The Metaphysics of Nonduality
The academic and scientific community appears to believe that it can safely ignore mysticism and the ‘Perennial’ philosophy. The general view seems to be that the explanation of consciousness and reality given by those who follow the advice of the great sages of ancient Greece to ‘Know thyself’ is too vague to be interesting, too paradoxical to be intellectually accessible and less likely to be wrong than ‘not even wrong’.
This view, by which the teachings of the Buddha and Lao Tzu present no challenge to competing explanations of reality and consciousness, is a demonstrable misperception. Their explanation of reality and consciousness will only seem harmless to competing world-views where those who hold those competing views have not understood the metaphysical issues.
In metaphysics, where philosophical theories views must be tested to their limits and ideally to destruction by critical analysis, the doctrine of the mystics has teeth. It is the only fundamental theory that survives the tests. This may seem a bold statement, but as long as we examine the issues in an effective way and do not become lost in the details it is not difficult to verify its truth.
What would be an effective way? It would be to focus on three key issues.
First, we would have to verify that all extreme metaphysical positions do not survive critical analysis. If we have any doubt about this then we should not move on. Fortunately, and inevitably, most books about metaphysics make this clear.
Second, we would have to verify that the only alternative to an extreme theory, which is a neutral theory, survives critical analysis. This will requires knowing a little about dialectical logic, but only the basics.
Third, we would have to verify that the only alternative to an extreme theory is the one endorsed by the writers of the Upanishads, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Meister Eckhart and their like that has come to be known as the Perennial philosophy. As long as we are able to recognise the language of non-duality when we come across it, and it is difficult not to recognise it once one knows the trick, then this is not a difficult project.
If we complete all three stages than we will know that there is only one metaphysical theory that survives critical analysis. We will also know by now that it is very difficult to understand. Still, we now have only one metaphysical theory to study, and it has a vast literature.
Presented as an undergraduate course these three stages would probably occupy less than a term. Then students could usefully and very rationally spend the next three years making sense of the only world-theory that makes sense.
What is this World-Theory?
The advaita (not two) doctrine of the Upanishads translates into formal metaphysics as a neutral theory. This states that all polarised, positive or selective metaphysical positions and theories are wrong. For every question that asks whether the true nature of reality is this as opposed to that, both their answers would be wrong.
It would be wrong to say we have freewill or we do not have it. It would be wrong to say that the universe begins with something or nothing. It would be wrong to say the space-time world is real or unreal. It would be wrong to say ‘We are’ or ‘We are not’. Any positive statement about the world-as-a-whole would be wrong. Not dialectically false, for its opposite statement would not be true, but wrong. It would not take into account all that it needs to take into account.
Most philosophers either do not know or reject this explanation of metaphysics. In past times, when the relevant information was unavailable to most scholars, this was understandable. In an internet age it not easy to find a generous explanation.
All serious philosophers discover that metaphysical questions are undecidable and that both of their extreme answers do not work. This is, after all, the central problem of Western philosophy. Why would a rational thinker reject a global theory that might for all they know be true, when they know that no other theory works?
The most obvious instance of this practice is the rejection of the mystical philosophy by modern consciousness studies researchers. Even today, in our internet age, we see well published books purporting to explain consciousness that fail to make it clear that their authors have ever run a search on the topic of mysticism. Did they not know that mysticism is the study of consciousness? Did they know so little about it that they believed it could be safely ignored?
I believe a philosophical revolution is coming. Einstein once proposed that Buddhism may be the religion of the future. I would go further and predict that it is the philosophy of the future.
If you wish to delve further into these issues please check out my book In Pursuit of the Inconceivable; An Investigation of Metaphysics and Mysticism (Essentia Books).