God is analogous to the namely, without needing mystical Greek Church Fa- knowledge of the human to be in touch with an thers, who were philosophi- being, in the sense of an external reality, specifically founded on Plato and Ne- inward experience that cally, with the reality of stems from the human the world. oplatonism, thus articulating will, which continuously an interpretation of Christ’s forms and reforms the In his treatise De libero contents of conscious- arbitrio, Augustine de- Gospel that was different from ness. Augustine substi- fines ratio as the logical the theology that prevailed in tutes sensation with will, process according to and he argues that the which the intellect dis- the West, the knowledge of awareness of an external cerns and connects the God consists in humanity’s stimulus is a result of the objects of knowledge, participation in God’s mode of soul’s intentionality, and, furthermore, he dis- whereas Neoplatonism cerns two functions of being, and, hence, in a meta- distinguishes the mind human reason: ratio su- physically grounded experi- (nous) from the soul (the perior and ratio inferior. ence of freedom from every soul being second level According to Augus- of the divine emanation), tine’s De trinitate XII, (logical and natural) necessity. and, therefore, it also ratio superior discerns distinguishes an external stimulus per se from ideal reality in and through the human soul and the act of its conscious recognition. Further- leads to the truth, whereas ratio inferior uses the more, according to Neoplatonism, the task of senses to look outward on the world of sense the soul is to unite spirit with matter. objects and cannot lead to the truth. Augustine contrasts the inner truth and certainty of impres- Before Neoplatonism, Aristotle, in his On the sion (intellectual perception) with the uncer- Soul, had pointed out that ancient Greek psy- tainty of sense perception. In Augustine’s phil- chology is a theory of the acquisition of osophical and theological works, the soul is the knowledge through the senses. Additionally, in epitome of personality, and ratio superior, as Plato’s Timaeus (45d), the soul, like the body, the exclusive way in which the soul knows the is characterized by “that sensation which we truth, is combined with the rejection of sense now term ‘seeing,’” namely, even though cog- perception. As a consequence, from Augus- nition is not founded on bodily sensations, it is tine’s perspective, truth is not a matter of spir- not founded on representations created by a sub- itual freedom, since it is constrained by ratio su- jective mind, either. Plato argues that cognition perior, and, therefore, the human being is onto- is founded on a peculiar mental sensation, in the logically heteronomous and cannot be united sense that the mind does not reproduce an exter- with God in this life (namely, salvation is im- nal object through a process of visualization, or possible in this life). conceptualization, nor does it create mental models of an external object, but it participates From the perspective of the mystical Greek in the transcendent idea of an external object, Church Fathers, who were philosophically and, therefore, it knows an external object due founded on Plato and Neoplatonism, thus artic- to the experience of the light of the ulating an interpretation of Christ’s Gospel that

corresponding idea. As a result of this relation comprehensive, exhaustive understanding of between knowledge and the light of the idea, truth. Plato’s philosophy is opposite to every form of The formative period of scholasticism, begin- intellective subjectivism. By contrast, Augus- ning with the ninth and ending with the twelfth tine’s distinction between the soul and the body century, was founded on the works of Augus- implies the following: rational truth is reflected tine and Boethius. As a conclusion, from the in human spirit, but the personal will of God can above-mentioned arguments, it follows that this be known only by analogy with the human be- period is marked by an attempt to arrive at a ing’s personal will. For this reason, Augustine comprehensive, exhaustive knowledge of God can be regarded as the father of intellective sub- according to the methodology and the criteria of jectivism. the human soul (intellect and sentiment). This As I have already argued, the radical distinction attempt put an indelible imprint on the entire between the sensuous and the supersensuous medieval Western thought and determined the worlds played a dominant role in the work of course of scholasticism. The dominant philo- the Roman statesman and philosopher Boethius, sophical path that the West followed during this too. Boethius’s work exerted a very important stage of scholasticism is a variety of philosoph- influence on the entire medieval Western ical realism, according to which, as I have al- thought, since, until the thirteenth century, Bo- ready argued, Aristotle’s general concepts (uni- ethius’s books constituted the only significant versals) were conceived, in Platonic fashion, as intellectual link between Greek philosophy and the real substances of things and as prior to the Latin world. However, this link was condi- things (universalia sunt realia ante rem). tioned by the mentalities of the Latin world and In the ninth century, the first Western scholar by the scope of the Latin education. The pri- who methodically studied Greek Church Fa- mary scope of the Latin education was rhetori- thers was John Scottus Eriugena, who translated cal power and, hence, syllogistic perfection. In a collection of writings of Dionysius the Areop- the medieval West, the pursuit of rhetorical agite, Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise On the Mak- power led to the substitution of metaphysical ing of Man, and Maximus the Confessor’s Am- pursuits by rationality. Thus, in the medieval bigua into Latin. In Eriugena’s studies about the West, the Greek term logos was substituted by relation between faith and reason, the former the Latin term ratio, and Boethius proposed a takes precedence over the latter, but Eriugena Platonic interpretation of Aristotle’s logic. Both does not underestimate the significance of rea- Boethius and Augustine interpreted Aristotle’s son. Moreover, in Eriugena’s thought, faith fol- general concepts (universals) like Platonic lows the path of philosophy, and, for Eriugena, ideas, and they interpreted Plato’s ideas like philosophy offers a cataphatic form of logical substances. The cause of this confusion knowledge that underpins apophatic (mystical) of the medieval Western thought is that the theology. Eriugena endorsed the Augustinian Latin scholars who were concerned with meta- formula “crede, ut intelligas” (“believe so that physical problems ignored that, from the per- you may understand”; Augustine, Sermones, spective of ancient Greek philosophy, the prob- 43, 9), and, inspired by Neoplatonism, he cre- lem of “substance” was never an intellec- ated a system of philosophical realism in which tual/rhetorical power game. Aristotle’s logic it- general concepts (universals) are substances, self is primarily concerned with the human rea- and they create and determine every other en- son’s potential to comprehend and express an tity. For Eriugena, the cosmos (universe) is God external spiritual reality (the reason of the cos- who has given form to Himself, a partial unfold- mos), and not with the abstract systems of for- ing of the divine nature, and a pure theophany. mal logic. In contrast to the Greek term “logos,” From the perspective of Eriugena’s logic, God which refers to an experiential understanding of is the superessential and indefinable absolute truth through participation/sharing (in Greek, universal, but He is still part of Nature, and, “methexis”), the Latin term “ratio” means the therefore, in the context of Eriugena’s logic, in- individual ability to syllogistically arrive at a itially, the individual is deduced from the

general, and, finally, in Neoplatonic fashion, the and the union of individuals in the genus or in individual is absorbed back into the general. the species is a mere fabrication of language or Eriugena maintains that the real is the rational, the work of thought; only individuals are real. and the rational is the real.16 Nominalism paved a way to positive science. The thesis of the ontological autonomy of uni- However, in the twelfth century, Peter Abelard, versals (general concepts) and the tendency of a French philosopher, theologian, and preemi- medieval Western philosophers to identify real- nent logician, put forward a new theory, known ity with the intellect characterize the work of as conceptualism, which is an intermediate po- Anselm (1033–1109), Archbishop of Canter- sition between philosophical realism/essential- bury, who was the leading proponent of philo- ism (e.g., Eriugena, Anselm, etc.) and nominal- sophical realism (more accurately, essentialism (e.g., Roscellinus). According to Abelard, ism) during the formative stage of scholasti- universals are neither substances nor mere cism.17 Following the legacy of Augustine and words, but they are products of intellectual ab- Boethius, Anselm attempted to offer logical straction. Abelard maintains that, through ab- proofs for the existence of God. In his Proslo- straction, the mind can separate form from mat- gium, Anselm articulated his so-called ontolog- ter, but form does not subsist outside the mind, ical proof of God, which consists in deducing since it is predicated of a class of things. Abe- the existence of God from the concept of God, lard opposes essentialism by arguing that we in showing that the very concept of God implies cannot predicate a thing of a thing, but we can Its existence. According to Anselm’s syllo- predicate a universal of many things, and, there- gisms, the concept of God is the notion of some- fore, a universal cannot be ontologically auton- thing greater than which nothing can be omous (namely, it is not a thing). For instance, thought, and, therefore, if God did not exist, this the concept of a human being does not subsist concept would not be the concept of the greatest in the world, but it exists only through and thing thinkable (since it would not have exist- within particular beings. Hence, knowledge is ence). However, the Benedictine monk Gaunilo derived from both conceptualization and sense (or Gaunillon), in his anonymously published perception. Additionally, Abelard opposes book Against the Reasoning in Anselm’s nominalism by arguing that the universal is a Proslogium, exposed the fallacy in Anselm’s ar- word only in relation to the objects of which it gument: human mind’s capability of construct- is predicated, and, therefore, universals are not ing the existence of God by logic, Gaunilo mere words, but conceptual predicates.19 maintains, is the same as human mind’s capa- As a response to the rising spirit of positive sci- bility of constructing the existence of any other ence and to Abelard’s conceptualism, which ad- thing by logic, that is, so far as it is thought. For dresses the problem of knowledge inde- instance, by Anselm’s way of thinking, one pendently of theology, Bernard of Clairvaux might prove the existence of a perfect island: (1090–1153), a French abbot and the primary the definition of a perfect island as the most per- builder of the Cistercian Order, admitted the fect conceivable island is enough, by Anselm’s significance of dialectic and science, but he em- way of thinking, in order to prove that a perfect phasized the depth of Christ’s humility and island exists. love, and, thus, he became the founder of medi- In the eleventh century, Anselm’s logic became eval Western mysticism. In his work On Loving an important cause of intellectual uncertainty, God, Bernard of Clairvaux argues that his vi- because the French philosopher and theologian sion of a loving union with God presupposes Roscellinus, a contemporary of Anselm, argued freedom from the mortal body, and, therefore, it that the content of Anselm’s logic consists of consists in a psychological phenomenon of names, not of real entities.18 Thus, Roscellinus “divinization,” which is due to an ecstatic men- founded nominalism. According to Roscellinus, tal state.20 By the term “ecstasy,” we mean a ideas are simply words (flatus vocis), or names, state of consciousness in which the subject is to- not substances. Hence, for Roscellinus, the ge- tally involved with an object of one’s aware- nus and the species have no substantial unity, ness, whereas, in an ordinary state of

