THE FALACY OF MISCONSTRUED TRANSCENDENTAL EMPIRICISM

A fallacy of epistemology involving equivocation between phenomenology and ideology, and potentially relevant to understand as a culprit in politically incorrect behavior… Yeah, I know – the above is a mouthful. I have tried to think of a way to express it more simply, but I lose the clear meaning and so I find myself accepting the awkward language. The concept behind this fallacy is not new, but I am unaware of anyone else ever attempting to formulate it specifically as a titled fallacy. I find in my own experience that this needs to be done, so I am taking it upon myself to do so – partly for my own efficient future reference in communicating to others about mysticism. This is important for both theoretical and practical understanding, including issues of respect, functional communication and mutual understanding. Let me begin by explaining what I mean by a “fallacy of epistemology”. Epistemology is the philosophy of knowing – how we know, different ways of knowing, how to assess the truth of our knowing, and so on. Especially relevant here is different ways of knowing. A couple of examples will do much of my job of explaining this fallacy. I know that grass is green. I know this directly through perception, and there can be no confusion about it. If I wish to know the distance to Andromeda Galaxy, I can look it up in a book. I do not know the answer the same way that I know grass is green. For one thing, the green color of grass is a part of my actual being – demonstrated by the fact that I would never forget it (if, for example, asked on a test). I would also take issue with anyone challenging the answer. But I trust the answer to the distance to Andromeda. If someone argues, I may suggest a certain window of inaccuracy but continue to assert my faith in the science. Yet a respectful discussion is possible. Also, the answer is not part of my being. It is in personality (acquired) and not essence (innate) so I could forget it on a test. The distinctions drawn above reflect differences in the epistemology of the two examples. No doubt for the two examples given you have no problem with the distinction. But there are certain circumstances where this same distinction commonly fails to be recognized. That, in a nutshell, is the fallacy. You see that the problem does not arise in the above examples because of common ground. You share my experience of the color of grass. One can argue shades of color, or that dried up grass turns brown, but that misses the point – you know the difference between a generic statement and a meticulous accounting. So you accept that arguing over this issue is inappropriate. But should you fail to fully have a common ground in the experience of some truth claim under consideration, you might fail to recognize its character – that this is “grass is green” sort of stuff. In short, you might not recognize the epistemology of the situation as phenomenological, meaning that it pertains to direct perceptions and experiences. You might instead see it as “book learning” sort of stuff, like the distance to Andromeda. Or even worse, you might misconstrue it as an opinionated issue of ideology subject to debate. I could give accounts of actual instances of this fallacy – the fallacy of misconstrued transcendental empiricism – to show that such a thing can and on occasion does happen. At this point we need to look at those two words in the fallacy I have not yet explained. In the context of what I just said, it is not hard to understand why this fallacy would arise in the context of what-is-called transcendental experiences. Whatever else this means, it tells us for our purposes here that we are speaking of the kind of experiences that are not always universally common ground in commonplace experience, and therefore vulnerable to the fallacy. If people do not have common ground for certain kinds of experiences, it is easy for them to doubt their existence. The term mysticism is often invoked to collectively cover this turf, as we find in Ken Wilber. I offer in a separate blog post document a precise definition of this term (please refer to it as needed), but the more broad-stroked usage I just suggested will suffice here. Mystics (real ones) are obvious candidates for the most misunderstood people in the world, and the fallacy – MTE fallacy for short – is indisputably the single most important reason for that. Second place, I’ll mention in passing, goes to pseudo-mystical clap-trap from lunatics and charlatans like virtually all occultists. They make it easy for people to commit the MTE fallacy and remain confident in the soundness of their judgment. The word empiricism conveys an idea very similar to phenomenology. The “phenomenal” world is the world of appearances. The “empirical” world is the world subject to observation. Science studies the empirical world. Science cannot see my inner emotional states, but it can see overt manifestations of them and record my verbal or written accounts of them. That becomes the data for the psychologists. My inner states are empirical to me but to no one else (Ken Wilber’s upper left quadrant). To outsiders, my account of these states is a second-hand “book learning” sort of epistemology subject to considerations of trust (Ken Wilber’s lower left quadrant). But that does not mean the content fails to have an empirical referent. An outsider who denies that is actually accusing me of lying about those states. And, you see, the outsider could do that simply by misconstruing the epistemology of “inner states” as something like “ideology”. Let’s