I think a lot of the time there's this unconscious (or conscious) commitment to essentialism, and people want to know what this "essence" is. Other times they just want to know what people are trying to say when they use the term/phrase.

The problem is that, for non-trivial things (so unlike bachelorhood), essentialism fails, and people might mean slightly (or greatly) different things when using the same term/phrase – or they themselves might not know quite what they mean.

That's why discussions on things like morality and free will are unresolvable – because there isn't really an answer.

I typically see those questions as a combination of (a) ontological questions--just what the ontological make-up and properties are of the thing in question (or in other words, the make-up and properties of the extension of the term), and (b) a "functional" accounting of what something amounts to in practice (or in other words, how people utilize, engage with, etc. the thing in question, possibly contrary to their beliefs about it, from a broader socio-cultural perspective).

By asking "what is the nature of truth" we might want to investigate and discuss conditions which satisfy the possibility that a statement is true. It is pretty much the nature of philosophy to ask questions about the nature of things.

I think a lot of the time there's this unconscious (or conscious) commitment to essentialism, and people want to know what this "essence" is — Michael

Yes, I agree. I call it "word-math." It sure would be nice if language worked like that for philosophers, but I don't think it works like that (or that it's a bad strategy in many cases for getting anywhere worth going.) We need a context of personality and worldly relevance.

We need a context of personality and worldly relevance. — Hoo

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." -- John 14:6.

You mean like that?

Actually, I love that line. "I am the truth." Seriously, there's a Blakean or Satanic reading of the Gospels that has really influenced me. It's in Saint Paul, too. "Christ is the end of the law." You can trace Romantic Satanism and Stirner/Nietzsche back to subversive readings like these perhaps. Another great line: "Before Abraham was, I am" It's a shift from piety toward the Truth to a piety toward the living self who uses truths as tools rather than as idols. The identification is direct rather than indirect. Just as the priest mediated between the laity and God, so does " pure reason" mediates between the philosopher and Truth. But the whole game of proximity to the idol Truth via pure reason can be thrown over as a bit of con --or at least as a clunky and solemn pose, inferior to others in the gallery of options. (Practical life is something else, of course. Banal correspondence, etc.)

Another meaning of the question is to ask after the necessary and sufficient conditions which an entity possesses. So we might reflect that a bird can have accidental properties such as redness or whiteness, but that because a bird can remain a bird while being either red or white we would not include either redness or whiteness as a necessary or sufficient condition for calling some entity a bird.

So, using this meaning, the question "What is the nature of truth?" is to ask what are the necessary and sufficient conditions by which we may consider an entity the truth?

Another great line: "Before Abraham was, I am" It's a shift from piety toward the Truth to a piety toward the living self who uses truths as tools rather than as idols. — Hoo

That is from Exodus, where God answers the question posed by Moses as to his name: ' God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (3:14)

The Indian sage Ramana Maharishi expounded this and other Biblical phrases of a similar nature - such as, 'Be still, and know that I am God' (Psalms 46:10) - in his teachings.

Of course, the doctrinal Christian view of that would probably be that Ramana, being a Hindu, and therefore pagan, was being impertinent. However the Advaita Vedanta philosophy, of which Ramana was an exponent, understands 'I AM' as ātman, which simply means 'self', but in the sense of the locus of experience, and an individual instantiation of Brahman to whom it will eventually return after having eventually penetrated the illusions of maya.

Those ideas all concern the question of what Alan Watts called in his early (and excellent) The Supreme Identity, 'an essay in Oriental metaphysic and the Chistian religion', in which he argues that:

'Modern Civilization is in a state of chaos because its spiritual leadership has lost effective knowledge of man's true nature. Neither philosophy nor religion today gives us the consciousness that at the deepest center of our being exists an eternal reality, which in the West is called God. Yet only from this realization come the serenity and spiritual power necessary for a stable and creative society.'

Although it should be added that both Watts and Ramana are subversive from the perspective of mainstream religion.