consciousness, the subject is aware of other ob- theologian, and the leader of nominalism was jects, too. Hence, ecstasy is an altered state of William of Ockham (c.1280/5–c.1349), an Eng- consciousness characterized by diminished or lish Franciscan priest, philosopher, and theolo- minimal awareness of other objects. For in- gian (In 1328, Ockham was officially excom- stance, Bernard of Clairvaux’s conception of municated for leaving Avignon (for Pisa) with- the loving union with God involves the cessa- out permission. Louis of Bavaria, the Holy Ro- tion of awareness of the physical body. man Emperor, offered Ockham’s group protection, and, in 1330, Ockham traveled to the im- In the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries, the perial court in Munich, where he spent the rest West experienced a period of philosophical and of his life writing about political and ecclesio- theological flourishing (known also as the pe- logical affairs). riod of the culmination of scholasticism) as a result of the influence that Arab and Jewish phi- In his Scriptum super libros Sententiarum and losophers exerted on the Latin West during that Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas argues period and because, during the same period, the that the truth is one, and that the soul, as a sep- Latin West came in touch with Aristotle’s orig- arate species and as the entelechy of the body, inal writings. However, it should be pointed out unites the domains of the sensuous and the in- that the Arabs’ treatises on Aristotle, which ex- telligible into a unified natural whole erted a very strong influence on medieval West- (knowledge originates in Augustine’s ratio in- ern thought, were based on particular Neopla- ferior and culminates with Augustine’s ratio su- tonic approaches that had prevailed among the perior). According to Thomas Aquinas, the soul Arabs.21 Under the Abbasid Caliphate, the is the supreme, ne plus ultra, intelligible crea- works of Plato, Plotinus, and Aristotle were tion of God, but it is immortal, immaterial and translated into Arabic and influenced philoso- capable of comprehending the intelligible phy throughout the Islamic world. Neoplato- realm. However, Thomas Aquinas maintains, nism flourished especially among the Persian the soul is bound to the body, and, therefore, the philosophers of the tenth century and in the Fat- soul does not directly understand the intelligi- imid court of Egypt in the eleventh century. Ad- bles, but only indirectly, through reason (ratio), ditionally, since the Hellenistic era, the influ- which leads to the conception of the universal ence of Neoplatonism on Judaism had been so within the individual. strong that many ancient and medieval Jewish For Thomas Aquinas, the soul comprehends the scholars articulated a synthesis between Neo- essences of things through the conception of the platonism and the Jewish religion (for instance, corresponding species, and it comprehends the the Kabbalistic literature consists mainly in a accidental properties of things through their synthesis between Jewish mysticism, Neoplato- sensible species, or sensuous representations. nism, and the ancient Pythagorean school, from But, from Thomas Aquinas’s viewpoint, sensi- which the Kabbalists’ “Tree of Life” and Gema- ble species are neither Platonic/Neoplatonic tria derive).22 emanations nor Democritus’s idols (i.e., projec- During the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, tions of bodies themselves, guided by one’s the West continued to have fragmented eyes toward one’s soul). Thomas Aquinas ar- knowledge of Greek philosophy and of the mys- gues that immaterial entities (namely, sub- tical Greek Church Fathers’ writings, and it de- stances distinct from the sensible species by pended on incorrect translations of the Greek which they are represented) exist within mate- philosophical and theological vocabulary, but, rial bodies, so that the comprehension of objects in this way, the scholastics managed to create a by the human mind is not externally determined peculiar Western philosophical and theological by their representations, but it is determined by identity that paved a way to the Renaissance. the inner principle of comprehension, specifi- During this period of the cultural history of the cally, by reason. With Thomas Aquinas’s epis- West, the leader of philosophical realism/essen- temology, rational thought, as an exact organ of tialism was Thomas Aquinas (1224–74), an knowledge, repudiates the ancient Greek theory Italian Dominican priest, philosopher, and of ideas (as entities independent of

consciousness), since the ancient Greek theory Razor,” since it shaves off the unnecessary uni- of ideas is not a rationalist theory of knowledge, versals.23 but it is a method of spiritual cleansing. In con- In his Summa totius logicae, William of Ock- trast to the ancient Greek theory of ideas, ham argues that only particulars exist, and they Thomas Aquinas’s epistemology paved a way can be known independently of abstract con- to the modern tradition of individual intellective cepts, through simple psychological activities, truth (rationalist subjectivism), which was specifically, through representation. Science, founded in the seventeenth century by Des- therefore, is wholly concerned with self-evident cartes. The ancient Greek theory of truth qua truths (tautologies) and truths known by experi- spiritual cleansing and participation in the ex- ence. If one believes in the ontological auton- ternal realm of ideas leads to a holistic under- omy of general concepts, then universals (even standing of society, whereas rationalism main- though, for William of Ockham, they exist tains that truth can be found through analysis or merely as thoughts in the mind) function as nec- calculus, and, ultimately, it identifies truth with essary constraints on the reality of the particu- the self-assurance of the ego. lar/individual and, also, on God’s freedom. According to Thomas Aquinas, the universal Thus, in order to save God’s and humanity’s does not exist as such (universal qua universal), freedom from universals, William of Ockham but it exists only in an individualized manner proposes the complete abandonment of general within material bodies due to the quantitative ideas, and he reduces them to psychological differentiation of matter. From this perspective, representations, meaning “expressions of one’s human knowledge originates in the senses, and own inner states” (intellections, acts of will, joy, its integration is brought about by reason. In the and sorrow). William of Ockham’s nominalism context of Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy, rea- is the first ontological legitimization of the in- son reigns over the soul, and its cognitive dividual qua “subject” (i.e., a historical actor power, leading to the knowledge of God, is the filled with reason and will and, more precisely, most important asset of the human being. Thus, a historical being capable of acting on the basis Thomas Aquinas maintains, the intellect, or the of reason and will) and of the individual’s au- ability to reason, is superior to the will (since tonomy from communal authority. the will of a rational being is determined by the Aquinas’s philosophical and theological system knowledge of the good), and, additionally, the consists in a rational hierarchy of syllogistic intellect is superior to freedom (since the free- reasoning, in the context of which the degree of dom of a rational being is underpinned by the generality is equated with degree of reality, and necessity of reason). Inherent in the previous ar- the most general concept corresponds to the de- guments of Thomas Aquinas is a latent form of ity. In other words, Aquinas’s philosophical and the rationalist humanism that became explicit in theological system is a type of religious ration- the West in the context of Modernity. alism. As a result, for Thomas Aquinas, society William of Ockham’s and Thomas Aquinas’s consists (or, at least, should consist) in an au- essentialism can be regarded as the two sides of thoritarian hierarchy that is the image of the the same coin, specifically, of the Western ra- aforementioned rational hierarchy of syllogistic tionalist humanism. William of Ockham’s nom- reasoning, and the Pope is the authority that can inalism begins with the skeptical arguments that explain and impose the will of the supreme uni- sense perception is not a source of certain versal, or the divine wisdom. According to knowledge and that universals (intelligible spe- Thomas Aquinas, the essence of politics con- cies) have no existence outside the mind (that sists in the deliberate guiding by human reason is, they are not inherent in things). According to of humanity’s will in social actions. Moreover, William of Ockham, to assume mind-independ- Thomas Aquinas argues that the state has posi- ent universals, as essentialists/philosophical re- tive value in and of itself on the grounds that it alists do, is to make entities of abstractions, and, is an expression of God’s providence and will hence, it is an unnecessary doubling of the uni- for humankind and it secures peace.24 verse. This principle is known as “Ockham’s

