[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
observation, for it is nothing more than self-inflicted indoctrination.
Like so many proponents of scientific materialism, Katz claims he has no
particular dogmatic position to defend and his writings are not based on any a priori
assumptions about the nature of reality. However, one of his central theses is that there
are no grounds for asserting that contemplatives ever have any conceptually unmediated
experiences; and he defends his position by declaring:
the kinds of beings we are require that experience be not only instantaneous and
discontinuous, but that it also involve memory, apprehension, expectation, language,
accumulation of prior experience, concepts, and expectations, with each experience being
built on the back of all these elements and being shaped anew by each fresh
experience. 18
Contemplatives of diverse religious traditions commonly acknowledge that conventional
experience, including scientific experience, is commonly structured by our memories,
expectations, language, and so on. But many declare on the basis of their own experience
that contemplative training can provide access to modes of experience that are free of all
such conceptual mediation. It is certainly inappropriate to accept uncritically such
experiential claims at face value; but it is equally inappropriate to deny, as Katz does, that
all such claims even count as evidence simply because they violate one s a priori,
dogmatic assumptions about the nature of the human mind. Katz asserts that such
experience is impossible simply because of the sort of beings we are; and his coup de
grace is the assertion that if words mean anything my position seems to be the only
reasonable one to adopt. 19
To contemplatives experientially based challenges to the assumptions of
scientific materialism Katz responds with sheer dogma and carefully selected evidence in
support of his a priori assumptions. This confrontation between contemplatives and
Steven Katz, as one more defender of the faith of scientific materialism, resembles that of
the pioneers of modern science and the defenders of medieval Scholasticism.
Contemplatives commonly insist that the only way to investigate their claims
conclusively is to put them to the test of personal experience. But like the clergymen who
refused to peer through Galileo s telescope, Katz claims that contemplatives themselves
do not have a privileged position even when it comes to understanding the nature of their
own experiences.20 The only thing that counts as valid data for the study and analysis of
contemplation, he says, are contem-platives accounts of their experience; and these are
equally accessible to contemplatives and scholars alike.
The Enforcement of the Taboo of Subjectivity
Throughout this work, I have suggested scientific materialism s taboo against
subjectivity has curtailed scientific research into the nature, origins, and potentials of
consciousness. As John Searle suggests, the terror of subjectivity displayed by modern
scientists and scholars may be due largely to a fear of religion; and this may also account
for the irrational, antiem-pirical dismissal of introspection as a means of acquiring
scientific, firsthand knowledge of the mind. If the great contemplative traditions of the
West and East have discovered avenues of insight into the nature of consciousness, these
should be open to genuine empirical research despite the misgivings of both religious
and scientific dogmatists. For the curtailing of free inquiry is due to ideological taboos of
all kinds and not to traditional religions alone.
The central rationale for denying in principle the validity of introspection and
contemplative inquiry is that they are intrinsically subjective. Genuine observation,
insists scientific materialism, requires that the object exist independently of the subject;
but this notion of observation suppresses the ubiquitous fact that a subjective observer is
part of the process of perceiving, identifying, and understanding any object. The
implication of this metaphysical stance is that the validity of our knowledge of an entity
is inversely proportional to the role played by subjective awareness in ascertaining its
existence.
Scientific materialism assumes that the objects of scientific experience must be
capable of being perceived by every competent observer; this assertion, in turn, is based
on the assumption that it is impossible for an individual to develop exceptional or
extraordinary perceptual abilities. But this possibility is the central claim of the
contemplative traditions of the world a claim that is ruled out in principle by scientific
materialism. Likewise, in this scheme, every perception that deviates from normal is
automatically deemed abnormal and therefore invalid.
The requirement just described for objectivity would fail even in bona fide
scientific research, for the full significance of objects of all but quite primitive scientific
observations is accessible only to individuals with very specialized training. Everyone
else, including other scientists, is expected to accept those objects out of their faith in the
integrity of science. Although the objects of contemplative experience are more private,
the difference is one of degree and not of type that is, not objective versus subjective, as
commonly assumed. Scientists are no more capable of proving the validity of their most
sophisticated theories to untrained (and even skeptical) people than contemplatives are
able to prove theirs. Scientists are quite right to place their faith in their predecessors in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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observation, for it is nothing more than self-inflicted indoctrination.