I wonder if modern civilization is in more chaos than usual, though. Perhaps in ages of less social mobility and information, there was less temptation to wander from the Official Answers. But there was more physical discomfort, certainly. So we seem to have gained physical comfort at the cost of a more difficult spiritual adolescence. For me life is no longer a chaos. I navigate the concrete jungle with a strong sense of why I bother and how to bother. Certainly, I see the damned on the public transportation system. I don't often see acute pain, but I see the look of mere survival and reduced expectations. But when I look around at my fellow grad students or friend group, I mostly don't see this brokenness. So-and-so gets divorced, etc., but I see happiness enough. At the moment, one of my friends is dealing with heartbreak.Her problem with life just now is simply the finding of a good man (or the re-caging one in particular).
In my youth, I deeply suffered the "spiritual" problem, but I think that such intensity is rare. Maybe thinking types are those especially pained by cognitive dissonance or just grandiose in their expectations (too much breast milk, I like to joke). So only we bother to iron out the pluralistic "disaster," sometimes into a transcendent irony. Others can fold into bumperstickers and a cheap solidarity, untouched by anxiety of influence or an itch for the profound.

Although it should be added that both Watts and Ramana are subversive from the perspective of mainstream religion. — Wayfarer

And maybe also add that rightfully so :D lol

You shall know them by their fruits - what were their fruits? Watts used to persevere in doing drugs and drinking, thus being attached to all sorts of feelings and sensations he identified as pleasurable - forget the Zen, that was certainly not so important when he was repeatedly drinking and doing drugs - maybe it was only an excuse. Ramana invented all sorts of nonsense (enlightened cows >:O ) none of which made any important difference in the lives of his followers. Really - such people cannot produce good. They are subversive - they undermine order - regardless of any other so called achievement. One shall know them by their fruits.

One shall know them by their fruits. — Agustino

I agree. Show me the life! Beyond words there is a life actually lived, giving words weight. I don't think you're a pragmatist, but that's largely what it means to me. I respect your beliefs and anyone's beliefs that allow them to live well (without preventing me from doing so). We'd probably vote in different directions, but I'm glad you're here (and that Wayfarer is here) to keep up the 'biodiversity' of ideas.

I agree. Show me the life! Beyond words there is a life actually live, giving words weight. I don't think you're a pragmatist, but that's largely what it means to me. I respect your beliefs and anyone's beliefs that allow them to live well (without preventing me from doing so). We'd probably vote in different directions, but I'm glad you're here (and that Wayfarer is here) to keep up the 'biodiversity' of ideas. — Hoo

Thanks for your kinds words :)

I read the biography of Watts by Monica Furlong which was published in Australia as Genuine Fake (I think it was called A Zen Life in the US). Warts and all biographical description, and I became pretty dissillusioned by it at the time (although his vice was drinking, not really drugs per se). But then again, he never presented himself as guru nor was he ever pious, and besides his books are really good; his philosophical prose is peerless in his genre. That book, and Beyond Theology, Way of Zen, and several others, remain on my all-time favourites and I would still have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone.

As for Ramana, I always respected him, but I felt that to really penetrate such a teaching would be matter of completely absorbing yourself in that mode of existence, which I was obviously never going to do. That's why in the end I found the most practicable and workable approach was Soto Zen (although I still have a basically universalist attitude).

But then again, he never presented himself as guru nor was he ever pious, and besides his books are really good; his philosophical prose is peerless in his genre. That book, and Beyond Theology, Way of Zen, and several others, remain on my all-time favourites and I would still have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone. — Wayfarer

But this is an excuse. Who cares if his works were peerless? They clearly weren't so powerful as to get him to change. So it's in the end just beautiful but meaningless words, which don't mean much in reality. It's like a drunk writing a very beautiful poem, and many others coming after and wondering what genius has written it, and what is the intended meaning. Clearly no meaning was ever intended.

People require an ordered environment to flourish, they cannot flourish in disorder. And people like Alan Watts are proof of just that. What happens when order is disconsidered, and people are encouraged to travel on their own, lonely path.

Well, I agree that Watts' actions ought not to be emulated, but The Supreme Identity is a uniquely valuable book, regardless.

Well, I agree that Watts' actions ought not to be emulated, but The Supreme Identity is a uniquely valuable book, regardless. — Wayfarer

How is that possible? It's impossible that a man whose life is not transformed by it is in possession of the truth. It's a performative contradiction. Like Heidegger - I think Heidegger may have made a few interesting points, but I refuse to recognise his works as "great" due to his moral failings (supporting Nazism, doing anything to advance his career, having sex with his students - including Hannah Arendt, etc.). Such a man could not have been in possession of truth (and any truth he was in possession of was certainly corrupted). Thus despite his interesting points, I think his works can safely be avoided by someone in pursuit of the truth. The same points may be found stated differently in other sources.