On the other hand, gradually, the medieval any type of religious rationalism, including the Western subject realized that the most effective medieval scholastics’ essentialism/philosophi- way to fight against Papal absolutism consists cal realism.26 On the other hand, the nominal- in the refutation of the scholastics’ philosophi- ists’ revolt against essentialism/philosophical cal realism. In particular, it was the bourgeoisie realism fails to address the issue of humanity’s that, from the eleventh century onward, decided relationship with (specifically, participation in) to unleash an attack on the philosophical foun- the good-in-itself, it indiscriminately nullifies dations of the Papacy, specifically, on the Papal the ontological significance of any principle theologians’ philosophical realism. The bour- that transcends the individual, and it underpins geois understand society, not as an expression, egoism. The nominalists attempt to safeguard or image, of a universal, but as an association and empower the individuality of the human be- of individuals. Therefore, they endorse nomi- ing, but their victory over the scholastic essen- nalism. William of Ockham argues that sover- tialists/philosophical realists is a Pyrrhic vic- eignty derives from the people, who have the tory, because nominalism gives rise to an indi- natural power to legislate and institute rulers.25 vidual who is unable to sufficiently understand The individualistic humanism that stems from and appreciate the functions and the dynamics William of Ockham’s nominalism is a more of social consciousness. The nominalists’ indi- radical type of humanism than the one that vidual lives according to a nexus of conven- stems from Thomas Aquinas’s essential- tions, leaving the sociality of the human psyche ism/philosophical realism, since William of permanently injured. Ockham’s nominalism can potentially justify Consciousness is both the essence of the human unrestrained egoism, either at the level of the in- being (namely, it is the “me,” the self, the higher dividual human being or at the level of the na- self, the lower self, the known) and the means tion (nationalism). by which the human being confirms its auton- Logic is inherently authoritarian, since the omy and its quest for other beings, which it “more general” lords it over the “less general.” meets at the level of their own consciousness. Moreover, in the context of logic, it is impossi- This meeting is carried out by the intentionality ble for the less general to be united with the of consciousness, which is expressed by criti- more general, and, of course, logic (with its gen- cally and creatively relating the particular eral, impersonal rules) precludes personhood quests of the intentionality of a conscious being and any personal relationships. Therefore, if to the place where the interaction between dif- one, like the medieval essentialists/philosophi- ferent conscious beings takes place. cal realists, fuses metaphysics and logic into a The means by which conscious beings com- system that treats Platonic ideas like logical municate with each other are called symbols. substances, thus endowing general concepts Symbols derive from activities that express the with metaphysical weight and conceiving God tendency of different conscious beings to meet as the most abstract concept, then not only is and understand each other. In other words, sym- God a “Supreme Being” that exercises domin- bols are objects that express commonly ac- ion over every other being, but also all the be- cepted intentions and activities and are orga- ings and the things that exist in the world are nized in sets that are called codes. When con- related to each other according to logically nec- scious beings act and behave according to com- essary and coercive rules of dominion. In this mon codes, then a society of conscious beings case, the development of a personal relationship is an inter-subjective and conscious continuum, between humanity and deity is impossible, and since there are things that have the same mean- the Christian who attempts to be united with ing for all conscious beings. As a code becomes God is merely a caricature of oneself. This is the more complete and more complex, it may in- reason why, as I have already argued in other crease the efficiency and the accuracy of the writings of mine, the mystics in general and the communication between conscious beings, but, Byzantine Orthodox mystics, known as the on the other hand, it may make the communica- Hesychasts, in particular vehemently oppose tion between conscious beings more difficult.

The elements of a code whereby conscious be- each other. Thus, consciousness is faced with ings communicate with each other are called two risks: (i) the risk of over-information, “signs.” Each and every sign receives a mean- which is associated with extremely high infor- ing (a conceptual determination) that depends mation entropy, and (ii) the risk of under-infor- on its acceptance by all conscious beings and on mation, which is associated with extremely low the fact that it is a member of the established information entropy. Over-information intensi- code. Every code, every symbol, and every sign fies the social ego and, by increasing infor- have a dynamic structure that enables them to mation entropy, gives rise to a disoriented be- be functionally adapted to the requirements of ing. Under-information intensifies the inner ego their users. and gives rise to an ego-centric being. In its attempt to establish correspondences be- The nominalists underestimate the fact that the tween significances and things, consciousness ego needs to be complemented by other egos, continuously follows two directions: an extro- and they ignore that, from the perspective of versive one and an introversive one. The intro- mysticism, the divine energies (collectively re- versive inclination of consciousness consists in ferred to as the “divine grace”) transcend the in- the descent of consciousness into the depths of dividual, but they can be participated in by the its own self in order to achieve the following individual (in the context of the individual’s di- goals: (i) to endow itself with a more complete vine illumination), and, therefore, divine ener- structure, (ii) to obtain a higher level of self- gies embrace the individual from the inside and awareness, and (iii) to preserve and reinforce its endow the individual with the universality that ontological status by itself. In this way, a human characterizes the divine energies themselves. being becomes psychologically deeper, and, by This is the meaning of humanity’s union with constraining the exchange of information be- the deity. The event of personal communion between one’s consciousness and other conscious tween the human being and the deity endows beings, one avoids the danger of excessive in- particularity (specifically, the human individ- formation entropy. Nevertheless, the tendency ual) with universality (specifically, with the of a being to entrench itself does not ipso facto light of God’s glory) and enables one to over- safeguard this being’s existential integration, come the contradiction between “individuality” because, in general, the existential integration and “sociality.” Thus, instead of being solitary, of a being depends not only on the given being’s the human individual is united with the source autonomy but also on the exchange of infor- of the significance of the beings and the things mation between the given being and other be- that exist in the world, and, in this way, the hu- ings. Through the social ego, by exchanging in- man individual develops an infinitely large information with other beings, one exits oneself ner space (capable of carrying humanity) within order to meet other beings, and, through out negating one’s existential otherness. one’s communication with other beings, to become aware of one’s own self. But if conscious- The Controversy between ness persists in intensifying its inner ego (its Realism and Idealism in own self), then the inner ego inhibits the mani- Modern Philosophy festation of the social ego; in this case, the social ego cannot enrich consciousness through odern philosophy arose as a protest communication with other conscious beings. M against the old scholastic system, and it made human reason the highest authority in the In its attempt to endow things with significance, pursuit of knowledge, but it did not, and could the ego needs assistance from and cooperation not, break with the past. In fact, the founder of with other egos. The existence of symbols and modern philosophy, René Descartes (Latinized signs corresponds to the need of the ego to be form: Renatus Cartesius, 1596–1650), formu- complemented by other egos. Symbols and lated a philosophy that belongs to the “school” signs specify the relationship between con- of dualistic realism. Descartes’s dualistic real- scious beings that partake of common aesthetic ism is based on the distinction between two experiences and/or exchange information with

