In Bernard Katstrup's difficult book, Meaning in Absurdity," we find some gems that make the struggle through his dense philosophy on idealism worthwhile. His discussion of Hans Kuhn, a Catholic priest and noted European philosopher, is a case in point.
I remember Kuhn well from the 1970's, when my father's sudden interest in things theological brought him into the house. And while his search for God ended in an uncomfortable agnosticism - such it often is if one delves into the intellectual side of faith - for me, it made the term "paradigm shift" intelligible. And a good thing it was, for it became the intellectual term of the moment, now subsumed in our collective vocabulary along with "charisma" and "diversity." But Katstrup makes it clear that Kuhn wasn't fooling around, which is why Kuhn was temporarily silenced by the Church at the time. Speaking of science in particular, Kuhn said that science does not advance or progress as we have been taught to believe; rather, it changes. What changes is found in what we decide or are given to notice, and what we decide to ignore. For instance, Newton's idea of gravity was at first perceived as a ridiculous fairy tale: what, invisible "rays" held us to the earth, and the planets to each other and the sun? But the idea stuck, was made real by scientific experiments, and became dogma until Einstein came along - and created a new paradigm.
But the idea is more encompassing than that: our world, the essence of our reality, is also a paradigm, and real change happens to how we view reality when the paradigm shifts. Says Kuhn, "When paradigms change, the world changes with them."
But what, then, of objective reality? Katstrup believes, and does a good job of convincing us, that ALL reality is subjective - and how can he be wrong? All our reality is perception, viewed through the biological lenses of sense and brain - and even those are merely perceptions of mind. There is, then, no provable objective reality. Kuhn's observations and deep thoughts echo this, for whatever reality is, we are swayed by mass perception - paradigms - more than anything else in how we view, or think about, our reality.
Better still in this vein is Kastrup's outline of Carl Jung's investigations. Most know something of this, but Katstrup makes it crystal clear. We are, says Jung, like islands in the ocean. The land is what we believe ourselves to be, but our greatest bulk lies below the water, in the unconscious. At base, like mountains, we become a single part of the collective whole. And beneath that lies the magma, the undifferentiated potential that will someday push itself into being, where it will be formed by a myriad of forces into realities, both shared and individual.
Katstrup, in his exposition, uses some terminology that I have been using for years - that our egos, our selves, are only thin crusts on the great ocean of being; and that we are actors who have forgotten that we are actors, believing too much in the characters we have chosen, or been chosen, to portray.
It might sound like mumbo jumbo, but the implications of both philosophical observations are well seated and profound. It means, for one, that our life energy, the bases of our being, is immortal - perhaps not our ego, but our greater selves that we hardly know. It also means that our reality is far more flexible than we have imagined. For Kuhn, from what I have read, our direction for these possibilities are arbitrary - which would have gotten him in trouble with the Church (I am probably wrong about this - it is hard to believe that Kuhn did not voice some idea about a direction for our reality systems); but for Jung, they are directed towards "individuation," or wholeness. Again, though, I am left to wonder whether by this he means that we have an evolutionary movement in society, or that each society and each individual merely must try to make a whole from what is given (or what is made through the unconscious) from the cultural paradigm.
Still, it is exciting stuff. We know that our intellect and the technology that comes from it, no matter how wonderful, falls woefully short of bringing us to a totality, to the base of Truth. But that's OK - in spite of our paradigms, we are still connected to the base, to the font of being. In its pursuit, we might change the very texture of reality; and in finding it, which each of us can do, we can find the limitless. That, to Jung, is our ultimate goal, and it is only our belief in our temporary roles in this temporary reality that keeps us from this, this that we are destined to find in the end. FK
I remember Kuhn well from the 1970's, when my father's sudden interest in things theological brought him into the house. And while his search for God ended in an uncomfortable agnosticism - such it often is if one delves into the intellectual side of faith - for me, it made the term "paradigm shift" intelligible. And a good thing it was, for it became the intellectual term of the moment, now subsumed in our collective vocabulary along with "charisma" and "diversity." But Katstrup makes it clear that Kuhn wasn't fooling around, which is why Kuhn was temporarily silenced by the Church at the time. Speaking of science in particular, Kuhn said that science does not advance or progress as we have been taught to believe; rather, it changes. What changes is found in what we decide or are given to notice, and what we decide to ignore. For instance, Newton's idea of gravity was at first perceived as a ridiculous fairy tale: what, invisible "rays" held us to the earth, and the planets to each other and the sun? But the idea stuck, was made real by scientific experiments, and became dogma until Einstein came along - and created a new paradigm.
But the idea is more encompassing than that: our world, the essence of our reality, is also a paradigm, and real change happens to how we view reality when the paradigm shifts. Says Kuhn, "When paradigms change, the world changes with them."
But what, then, of objective reality? Katstrup believes, and does a good job of convincing us, that ALL reality is subjective - and how can he be wrong? All our reality is perception, viewed through the biological lenses of sense and brain - and even those are merely perceptions of mind. There is, then, no provable objective reality. Kuhn's observations and deep thoughts echo this, for whatever reality is, we are swayed by mass perception - paradigms - more than anything else in how we view, or think about, our reality.
Better still in this vein is Kastrup's outline of Carl Jung's investigations. Most know something of this, but Katstrup makes it crystal clear. We are, says Jung, like islands in the ocean. The land is what we believe ourselves to be, but our greatest bulk lies below the water, in the unconscious. At base, like mountains, we become a single part of the collective whole. And beneath that lies the magma, the undifferentiated potential that will someday push itself into being, where it will be formed by a myriad of forces into realities, both shared and individual.
Katstrup, in his exposition, uses some terminology that I have been using for years - that our egos, our selves, are only thin crusts on the great ocean of being; and that we are actors who have forgotten that we are actors, believing too much in the characters we have chosen, or been chosen, to portray.
It might sound like mumbo jumbo, but the implications of both philosophical observations are well seated and profound. It means, for one, that our life energy, the bases of our being, is immortal - perhaps not our ego, but our greater selves that we hardly know. It also means that our reality is far more flexible than we have imagined. For Kuhn, from what I have read, our direction for these possibilities are arbitrary - which would have gotten him in trouble with the Church (I am probably wrong about this - it is hard to believe that Kuhn did not voice some idea about a direction for our reality systems); but for Jung, they are directed towards "individuation," or wholeness. Again, though, I am left to wonder whether by this he means that we have an evolutionary movement in society, or that each society and each individual merely must try to make a whole from what is given (or what is made through the unconscious) from the cultural paradigm.
Still, it is exciting stuff. We know that our intellect and the technology that comes from it, no matter how wonderful, falls woefully short of bringing us to a totality, to the base of Truth. But that's OK - in spite of our paradigms, we are still connected to the base, to the font of being. In its pursuit, we might change the very texture of reality; and in finding it, which each of us can do, we can find the limitless. That, to Jung, is our ultimate goal, and it is only our belief in our temporary roles in this temporary reality that keeps us from this, this that we are destined to find in the end. FK
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