I think there is a distinction that can be made between reality and existence, in keeping with the sources I mentioned above.

'what exists' is what can be measured, ascertained, and made subject to analysis. But 'existence' itself is simply a momentary aspect of the totality - and the totality is what is real. I think this is why the spiritually enlightened see things as they do - it is because they are alive to the totality, hence characeristic expressions such as 'all is one'.

Another way of considering this. Reality is the totality of experience at this very moment. It includes everything you can see, know, think about, and an indefinite or infinite amount more which branches out into the vastness of space around you and also down into the depths of your own unconscious processes. The nature of 'awakening' is to be completely awake and alive to the immensity of this current moment of reality.

In practice, this state always being occluded by the conditioned outlook, the constant interplay of memory-and-expectation, desire-and-aversion, and the many other states, both conscious and subliminal, that constantly arise and pass away from one moment to the next. This is what dictates our actual experience of life moment to moment, or what you call 'yourself' or 'your life'.

Now the point about a 'purified consciousness' is that it is intensely alive to each moment and to the sense of immensity which this brings. There is a sense in which one's own aliveness and the aliveness of all that lives intermingle in this awareness. But of course we cannot appreciate this immensity precisely because of the burden of self-hood, of the weight of who we are and what we own.

Existence, on the other hand, is your life considered longitudinally, that is, through time. It relies on time to introduce the sense of continuity, which established a series of moments, which comprise your conscious existence through time. It describes all that you know, measure, think about. 'You' are that process which exists through time, which measures and knows and hopes and so on.If you are able to meet each moment completely, live it with complete attention, without any effort, then it doesn't leave any marks on you. Everything just falls off you like water off a duck's back. But of course I am not like that, I am always thinking, planning, getting, doing, the very thought process is always creating itself according to its previous experience.

So this is the purpose of spiritual discipline: to realise that state of intense aliveness and awareness. With it comes an increased sensitivity to the nature of things which really can't be captured by thought, no matter how subtle, clever or refined. Because thought itself is of the nature of time.

Disclaimer: this is a state that I know that I don't know, but at least I know that I don't know it.

I think this is why the spiritually enlightened see things as they do - it is because they are alive to the totality, hence characeristic expressions such as 'all is one'. — Wayfarer

I like holism. I can't lump the "spiritually enlightened" altogether, because maybe there is a plurality of states worth being described as "enlightened."

The nature of 'awakening' is to be completely awake and alive to the immensity of this current moment of reality. — Wayfarer

I like the idea of being very alive and very aware. I'm a little suspicious of the sleeping/waking metaphor being taken too far. Isn't happiness enough? Just to hug one's wife with a warm heart or to laugh with one's friends over a cosmic joke or the joke of the kosmos...That's awake enough for me.

Disclaimer: this is a state that I know that I don't know, but at least I know that I don't know it. — Wayfarer

But if you don't know it, what does it mean to know that you don't know it? Are you suggesting a goal that you can't guarantee the attainment of ? I prefer the idea of getting better at life. The dark stuff washes off one's back more easily and more often. Sometimes, nevertheless, some heavy lifting must be done. I'd prefer not to have hold up or pursue an image of total "escape." Is it not better to say that those free, playful moments that you've already known since childhood can become more and more common? I get this from the Tao. We unlearn the pieties and pretensions that cramp the better, authentic parts of ourselves.

But if you don't know it, what does it mean to know that you don't know it? Are you suggesting a goal that you can't guarantee the attainment of?

There's a lot of pseudo-enlightenment. So, while I really do believe in the reality of awakening, I also believe that in reality it is very rare, notwithstanding all the people who imply they understand it.

Isn't happiness enough? — Hoo

It depends. Everything is transient, I think the beginning of the path is the awareness of that.