concepts: extension and thinking.27 Descartes individual consciousness. Apart from this an- points out that we imagine that there are bodies tinomy, another problem with Cartesianism is outside ourselves, and then he poses the follow- the distinction between the mind and the body. ing question: how can we know that they actu- In fact, modern neuroscience has shown that ally exist? He observes that we have various there is a dialectical relationship between the feelings (e.g., pleasure and pain), appetites, and mind (consciousness) and the brain (the centre sensations, which are instinctively referred to of the nervous system), and, thus, extension is bodily causes, but our sensations often deceive an attribute of the mind, too.28 us, and our appetites often mislead us. There- One of the most influential students of Cartesi- fore, Descartes argues that the existence of bod- anism was Baruch Spinoza (1632–77). Whereas ies cannot be proved from the existence of such Cartesianism is an example of dualistic realism, experiences. However, Descartes continues his Spinoza’s philosophy is an example of monistic argument as follows: if God induced in us a realism. In particular, according to Spinoza, deeply rooted conviction in the existence of an thinking, which is the essential attribute of the external world, when no such world existed, mind, and extension, which is the essential at- then God would be a deceiver, but God is a tribute of the body, do not stand in mutual op- truthful being; the existence in my mind of illu- position, but they are interconnected due to a sions of sense does not disprove the goodness process of transition from the one to the other.29 of God, because God has endowed me with the Spinoza, inspired by Neoplatonism and modern power of intellect to dispel and correct every de- physics, unites God’s substance with the sub- lusion. Hence, Descartes concludes that our stance of the natural world in a way that gives sensations are caused by bodies, which exist in- rise to a deterministic model of the universe. dependently of our thinking. According to Des- cartes, such an independent thing is called sub- Another variety of monistic realism is material- stance. ism. According to Descartes, the entire reality is Furthermore, Descartes poses the following organized in a mechanistic manner, but the human being is an exception to this rule, because question: what is the nature of external things? it has soul. However, Descartes’s philosophy He answers that what we clearly and distinctly perceive in body is the essential attribute of the cannot offer convincing arguments on the basis of which one could accept that the human being body, which is extension. By the term “exten- is an exceptional entity in the mechanistic uni- sion,” he means a spatial continuum of three di- mensions (length, breadth, and thickness). Ac- verse of Cartesianism. Thus, many post-Carte- sian mechanistic philosophers, such as Ernst cording to Descartes’s dualistic realism, the at- Haeckel, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, and Karl tribute of body is extension, and, thus, bodies are passive (God is the first cause of motion in Vogt, used the model of the mechanistic Carte- the world), whereas the attribute of mind is sian universe in order to defend the argument that the human being is a machine-animal and thinking, and, thus, mind is active and free. In that the mind is only an excretion of the brain. other words, in the context of Cartesianism, these two substances (mind and body) are abso- A major epistemic problem of this eighteenth- century materialistic monism is that it is based lutely distinct. on a completely objective view of the world, In Descartes’s philosophy, bodies exist inde- thus ignoring every subjective aspect of the in- pendently of our thinking, but the only reason ner states of consciousness.30 we have to believe in their existence is a deeply rooted conviction in the existence of an external Furthermore, modern biological research has world. Thus, in Cartesianism, truth is ultimately refuted the mechanistic model that is inherent in subject to the requirements and the limits of in- Cartesianism, in Spinoza’s philosophy, and in dividual consciousness. Even though Descartes the nineteenth-century materialistic monism. In wants to prove the existence of bodies inde- particular, in contrast to Spinoza’s biological pendently of our mind, he unintentionally opens determinism and biocentrism, new research car- the way to the idealistic autonomy of the ried out by Sarah Berkemer (based at the Max

Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences unintentional founder of modern idealism. Des- in Leipzig, Germany) and Shawn McGlynn cartes’s principle “cogito ergo sum” (“I think (from the Earth-Life Science Institute at the To- therefore I am”) implies that consciousness is an kyo Institute of Technology in Japan) and pub- ontologically sufficient foundation of reality lished in 2020 in the advanced access edition of and assurance. Another unintentional founder the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution of modern idealism is the empiricist philoso- “suggests understanding early life may be trick- pher John Locke (1632–1704). In his Essay ier than previously thought.”31 Berkemer’s and Concerning Human Understanding, Locke is McGlynn’s analyses “confirm other work concerned with the discovery of the source from which suggested that only a limited understand- which our knowledge springs, and he argues ing of the lifestyle of the most ancient cells can that, if it is true, as Descartes and others argued, be derived from DNA comparison,” and show that we have an innate knowledge of principles, that “early in life’s history, different gene types it cannot be explained why we question its va- changed at different rates,” thus suggesting that lidity.36 In other words, Locke refutes the Car- “early mutation rates were much higher than at tesian doctrine of inborn truth by assuming that present and there has been a significant contri- the mind must be conscious of its innate princi- bution of ‘gene jumping’ over time which ples, if there be any (for, nothing can be said to makes a simple interpretation of the early ‘fam- exist in the mind of which it is unconscious). In ily tree’ of life misleading.”32 In addition, in the case of Descartes’s philosophy, idealism (in 2020, Antony Jose (associate professor of cell its modern sense, which I clarified in the Intro- biology and molecular genetics at the Univer- duction) is inherent in his principle “cogito ergo sity of Maryland), in two research papers that he sum,” and, in the case of Locke’s philosophy, published in the Journal of the Royal Society In- the element of modern idealism is inherent in terface and the journal BioEssays, refuted the his attempt to substitute Descartes’s principle common view of heredity according to which “cogito ergo sum” with the principle “I question “all information passed down from one genera- therefore I am.” According to Locke, the two tion to the next is stored in an organism’s sources of all our ideas are sensation (which DNA,” and he argued that “DNA is just the in- supplies the mind with sensible qualities) and gredient list, not the set of instructions used to reflection (which supplies the mind with ideas build and maintain a living organism,” and that of its own operation, such as perception, believ- the instructions “are much more complicated, ing, doubting, willing, etc.). and they’re stored in the molecules that regulate Modern idealism has been developed under dif- a cell’s DNA and other functioning systems.”33 ferent forms. The most radical form of idealism In contrast to old mechanistic models, Jose is solipsism, according to which only one’s own maintains that, far from being the “blueprint” consciousness is sure to exist. According to a for life, DNA “is at best an overlapping and po- more moderate form of idealism, the world of tentially scrambled list of ingredients that is the senses is a degraded sensuous appearance of used differently by different cells at different an experienced conscious state, which is the times.”34 For instance, “the gene for eye color only reality. Another form of idealism is known exists in every cell of the body, but the process as immaterialism and was founded by George that produces the protein for eye color only oc- Berkeley (1685–1753), who was inspired by curs during a specific stage of development and Neoplatonism and denied the reality of matter. only in the cells that constitute the colored por- tion of the eyes. That information is not stored George Berkeley, following the idea of body as in the DNA.”35 held by Locke, argued that to exist means to be perceived, specifically, to be in the mind, and, As I have already mentioned, the second gen- therefore, bodies exist only when there is a mind eral cosmological model to which one can re- that perceives or knows them.37 However, all duce the relationships between consciousness things we perceive (ideas) are inactive, and, and external reality is idealism, and the modern thus, they cannot be the cause of sensations. realist philosopher Descartes was the Berkeley argues that the cause of sensations is

an immaterial, active substance called spirit. By lively than perceptions. In the context of the term “spirit,” Berkeley means a unified, ac- Hume’s philosophy, ideas are faint perceptions tive being, which, in so far as it perceives ideas, of which we are conscious when we reflect on is called “understanding,” and, in so far as it cre- impressions, and they are copied by the memory ates (i.e., operates upon ideas), is called “will.” and the imagination. According to Hume’s “law Since all ideas are passive and inert and since of association of ideas,” impressions and ideas spirit is active and crea- are linked together by tive, there can be no idea Bergson argues that there are an inclination to recall formed of spirit, and, two ways in which an object can one another. However, thus, we can perceive Hilary Putnam has only the effects pro- be known: absolutely and rela- pointed out that, by ar- duced by spirit but not tively. According to Bergson, guing that we “do not spirit itself. It must be the method of knowing an ob- have such a thing as an mentioned that immate- ‘abstract idea’ or a rialism and realism can ject relatively is called analysis, ‘general idea’ of agree about the nature of and the method of knowing an green,” Berkeley and perception itself, but object absolutely is called intui- Hume fail to realize normally they disagree that, “if I can think of about whether there are tion. Bergson calls intuition a particular relation of any mind-independent “sympathy,” which consists in ‘similarity,’ then I am material objects at all. able to recognize at Moreover, with regard putting ourselves in the place of least one universal,” to Berkeley’s thesis that, others. In other words, Berg- and, therefore, “univer- “for unthinking things, sonian intuition consists of “en- sals cannot really be to exist is to be per- avoided in the way ceived” (since it is im- tering into” the object of con- Berkeley and Hume possible to form an idea sciousness, and, thus, it differs wanted to do.”40 of an unperceived ob- from the analytical method. At the political level, ject), Thomas Nagel Hume’s philosophy maintains that it “involves the mistake of con- implies that social and political institutions fusing perceptual imagination as the vehicle of should be understood as devices developed in thought with a perceptual experience as part of response to emergent human conditions, and the object of thought.”38 not as products of reason. Therefore, Hume’s David Hume (1711–76) agrees with Descartes theory of government was primarily a theory and Locke in requiring that genuine knowledge about the function of government; he was inter- must be self-evident, but he argues that he has ested primarily in who was likely to rule well not found such knowledge anywhere except in and command the allegiance of people and not mathematics, which merely analyzes its own so much in who was morally entitled to rule. concepts.39 According to Hume, the constitutive Hence, in his Treatise of Human Nature, II, iii and fundamental elements of knowledge are im- 3, Hume argues that “Reason is, and ought only pressions and ideas. By the term “impression,” to be, the slave of the passions.” However, Plato Hume means a lively perception, which brings has posed a crucial political question that has with it conviction or positive belief in the exist- been rather unsuccessfully evaded by Hume, ence of a corresponding objective reality. All Thucydides, Demosthenes, and Machiavelli; our sensations, passions, and emotions as they namely, in his Republic, 340c, Plato asks: “was make their first appearance in the mind are char- this how you meant to define what is right, that acteristic examples of impressions. By the term it is that which seems to the stronger to be his “idea,” Hume means a copy of a corresponding interest, whether it really is or not?” (emphasis impression, left behind by the given impression, mine). Therefore, the political pragmatism that and, hence, according to Hume, ideas are less is inherent in Hume’s idealism is a protection