Like so many proponents of scientific materialism, Katz claims he has no
particular dogmatic position to defend and his writings are not based on any a priori
assumptions about the nature of reality. However, one of his central theses is that there
are no grounds for asserting that contemplatives ever have any conceptually unmediated
experiences; and he defends his position by declaring:
the kinds of beings we are require that experience be not only instantaneous and
discontinuous, but that it also involve memory, apprehension, expectation, language,
accumulation of prior experience, concepts, and expectations, with each experience being
built on the back of all these elements and being shaped anew by each fresh
experience. 18
Contemplatives of diverse religious traditions commonly acknowledge that conventional
experience, including scientific experience, is commonly structured by our memories,
expectations, language, and so on. But many declare on the basis of their own experience
that contemplative training can provide access to modes of experience that are free of all
such conceptual mediation. It is certainly inappropriate to accept uncritically such
experiential claims at face value; but it is equally inappropriate to deny, as Katz does, that
all such claims even count as evidence simply because they violate one s a priori,
dogmatic assumptions about the nature of the human mind. Katz asserts that such
experience is impossible simply because of the sort of beings we are; and his coup de
grace is the assertion that if words mean anything my position seems to be the only
reasonable one to adopt. 19
To contemplatives experientially based challenges to the assumptions of
scientific materialism Katz responds with sheer dogma and carefully selected evidence in
support of his a priori assumptions. This confrontation between contemplatives and
Steven Katz, as one more defender of the faith of scientific materialism, resembles that of
the pioneers of modern science and the defenders of medieval Scholasticism.
Contemplatives commonly insist that the only way to investigate their claims
conclusively is to put them to the test of personal experience. But like the clergymen who
refused to peer through Galileo s telescope, Katz claims that contemplatives themselves
do not have a privileged position even when it comes to understanding the nature of their
own experiences.20 The only thing that counts as valid data for the study and analysis of
contemplation, he says, are contem-platives accounts of their experience; and these are
equally accessible to contemplatives and scholars alike.
The Enforcement of the Taboo of Subjectivity
Throughout this work, I have suggested scientific materialism s taboo against
subjectivity has curtailed scientific research into the nature, origins, and potentials of
consciousness. As John Searle suggests, the terror of subjectivity displayed by modern
scientists and scholars may be due largely to a fear of religion; and this may also account
for the irrational, antiem-pirical dismissal of introspection as a means of acquiring
scientific, firsthand knowledge of the mind. If the great contemplative traditions of the
West and East have discovered avenues of insight into the nature of consciousness, these
should be open to genuine empirical research despite the misgivings of both religious
and scientific dogmatists. For the curtailing of free inquiry is due to ideological taboos of
all kinds and not to traditional religions alone.
The central rationale for denying in principle the validity of introspection and
contemplative inquiry is that they are intrinsically subjective. Genuine observation,
insists scientific materialism, requires that the object exist independently of the subject;
but this notion of observation suppresses the ubiquitous fact that a subjective observer is
part of the process of perceiving, identifying, and understanding any object. The
implication of this metaphysical stance is that the validity of our knowledge of an entity
is inversely proportional to the role played by subjective awareness in ascertaining its
existence.
Scientific materialism assumes that the objects of scientific experience must be
capable of being perceived by every competent observer; this assertion, in turn, is based
on the assumption that it is impossible for an individual to develop exceptional or
extraordinary perceptual abilities. But this possibility is the central claim of the
contemplative traditions of the world a claim that is ruled out in principle by scientific
materialism. Likewise, in this scheme, every perception that deviates from normal is
automatically deemed abnormal and therefore invalid.
The requirement just described for objectivity would fail even in bona fide
scientific research, for the full significance of objects of all but quite primitive scientific
observations is accessible only to individuals with very specialized training. Everyone
else, including other scientists, is expected to accept those objects out of their faith in the
integrity of science. Although the objects of contemplative experience are more private,
the difference is one of degree and not of type that is, not objective versus subjective, as
commonly assumed. Scientists are no more capable of proving the validity of their most
sophisticated theories to untrained (and even skeptical) people than contemplatives are
able to prove theirs. Scientists are quite right to place their faith in their predecessors in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]