There's a lot of pseudo-enlightenment. So, while I really do believe in the reality of awakening, I also believe that in reality it is very rare, notwithstanding all the people who imply they understand it. — Wayfarer

I get that. But how does one distinguish? That's exactly why there's a taboo against being "flaky" or superstitious. I'm really not trying to give you hell or disrespect you. I'm just explaining my own difficulties with or resistance to your image of enlightenment. You say "it," implying that it is singular. Do you count yourself among the enlightened? I sure as hell wouldn't blame you or accuse you for that. That's my Blake-inherited image of the artist-poet. My objection is with what I see as a half-way position, where there is in theory a "real" but unattained enlightenment against which the claimed enlightenment of others can be false. This doesn't for a moment mean that I don't ever experience this or that person as "full of sh*t." If the goal is happiness, however, we can demand that our dispensers of wisdom be pretty damn happy or well-adjusted. As far as reading this happiness goes, well that's largely in the realm of gesture and tone. We see it in the eyes and the walk, hear it in the voice. Dance and music are in this sense revelations of enlightenment.

It depends. Everything is transient, I think the beginning of the path is the awareness of that. — Wayfarer

I guess I associate happiness precisely with "enoughness." I do think awareness of the transience of all things is hugely important. Or it was for me. We leap like flame from melting candle to melting candle.

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That's what I studied as an undergrad and then did a Master of Buddhist Studies. It's the only rigorous way to study the subject, as it requires first-person insight (which is why it is invisible to naturalism). But the other factor is, I think that the 'idea of enlightenment' is generally understood in Chinese and Indian culture much more explicitly than in Western culture. It is represented in Western culture, but it has to be in terms that the Churches will agree with - mediated by orthodoxy, you could say.

But in relation to the question in the thread - what is truth? - you will recall the interminable Banno threads about justified true belief and the rest. They never culminate in anything, I don't think. There has to be a 'realisation of truth' for it to mean anything. That realisation is embodied in the person of the sage. Again that has been carried forward much more clearly in Chinese and Indian religions - one of Alan Watts' major insights (regardless of his failings.)

For instance, many Hindu names end with the particle -ananda. So you have names like Satyananda, Vivekenanda, and other names associated with the Hindu tradition. That name 'ananda' means 'bliss', so Satyananda means 'bliss of truth'.

I hear you. I'm not attached to "enlightenment" as a term. But I think we find plenty of Western notions of transcendence or the wise man. I don't know where you position Hesse, but I think Steppenwolf and Siddartha are great. Accuracy or continuity with tradition doesn't matter to me. It's only what I can make of X in my own life that matters. I piece together Kojeve and the Gospels and Stirner and James and the Tao and Louis C K and Tropic of Cancer and Job and, well, whatever is around the corner.

There has to be a 'realisation of truth' for it to mean anything. That realisation is embodied in the person of the sage. — Wayfarer

Well, yeah. I'm always stressing the image of the sage is at the heart of the philosophy that isn't just a footnote to science. But this sage is central in Kojeve. Stirner too presents a twist on the same Hegelian evolution of the sage. The sage understands his own engendering as a swelling system of "determinate negations." This is in Siddartha, too, but Hesse was a German. The sage is not pure but complete. He lives through the quest for purity and/or the beyond as a failed attempt at a short cut. So this partial view falls forward into a more complex and complete view (falling uphill). His truth is in satisfaction with the real as rational and the rational as real, that he is the completed self-consciousness of God, the end of history, etc. This is beautiful stuff. It affirms 'evil' as necessary. It doesn't look beyond the physical world, feelings, and concepts. I get that it doesn't appeal to everyone, but here indeed is a grand Western vision of the sage.

As for Hesse (this is from the Herman Hesse website)

Hermann Hesse's life and literary oeuvre are characterized by a constant preoccupation with the questions of religion and faith that were his companion virtually from the cradle on. He was born into a Protestant-Pietist family of missionaries, preachers and theologians against whose rigour and severity he soon rebelled. His father's attempt to use religious education to break Hermann's self-willed nature caused the boy to feel increasingly estranged from Christianity. Yet Hesse's pious parental home was one marked not only by the pietist spirit but also by other religious influences. His father's and grandfather's missionary work in India meant that Hesse was soon exposed to Hinduism and Buddhism, and he later went on to explore Chinese Taoism. Yet this path did not cause him to renounce Christianity. On the contrary, in fact: in the course of his lifelong investigation of the phenomenon of religion, he developed the notion of a synthesis between the religions on the basis of a universal mysticism]. He was, in fact, seeking the unity of all peoples, a connecting bridge between East and West. Siddhartha and, of course, his later work, Das Glasperlenspiel, bear literary testimony to this lifelong search for a God. Hesse believed in a "religion outside, between and above confessions, which is indestructible." Yet he always took a very sceptical view of dogmas and teachings. "I believe one religion is as good as the other," he writes. "There is none in which one could not become a sage, and none in which one could not just as easily engage in the most inane form of idolatry."