against ignorance and against ambivalent senti- of the metaphysical tradition that originated ments, but, if you know what you are doing, and from Plato’s philosophy. if your sentiments have a clear orientation, In Kant’s philosophy, the synthesizing activity pragmatism makes little sense and is synony- of the mind (manifested in the rule-based struc- mous with moral abdication. turing of perceptions into a world of objects) is Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) formulated a phi- derived from “transcendental imagination,” a losophy that he called “critical.” Kant’s critical term used by Kant in the first edition of his Cri- philosophy is a compromise between realism tique of Pure Reason. According to Martin and idealism. According to Kant’s Critique of Heidegger, transcendental imagination is what Pure Reason (1781), there are two different Kant refers to as the unknown common source worlds: the noumenal world and the phenome- uniting sense and understanding.43 Further- nal world.41 The noumenal world is the world of more, in Kant’s philosophy, transcendental im- things outside us, namely, of things that exist agination underpins consciousness and secures independently of our minds (the elements of the it against the changeability and volatility of phe- noumenal world are called “noumena”; singu- nomenal objects. Hence, by virtue of transcen- lar: “noumenon”). Kant argues that our con- dental imagination, which ultimately is a varia- sciousness cannot comprehend the essence of tion of Descartes’s cogito principle, conscious- the noumenal world, and that we can only per- ness becomes a pure and solid ego, which con- ceive an altered version (a fainted image) of the nects percepts according to its own forms, noumenal world, which Kant called the phe- meaning in its own way. To sum up: in Kant’s nomenal world. The phenomenal world is the philosophy, imagination forms space and time, world that we perceive, specifically, the view safeguards the unity of the ego vis-à-vis the that we have of the world that is inside our multiplicity of the phenomenal world, and, thus, minds. It must be stressed that Kant’s refusal to the subject imposes its categories of under- accept the comprehension of the essence of the standing on phenomena. As a result, thinking is noumenal world by mind is a cognitive argu- derived from imagination, and, therefore, ulti- ment and not an ontological one (since, accord- mately, we are logically urged to accept arbi- ing to Kant, the noumenal world exists even trariness (specifically, choices based on an indi- though we cannot comprehend its essence). vidual’s own opinion or discretion) as the foun- In Kant’s philosophy, the communication be- dation of the ego! Kant was so horrified to find tween the noumenal world (pure concepts) and out the philosophically dangerous conse- the phenomenal world (phenomena) becomes quences of his theory of transcendental imagi- possible due to the theory of schema. By the nation that he omitted this term from the second term “schema” (plural: “schemata”), Kant re- edition of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1787, fers to a set of twelve kinds of pre-existing (a without, however, ceasing to glorify the ego. priori) judgments, or rules, which are hard Kant identified genuine knowledge with syn- wired into our minds and interact with the nou- thetic a priori judgments,44 on which he menal world, thus helping us to create the phe- founded the distinction between the noumenon nomenal world, which exists in our minds.42 and the phenomenon. Thus, according to Kant, Thus, our perceptions of the world are caused we can know only products of our minds, and by the external world, and, therefore, we per- the world is structurally united with the thinking ceive a world that really exists, but what that ego. Furthermore, science can only convey world looks like to us differs from what that knowledge of phenomena, and, therefore, real- world is really like. According to Kant, our per- ity and truth are mutually separated. Apart from ception of the world is necessarily conditioned abstract categories of understanding, the only by schemata, and, therefore, Kant gives primacy solid content of Kant’s pure reason is the sub- to the logical form over the real content of ex- ject. perience. In Kant’s philosophy, there is no knowable transcendent world, and, therefore, From the perspective of Kant’s philosophy, the Kantianism signals the complete abandonment subject derives its ontological autonomy from

pure reason through the moral law, which is a reason. The sovereignty of pure reason implies categorical imperative, in the sense that it com- that the telos (“end”) of history is a historical mands unconditionally. A categorical impera- goal (and not a transcendent one), and, there- tive is a universal axiom, and, therefore, it can fore, it provides “good will” with an objective simultaneously be a universal law and an indi- end that is the source of the categorical impera- vidual duty. Hence, the subject whose individ- tive, and it determines what politics can legiti- ual morality is such that it has the authority and mately do. the value of a universal law can set aside the The sovereignty of reason, which Kant en- problem of the ontology of the universal good dorses, is overthrown when the telos of exist- (the good-in-itself), and such a subject can sub- ence is the transcendent good-in-itself, specifi- stitute pure reason, interpreted as the conscious- cally, the bliss of the union between humanity ness of duty, for the universal good, thus aban- and God, in the sense of one’s union with doning the morality of love, which is derived his/her lover (as it has been described by Plato from and founded on one’s relationship with the and the medieval mystical Christian theologi- universal good. In his Critique of Practical Rea- ans, such as the Byzantine hesychasts, Meister son, Kant argues that the relation between hu- Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Henry Suso, John of man will and law corresponds to the relation be- Ruysbroeck, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Jul- tween practical reason and pure reason. Thus, in ian of Norwich, etc.). When the telos of exist- his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ence is the transcendent good-in-itself, the path Kant formulates his fundamental moral maxim that leads to humanity’s ontological perfection as follows: “I ought never to act except in such is freedom. On the other hand, Kant depends on a way that I can also will that my maxim should 45 the objectivity of moral law because he intends become a universal law.” to found his pietistic ethics on the categorical According to Kant, the will legislates, and rea- imperative. In order to overcome the contradic- son determines the subject’s way of life, so that tion between the subjectivity of practical reason a will is good when it is determined by respect and the objectivity of the categorical impera- for the moral law, which is a manifestation of tive, Kant’s moral rationalism gives rise to a reason. The will is subject to reason and, hence, subject whose inner world is extremely poor, to the moral law, so that, ultimately, the will since the Kantian subject is filled with a sense legislates its own laws. In other words, Kant’s of duty that has replaced free will. Kant argues moral philosophy extols duty for duty’s sake, that a moral act cannot depend on the absolute and it identifies free will with irrationality. good (since, according to Kant, the absolute Thus, with his moral philosophy, Kant seeks to good as a thing-in-itself, i.e., as a noumenon, is accommodate transcendental imagination to the unknowable), and, therefore, Kant has no other moral law. If it is to be stable and universal, choice but to assert that the moral value of our “good will” cannot be a subjective goal. Thus, acts is derived from “good will,” in the sense in order to liberate “good will” from the subjec- that it is determined by the categorical impera- tivity of practical reason, Kant asserts that hu- tive. Thus, from Kant’s viewpoint, the moral manity is an end in itself. In particular, in his status of an act is determined by the goodness Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, of its end, and not by the good itself, which is a Kant argues as follows: “Act in such a way that noumenon and, hence, according to Kant, un- you always treat humanity, whether in your own knowable. As a consequence of Kant’s moral person or in the person of any other, never rationalism, humanity loses its spiritual free- simply as a means, but always at the same time dom, and it is subjected to the formalism of pure as an end.”46 The principle of humanity as an reason. end in itself and the corresponding political or- When one is truly and, hence, unselfishly, in der as a union of partial ends express a belief in love, his/her good will toward his/her lover is the ontological autarchy of humanity, which, in not derived from the categorical imperative, but the absence of a transcendent Logos, is secular- it is a manifestation of his/her free will, and, ized in conformity with the commands of pure also, it is a way of life. This is the reason why