be clear about that: the outsider is not simply claiming I have a different opinion, even if that is what the outsider actually says. An outsider who frames the issue in that manner is committing the MTE fallacy. The outsider might be unaware of any disrespect entailed. Let’s make the fallacy and its ramifications blatantly clear. I can do that easily with a rather silly anecdotal example. My gender is empirical “grass is green” sort of stuff. It may not be so for the reader, but proof can be had – we will not go there. I am a male. Suppose you were to respond to me that I am being too “closed minded”. Perhaps I am a female, or something unspecific. You say that some academic psychologists remain unconvinced of the thorough validity and usefulness of the distinction, some even denying it altogether. I should be open to other opinions. How would I respond to this? In this case, I would be laughing too hard to actually be offended. I would respond in no uncertain terms that I know my own gender, thank you, and you are out of line challenging it. To that you respond that I am not only close minded, but arrogant and stubborn, and obviously not amenable to intelligent discussion. By this point I am probably feeling what-is-called “pissed”, and you are liable to encounter more spectacular examples of this alleged arrogance and stubbornness. The fault will be perceived as mine – arrogance, closed mindedness, etc. But the actual problem is that you have misconstrued the epistemology of the situation. You are treating phenomenology as if it were ideology. You have committed the MTE fallacy. Perhaps you are thinking that nothing nearly as ridiculous as this example would happen in reality and that I am making a mountain out of a molehill in presenting the fallacy. With all due respect, you would be mistaken. You have to understand that the experiences of mystics are typically by very definition (mine) more certain, clear, awake, unclouded, undistorted, unambiguous and reliable than their more commonplace states. (Of course, most of the time for all but a tiny handful of people in the whole of human history, the states of mystics are like that of everyone else – they can forget where they left their car keys, etc. Perhaps they distort the reality of their own being by identifying so heavily with exceptional states, but they more than anyone else can speak meaningfully of the contrast). Although plenty of epistemologically incompetent reductionists deny it, many people know, as I just hinted, that our usual states fall into the general basket of relative consciousness that is in reality less trustworthy than these exceptional experiences. This is why several major philosophies and spiritual traditions call our usual state “sleep” or other such terms denoting its incomplete reliability and “vivifyingness”. Examples are abundant, including the very premise of the entirety of the religion of Buddhism (the title “Buddha” means “the one who is awake”). Mystics are universally well known for proclaiming their position with authority. They say in effect, “I know what I know!” In my own most powerful experience, I proclaimed to myself (paraphrasing closely) that, “As God is my witness, I will never in my ordinary states question or second-guess what I have learned, as I know and mark it down for myself that I will never have the clarity and certainty in ordinary states that I have now!” That was three decades ago, and I kept my promise. I know what that experience was or entails with an essentially comparable kind of clarity, of direct knowing and of certainty as I know my own gender. For me, this is “grass is green” sort of empirical stuff. And claims by reductionists who commit the MTE fallacy with inflexibility and arrogance do not come across to mystics as much less ridiculous and disrespectful than the example of questioning my gender. Their stubbornness carries the weight of social conditioning and sanction, including many respected and popular academicians. An example in the course I am now taking is James Hillman, whose unequivocal and brazen proclamation that all transcendentalism is dangerous (he calls it “titanism”) is just as stupid, just as sick, and just as rude as the silly example of denouncing the concept of gender. And this scary myopia carries the weight of academic respectability. It is the “flatland” of Ken Wilber, whose entire third section of his book “A Brief History of Everything” makes it screamingly clear that this reductionism is the single most dangerous ideological problem facing the academic world today. Personally, I can be very tolerant and understanding of people who commit the MTE fallacy (with a great deal of innocence in most cases). But I am presently involved in a course that has the agenda of tackling these issues directly and attempting to move forward for a vision for the future that takes into account contemporary insights such as those of Wilber. I cannot be other than I am, and cannot avoid revealing in such a context the most fundamentally important fact of my existence – that of my mystical insight. Take that away from me and I am just another digit in one of Annie Dillard’s numbers (referencing her book For the Time Being). Disrespect toward me does not matter – I am not anything to get excited about, and fail to live up to my own ideology. But failure to learn and respect the MTE fallacy is a failure of respect toward the whole circumstance of our species at this point in its history, and a failure to provide it with one of its most important tools for any authentic hope for the future. Steve Adams, June, 2008