(Y)

As for Hegel and mysticism, it's practically an oeuvre.

It depends. Everything is transient, I think the beginning of the path is the awareness of that. — Wayfarer

Really? If that were true, man's fulfilment would be impossible. Man has desire. Desire is the reflection of an emptiness, a thirst. Filling that emptiness - that is the quieting of desire. But if nothing is unchanging, nothing is eternal, then fulfilment of desire can never be eternal, and hence desire can never be quieted - thus there would be no end to suffering.

'Filling the emptiness' has nothing to do with it, that is simply seeking satiety. As long as we're tethered by desire then it's a treadmill (pace Schopenhauer). The whole point of the spiritual path is to find what is not subject to change and decay. In the Christian lexicon 'heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away'; 'don't lay up your treasure where moths and rust corrupt'.

'Filling the emptiness' has nothing to do with it, that is simply seeking satiety — Wayfarer

Not if you define satiety, as one should, as incomplete fulfilment of desire (it's incomplete because desire rises again - if it was complete, no desire would arise). Much more, I think so called satiety occurs when one mis-identifies the object of desire, and thus only temporarily deceives themselves that they are fulfilled. Furthermore, there are very serious problems with your language on this matter. "Everything is transient" is contradictory to:

The whole point of the spiritual path is to find what is not subject to change and decay — Wayfarer

If everything really were subject to change and decay, then there would be no spiritual path - a quest for the changeless would be a quest for that which doesn't exist in the first place, which is absurd. Look at this:

It is impossible for any created good to constitute man's happiness. For happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e. of man's appetite, is the universal good; just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is evident that naught can lull man's will, save the universal good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by participation. Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of Ps.102:5: "Who satisfieth thy desire with good things." Therefore God alone constitutes man's happiness. — St. Thomas Aquinas

Look how clear that language is. Desire is good - desire points you towards the good. When you truly understand desire, then you understand that it cannot be fulfilled alone by things other than the transcendent, then you stop lusting for those (which is your "everything is transient" speech). However, there was nothing in your "everything is transient" speech that could have ever pointed to "the whole point of the spiritual path is to find what is not subject to change and decay". In fact, you couldn't even put the two together - they're mutually contradictory, unless you get yourself into some complicated word play - the transcendent doesn't really exist, because only things in the world exist, bla bla. Instead of teaching the simple point - namely desire is good, focus on understanding what you truly lack, and hence what will truly make you fulfilled - you go about in a very confusing manner. If someone reads just that one post, they'll think you're a nihilist - "everything is transient, nothing is permanent".

But that doesn't include desiring fast food, porno, mindless entertainment, money, thrills, etc, right? So, yes, if you mean that spiritual teachings say that 'desiring the good' is ok, I can go along with that. But generally speaking desire gets a bad rap in that context.

But that doesn't include desiring fast food, porno, mindless entertainment, money, thrills, etc, right? — Wayfarer

Well you have to consider what one truly desires when they opt for fast food, porn, mindless entertainment, money, thrills etc. They are very likely confused about the object of their desire. For example, when someone desires sex, they probably desire some form of intimacy. Now some think they can achieve this without being committed - thus they engage in promiscuous sex. Some think they can achieve this merely through sex, regardless of other elements of the relationship. And so forth - there are many possible deceptions about the object of desire. And these are deceptions precisely because the so called object of desire they identify actually frustrates the achievement of the authentic, underlying desire - they prevent the actual object of desire from being obtained. So yes - the desire for sex is the desire for intimacy, and it is good. The desire for food is the desire for a healthy and well-nurtured body and it is good, although a lesser good than the transcendent for example, because one wants a healthy and well-nurtured body in order to be able to achieve many of the other goods. The supreme good is the transcendent though.

That last point, is the point.

That last point, is the point. — Wayfarer

Yes but the other things are also goods - which is very important. Many from the Platonic tradition go to the extreme of saying that just because the transcendent is the supreme good, everything else is unimportant - that's not true.