Plato proposes eros (love passion) toward the conditions of an object, we are aware of the part absolute good (which, in Plato’s philosophy, is of reality that is different from this object. a knowable noumenon) as an epistemology and Hegel’s critique of Kant is based on the roman- as a moral philosophy, and, similarly, the medi- tic idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762– eval mystical Christian theologians’ epistemol- 1814) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling ogy and morality are based on eros toward (1775–1854). Fichte argues that the only reality Christ, the incarnate channel of God’s love in is the “ego” (i.e., consciousness), which creates history. alone the objects of its perception, and which The enforcement of outward (“exoteric”) moral gets aware of itself by contrasting itself with rules can possibly correct one’s behavior, but it everything that is contradictory to it.48 Schel- cannot offer existential salvation. The suppres- ling, whose philosophy is very similar to the sion of passions does not save the soul, since a philosophy of Fichte, argues that the “ego” and suppressed passion, most probably, will mutate all things that contradict the “ego” are func- and reemerge as a new passion. The suppression tional forms of a unique reality that he called of passions through the moral law resembles the absolute.49 Thus, the principle of the “ego” witch hunts, since it is a Sisyphean process. The opposes recourse to the noumenal world. Hegel soul can be saved only if one is aware of the ul- put the previous teachings of Fichte and Schel- timate goal that underpins and guides one’s pas- ling about dialectic into a more rigorous philo- sions, namely, only if one can look at the depths sophical setting. of one’s soul. Hence, many mystics emphasize Hegel argues that all life and movement are the purification of passion. In fact, it is the pu- founded on contradiction, which rules the entire rified passion (and not the categorical impera- world. Everything tends to change and pass tive) that makes humans capable of fulfilling the over into its opposite. However, according to New Law of Christ, which is love (Mark 12:28– Hegel, the opposites are opposites only with re- 31). spect to one another, and not with respect to the Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) unity or whole of which they form parts. In He- criticized Kant’s doctrine of the unknowable gel’s philosophy, God is the potential universe, not from the perspective of mysticism, which I the Idea. According to Hegel, being (the thing- propose and defend in the present essay, but in-itself) is the Idea (universal reason) that from the perspective of modern rationalism, moves far away from itself, specifically, it gives and, therefore, Hegel proposed a different way rise to a contradiction to itself, in order, ulti- of arriving at a synthesis of realism and idealism mately, to return to itself enriched by its adven- than Kant’s philosophy, while simultaneously, ture. In addition, by the term spirit or mind like Kant, he repudiated ancient and medieval (Geist), Hegel refers to the idea realized. From metaphysics.47 According to Hegel, if the un- Hegel’s perspective, spirit is the subject that, af- knowable is beyond every kind of knowledge, ter its exodus from its inner world and its ad- and if it is beyond the use of the concepts of un- venture in the external world, returned to its derstanding, then we cannot apply the concepts own self. Thus, at the theological level, Hegel’s of causation, reality, and existence to it. In other dialectical philosophy implies that God cannot words, Hegel argues that, if we apply the con- be without creating the world (as a contradic- cept of existence to the noumenon, and if this tion to God), because God cannot be without statement is true, then we know the noumenon knowing Himself in His creation (the “outside- to that extent, and, thus, the knowledge of the Himself”). Hegel’s God is not the Biblical God, noumena is not impossible. Furthermore, Hegel who created the world out of nothing (ex nihilo), argued that we cannot and should not hide be- according to His own divine will, but Hegel’s hind the argument that the term noumenon is a God exists in a dialectical relationship with the limiting concept in order to avoid our responsi- natural world. At the historical level, the Hege- bility of knowing the noumenon. For Hegel, to lian subject exists as the “nation” and its spirit be aware of a limiting condition is to go beyond as “the spirit of the nation” (Volksgeist). it. In other words, when we know the limiting

With his dialectical philosophy, Hegel at- xistence means the continuity of being. tempted to avoid Kant’s unknowable noumenal E Consciousness as consciousness of exist- world, since Hegel argued that Kant’s doctrine ence aims at preserving the existence of a being of the unknowable is self-contradictory. How- under the best possible terms. Thus, conscious- ever, Hegel seems to ignore the difference be- ness aims both at preserving the existence of a tween “knowing” and “thinking.” The unknow- being and at improving the given being’s exis- able (i.e., Kant’s noumenal world) can be tential conditions. The intentionality of con- thought and yet remain unknown, since it is not sciousness (namely, the power of consciousness given in sensibility. Moreover, something may to be about, to represent, or to stand for things, be an object of “faith” without being an object properties, and states of affairs) functions as a of “knowledge.” In other words, for Kant, the tendency to participate in the world (since con- unknowable does not form part of any cognitive sciousness absorbs the world) and as pure self- meaning, but it may have emotive, persuasive knowledge. These functions take place at four or imperative meaning. Thus, Kant’s doctrine of different levels, namely: instinct, experience, the unknowable is not as self-contradictory as intellect, and intelligence. Hegel contends. At the level of instinct, conscious activity is Hegel transcended the subject (individual minimal, and existence reduces to the two basic “ego”) of the earliest German idealism (Fichte instincts, namely, those of survival and repro- and Schelling) in order to ascend to a quantita- duction. Instinct is a highly formalized behav- tively higher (larger), and, hence, spiritually ioral code that reflects the reason of organic na- safer, subject, namely, the historical subject (the ture. The correctness of instinctive behavior is “nation”). In Hegelianism, reason (Logos) is the determined by the practices of an unlimited self-consciousness of spirit, and, thus, it con- number of generations. In fact, the certitude that sists in the knowledge of a truth that is totally characterizes instinctive activity is based on the determined by the logic of historical becoming; accumulation of unlimited experiences by the since, according to Hegel, the universal subject species. Every problem or difficulty that im- is history, and spirit is the reason of history. pedes the confirmation of instinctive activity is Therefore, in Hegelianism, the human being is related to the manner in which a being is capable of knowing the historical truth, but, in adapted to given conditions. At the level of in- contrast to Christianity’s teachings about the stinct, adaptation takes place according to the union between humanity and the divine spirit, method of “trial and error.” Jean Piaget, the Hegelianism precludes the union between hu- preeminent developmental psychologist of the manity and Hegel’s notion of spirit (namely, the twentieth century, has pointed out that trial and reason of history). The purpose of traditional error experimentation in handling objects gives metaphysics and especially of mystical Christi- rise to the concept that the external world is not anity is for the human being to become God, part of the self. but, in Hegel’s philosophy, the human being At the level of experience, the intentionality of cannot become history itself. In Hegel’s philos- consciousness is expressed through the func- ophy, the human being exists alienated from the tioning of the senses. The senses are oriented to- “spirit” (namely, the reason of history) within a ward the external world, with which they con- deterministic historical setting, and, therefore, nect existence. Experience is about finding one- the human being, as an individual, is not a true self in some situation and being aware of it. In being. In this way, the life of the individual hu- other words, experience is an event participated man being reduces to a course that is deter- in or lived through. The degree of conscious ac- mined by historical phenomena, independently tivity at the level of experience is higher than at of the individual’s inner experiences. the level of instinct. However, at the level of ex- The Synthesis between perience, the role of consciousness is mainly passive; for, according to empiricist philoso- Realism and Idealism phers, consciousness is originally a “tabula

rasa,” meaning a blank slate, on which experi- meaning, for Bergson, gives us absolute ence writes, thus filling the mind with ideas, and knowledge. it is only in a later phase that consciousness re- At the level of intelligence, consciousness trans- calls those ideas which it considers useful to it cends reason in order to develop and apply in- in order to act on several occasions. In contrast tuition. Therefore, at the level of intelligence, to empiricism, both Kant and Gestalt psychol- reason coexists with intuition in Bergsonian ogy50 have pointed out that consciousness plays fashion. However, at the highest level of intelli- a much more active role in perception than the gence, this combination of reason and intuition one thought by empiricist philosophers. is enriched with mysticism, specifically, with a At the level of intellect, reason plays an active mystical process of psychic cleansing, thus en- role. By the term “reason,” Kant and his follow- abling the human being to enter into the deity ers mean a pre-existent (a priori) structure itself. At the highest level of intelligence, a tri- within the framework of which there exist vari- synthetic mixture of reason, intuition, and mys- ous functions of categories, which, when they ticism enables consciousness to enter into the are adequately activated, can connect isolated source of the significances of the beings and the segments of sensation (empirical data) into a things that exists in the world, namely, into whole, thus allowing and underpinning the for- what we call “God,” and, in this way, the human mulation of synthetic statements and enabling being can live according to God’s mode of be- consciousness to creatively transcendent the ing. In fact, this spiritual pursuit is the essence level of experience. Following Kant’s philoso- of the Ancient Mysteries, Plato’s philosophy, phy, Gestalt psychology showed experimen- and mystical (“esoteric”) Christianity. tally that consciousness does not respond to iso- The aforementioned tri-synthetic mixture of lated segments of sensation but to the whole reason, intuition, and mysticism can underpin (Gestalt) of the situation and argued that, in per- the overcoming of the antithesis between real- ception, there are many organizing principles ism and idealism as follows: called gestalt laws.51 Thus, consciousness perceives and thinks in nonlinear ways, and it in- It justifies philosophical realism in the fol- fluences perception. Furthermore, Gestalt psy- lowing way: it recognizes and admits a con- chology has shown that, in perception, the sciousness-independent reality, specifically, method of trial and error coexists with intuition. the realm of the absolute spirit, or the good- in-itself (which is the source of the signifi- The French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941) attempted to overcome the antith- cances of the beings and the things that exist in the world) and the reality of the natural esis between realism and idealism by resorting world. Hence, from this perspective, the to the distinction between intuition and intellect. Bergson argues that there are two ways in aforementioned tri-synthetic mixture of rea- which an object can be known: absolutely and son, intuition, and mysticism is in agreement with philosophical realism. In fact, if the relatively. According to Bergson, the method of world were not different from conscious- knowing an object relatively is called analysis, and the method of knowing an object absolutely ness, then the latter would not need to try so hard to know the world. In other words, if is called intuition.52 Bergson calls intuition the world did not differ from consciousness, “sympathy,” which consists in putting ourselves in the place of others.53 In other words, Berg- then the knowledge of the world would be sonian intuition consists in entering into the ob- exhausted in the self-knowledge of humanity. Similarly, if the deity were not different ject of consciousness, and, thus, it differs from from consciousness, then the latter would the analytical method, which consists in divid- ing the object of consciousness into different not need to try so hard to be spiritually developed in order to ascend to and be united parts, according to a chosen viewpoint, and with the divine Spirit. translating these parts into symbols in order to reconstruct a spectrum of the original object. Simultaneously, it justifies idealism in the This “entering into,” which reveals the object’s following way: the aforementioned tri-

synthetic mixture of reason, intuition, and the term cybernetics, we refer to the interdisci- mysticism implies that the transcendent, plinary study of the structure of regulatory sys- consciousness-independent reality of the ab- tems. Within the framework of cybernetics, solute spirit, or the good-in-itself (specifi- epistemologists focus on the observer in addi- cally, the uncreated divine energy) is acces- tion to what is observed, and they highlight the sible to and, indeed, can be participated in by dynamic relationship between the individual the human mind (through enlightened intui- and reality. In general, consciousness-inde- tion), and that the physical, consciousness- pendent reality differs from the reality of independent reality of the material world is consciousness with respect to the degree of also knowable by the human mind. Hence, their integration and completion. from this perspective, the aforementioned tri-synthetic mixture of reason, intuition, and Truth emerges from the contact between con- mysticism is in agreement with idealism. In sciousness and reality. Truth is the consequence fact, if the structure of the world were abso- of the contact between consciousness and real- lutely different from the structure of con- ity, and it implies the ontologically grounded sciousness, then it would be absolutely im- freedom of consciousness and the possibility possible for consciousness to obtain even that reality can be reconstructed by the inten- partial knowledge of the world. Similarly, if tionality of consciousness. However, the recon- the structure of the divine Spirit were abso- struction of reality by consciousness, according lutely different from the structure of con- to the latter’s intentionality, is not the result of sciousness, then it would be absolutely im- arbitrary idealistic activity, but it is the result of possible for consciousness to theologize. a critical kind of activity that is founded on the aforementioned philosophical synthesis be- In conclusion, reality consists of both the reality tween reason, intuition, and mysticism. I shall of consciousness and a consciousness-inde- use the term “intelligent activity” in order to re- pendent reality. This thesis, which follows from fer to the critical kind of activity that is founded and is underpinned by my aforementioned phil- on the aforementioned philosophical synthesis osophical synthesis between reason, intuition, between reason, intuition, and mysticism. and mysticism, is corroborated by modern science, too. Apart from the real objects of which In practice, the intelligent activity of humanity the natural scientist has direct knowledge, there consists in the following fivefold dialectical are (for, instance, at sub-atomic level) behaviors process: that oblige modern physics to use concepts that (i) First, consciousness is united with the are formulated in a subjective manner.54 Such source of the significances of the beings terms as ions, photons, gravitons, strings, etc. and the things that exist in the world, do not correspond to any indisputable form of namely, it is fully aware of the teleol- reality; instead, they are elements of systems ogy of reality, and, therefore, it has a that have been articulated in a nominalistic fash- clear, strategic existential vision and ion, and they are used for the formulation of sci- clear values. entific hypotheses. Moreover, the synthesis be- (ii) Second, consciousness aims at acting tween realism and idealism has been promoted upon the reality of the world and upon by cybernetics. The term cybernetics comes itself, according to its teleology, in or- from a Greek word meaning “the art of steer- der to transcend the established state of ing,” and it is about having a goal and taking the world and of itself and, thus, to im- action to achieve that goal. Cybernetics as a so- prove its existential conditions. cial-scientific concept has been used by Plato in (iii) Third, consciousness aims at acting order to refer to government (“cyber” is a Greek upon the reality of the world and upon word for governor). Norbert Wiener, a gifted itself in such a manner that it will not Harvard mathematician, coined the term “cy- cause uncontrolled turbulence, which bernetics” around 1948 in order to denote the could jeopardize the continuity of exist- study of “teleological mechanisms.” Thus, by ence.

(iv) Fourth, when the turbulence that is Conclusion caused by the action of consciousness upon the world and upon itself tends to ccording to the aforementioned dialectic get out of control, then consciousness A of intelligence, history is a manifestation tries to reduce the negative effects of of humanity’s ontological potential. Humanity its action by undertaking new action is in the process of an increasingly intensified that counterbalances its previous ac- confirmation of its presence in the world, by be- tion, thus deterring both the total elim- coming increasingly aware of its presence in the ination of the previous state of the world. However, due to humanity’s intelligent world/of consciousness and the emer- activity (as I defined it above), the continuity of gence of a totally unknown new state the historical becoming is not completely sub- of the world/of consciousness. stituted by the discontinuity that is caused by (v) Fifth, the action of consciousness upon the action of consciousness upon the world; in- the reality of the world and of itself stead, the continuity of the historical becoming aims at forming the necessary condi- is reconstructed by the imposition of the intentions that will allow consciousness to tionality of consciousness on time. To conclude, continue acting upon the reality of the instead of being defeated in their struggle world and of itself in the future. against a necessary historical becoming, humans overcome natural necessity due to their From the perspective of my philosophical re- freedom, which enables them to reconstruct the search work, being “intelligent” means follow- world through intelligent action. ing the aforementioned fivefold dialectical method.

1 The protagonists of the earliest Greek phi- been transmuted into the different sub- losophy are the Ionian physicists, the Py- stances found in our present world of ex- thagoreans, Heraclitus, the Eleatics, Em- perience. See: Kathleen Freeman, Com- pedocles, the Atomists, and Anaxagoras, panion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers who attempt to explain phenomena by nat- (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953). ural causes and without appeal to spiritual 2 It is wrong to think that Plato’s philosophy beings. They ask the question: “What is the is idealistic simply because it is focused on basal stuff of which the world is com- ideas; for, Plato argues that ideas are real posed?” and answer in terms of such con- entities and not creations (abstractions) of crete objects of sense perception as water, the human mind. See: Richard Kraut, ed., air, fire, or a hypothetical undifferentiated The Cambridge Companion to Plato mass from which sense objects are derived. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, In other words, by means of a single mate- 1992); and Gail Fine, ed., Plato 1: Meta- rial principle (monism of the materialistic physics and Epistemology (Oxford: Ox- type), they endeavour to account for the ford University Press, 1999). qualities of different bodies and their 3 Parmenides of Elea (early fifth century changes which are considered to be trans- BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher formations of the primal stuff. The reason- born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern ing behind the cosmological models of coast of Italy. He was the founder of the these Greek philosophers is the following: Eleatic school of philosophy. observation shows that substances are 4 By the term “being,” we should always un- changed into other substances (for in- derstand a self-sufficient reality that exists stance, water becomes vapor), and, by sim- either by being closed or by tending to ilar process, the primal stuff must have

16 See: Adrian Guiu, ed., A Companion to John Scottus Eriugena (Leiden, Boston: transcend its nature expanding beyond its Brill, 2020); and Bernard McGinn and normal limits. Willemien Otten, eds, Eriugena: East and 5 Plato’s Sophist: The Professor of Wisdom West (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of (with translation, introduction and glossary Notre Dame Press, 1994). by Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, and Eric 17 See: Marcia L. Colish, The Mirror of Lan- Salem, Newburyport: Focus Publishing, guage: A Study in the Medieval Theory of 1996), 11–12. Knowledge (revised edition, Lincoln and 6 Ibid, 12. London: University of Nebraska Press, 7 See: Lloyd P. Gerson, ed., The Cambridge 1968). Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: Cam- 18 See: François Picavet, Roscelin: Philoso- bridge University Press, 1996); and Domi- phe et Théologien, d’après la légende et nic J. O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction d’après l’histoire (Paris: F. Alcan, 1911). to the Enneads (Oxford: Oxford University 19 See: Jeffrey E. Brower and Kevin Guilfoy, Press, 1993). eds, The Cambridge Companion to Abe- 8 Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum commen- lard (Cambridge: Cambridge University taria (ed. E. Diehl, trans. T. Taylor, Am- Press, 2004). sterdam: North-Holland, 1965). 20 See: Gillian R. Evans, Bernard of Clair- 9 Ibid. vaux (New York and Oxford: Oxford Uni- 10 Everett Ferguson, “Proclus,” Encyclopedia versity Press, 2000). of Early Christianity (edited by Everett 21 See: Heinrich Gelzer, Byzantinische Kul- Ferguson, second edition, New York: Gar- turgeschichte (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (P. land, 1999), 951. Siebeck), 1909). 11 See: Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Cambridge 22 See: Kieren Barry, The Greek Qabalah: Companion to Aristotle (Cambridge: Cam- Alphabetic Mysticism and Numerology in bridge University Press, 1995); Georgios the Ancient World (York Beach, ME: Sam- Anagnostopoulos, ed., A Companion to uel Weiser, 1999); Elias J. Bickerman, The Aristotle (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009); and Jews in the Greek Age (USA: The Jewish Christopher Shields, ed., The Oxford Theological Seminary of America, 1988); Handbook on Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford and Lenn E. Goodman, ed., Neoplatonism University Press, 2008). and Jewish Thought (New York: State 12 See: Porphyry’s Introduction trans. with a University of New York Press, 1992). Commentary by Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: 23 See: Ernest Moody, The Logic of William Oxford University Press, 2003); and of Ockham (New York: Sheed and Ward, Porphyry: On Aristotle’s Categories, 1935). translated by Steven K. Strange (New 24 See: Alessandro P. D’Entrèves, ed., Aqui- York: Ithaca, 1992). nas: Selected Political Writings (Oxford: 13 See: Boethius, Commentaries on Isagoge Blackwell, 1948). (ed. Samuel Brandt, Vindobonae: F. 25 See: Arthur S. McGrade, The Political Tempsky; Lipsiae, DEU: G. Freytag, Thought of William of Ockham (Cam- 1906). 14 Ibid., 234. bridge: Cambridge University Press, 15 1974). See: Nicolas Laos, “The Rediscovery of 26 Byzantine Orthodox Mysticism: An Intro- Laos, “The Rediscovery of Byzantine Or- duction to the Medieval Hesychasts’ The- thodox Mysticism. Moreover, see: Nicolas ory of Humanity’s Deification” (Esoteric Laos, Methexiology: Philosophical Theol- Quarterly, Vol. 15, number 2, Fall 2019), ogy and Theological Philosophy for the 47–57; online: Deification of Humanity (Eugene, Oregon: https://www.esotericquarterly.com/is- Pickwick/Wipf and Stock Publishers, sues/EQ15/EQ1502/EQ150219- 2016). Laos.pdf#page=1(accessed March 12, 2020). 82 Copyright © The Esoteric Quarterly, 2020. Summer 2020

42 Schemata are determinations of objects in general, not specific individual objects, 27 See: Alan Nelson, “Descartes’s Ontology and, therefore, they are not particular im- of Thought” (Topoi, Vol. 16, 1997), 163– ages. A schema is a procedural rule that 78; and Stephen Menn, Descartes and Au- prescribes the way to relate a pure concept gustine (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- to an object in general. In other words, sity Press, 1998). schemata are ways of applying pure con- 28 See: John Searle, Minds, Brains and Sci- cepts (categories) to sense impressions. ence (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University These twelve kinds of judgment (sche- Press, 1984). mata) are arranged in four groups of three 29 See: Don Garrett, ed., The Cambridge each. The first group expresses the catego- Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge and ries of quantity: totality, plurality, unity. It New York: Cambridge University Press, includes the following judgments: (1) the 1996). universal judgment (e.g., all dogs are ani- 30 See: John Searle, The Rediscovery of the mals), (2) the particular judgment (e.g., Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), some fruits are sweet), and (3) the singular 50–54. judgment (e.g., Isaac Newton was a natural 31 See: Oxford University Press, “New Study scientist). The second group expresses the Reveals Life’s Earliest Evolution Was categories of quality: reality, negation, More Complicated than Previously Sus- limitation. It includes the following judg- pected” (Phys.org, April 22, 2020), no ments: (1) the affirmative judgment (e.g., pages; online: electrical energy is a form of potential en- https://phys.org/news/2020-04-reveals- ergy), (2) the negative judgment (e.g., the life-earliest-evolution-complicated.html intentionality of consciousness is not ex- (accessed March 13, 2020). tended), and (3) the infinite judgment (e.g., 32 Ibid. the intentionality of consciousness is unex- 33 See: Kimbra Cutlip, “DNA May Not Be tended). The third group expresses the cat- Life’s Instruction Book―Just a Jumbled egories of relation: inherence and subsist- List of Ingredients” (Phys.org, April 22, ence (or substance and accident), causality 2020), no pages. (online: and dependence (or cause and effect), https://phys.org/news/2020-04-dna-life- community/reciprocity between the active bookjust-jumbled-ingredients.html). and the passive. It includes the following 34 Ibid. judgments: (1) the categorical judgment 35 Ibid. (e.g., the body is heavy), (2) the hypothet- 36 See: Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, ical judgment (e.g., if temperature in- Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Oxford creases, then entropy increases), and (3) University Press, 1971). the disjunctive judgment (e.g., energy 37 Ibid. forms are either potential or kinetic). The 38 Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere fourth group expresses the categories of (Oxford and New York: Oxford University morality: possibility and impossibility, ex- Press, 1986), 93. istence and nonexistence, necessity and 39 See: Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, contingency. It includes the following Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Oxford judgments: (1) the problematical judgment University Press, 1971). (e.g., this may be hot), (2) the assertory 40 Hilary Putnam, “After Empiricism,” in Re- judgment (e.g., this is hot), and (3) the ap- alism with a Human Face: Hilary Putnam, odictic judgment (e.g., every effect must edited by James Conant (Cambridge, MA.: have a cause). These twelve rules function Harvard University Press, 1990), 46. like a filter between our minds and the ex- 41 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason ternal world. They are like intellectual sun- (edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, glasses through which we see the world, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, but they alter the way that the external 1998).

50 Gestalt psychology was founded by Max Wertheimer (1880–1943). Wertheimer world really looks to create the world that noted that we perceive motion where there exists inside our minds (i.e., the phenome- is nothing more than a rapid sequence of nal world). individual sensory events. This argument 43 See: Rudolf A. Makkreel, Imagination and is based on observations that he made with Interpretation in Kant (Chicago: Univer- his stroboscope at the Frankfurt train sta- sity of Chicago Press, 1990). tion, and on additional observations that he 44 In an analytic judgment, the predicate made in his laboratory when he experi- merely elucidates what is already con- mented with lights flashing in rapid suc- tained in the subject; e.g., the judgment cession (like the Christmas lights that ap- “body is an extended thing.” Therefore, pear to course around the tree, or the fancy such judgments are by definition true and neon signs in Las Vegas that seem to cannot qualify as genuine knowledge. move). Wertheimer called this effect “ap- Only synthetic judgments qualify as genu- parent motion,” and it is actually the basic ine knowledge, because they add some- principle of motion pictures. According to thing to the predicate; e.g., the judgment Wertheimer, apparent motion proves that “every material body has specific gravity.” people do not respond to isolated segments But, as Kant maintains, not all synthetic of sensation but to the whole (Gestalt) of judgments give us genuine knowledge. the situation. See: Wolfgang Köhler, Ge- Some synthetic judgments are derived stalt Psychology (renewed by Lili Köhler, from experience, i.e., they are a posteriori, New York: Liveright, 1992). and, therefore, they are lacking in necessity 51 Examples of Gestalt Laws of Perceptual and in universality; e.g., the judgment “the Organization: (1) The law of closure: if horse is white.” According to Kant, to be something is missing in an otherwise com- genuine knowledge, a synthetic judgment plete figure, we shall tend to add it (e.g., a must be necessary and universal, i.e., a pri- triangle with a small part of its edge miss- ori. Universality and necessity have their ing will still be seen as a triangle, and, also, source in reason, i.e., in the understanding we shall “close” the gap). (2) The law of itself. According to Kant, we find synthetic similarity: we shall tend to group similar a priori judgments in the foundations of items together, to see them as forming a physics and mathematics. whole (Gestalt), within a larger form. (3) 45 See: Herbert J. Paton, ed., The Moral Law: The law of proximity: things that are close Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of together are seen as belonging together. Morals (London: Hutchinson University Therefore, according to Gestalt psychol- Library, 1948), 67. ogy, the whole is different from the sum of 46 Ibid, 91. its parts. 47 Frederick C. Beiser, ed., The Cambridge 52 Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind (trans- Companion to Hegel (Cambridge: Cam- lated by Mabelle L. Andison, New York: bridge University Press, 1993). The Citadel Press, 1992). 48 See: Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. 53 Ibid. Higgins, eds, Routledge History of Philos- 54 See: Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man ophy, Vol. VI: The Age of German Idealism (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, (London and New York: Routledge, 1993). 1973). 49 Ibid.