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| Alternative Worlds, OctopusMeatball |
La ricerca del Sé e della Coscienza nella prospettiva enazionista porta a considerare "mondi" di coscienza ed esperienza senza fondamento:
WORLDS WITHOUT GROUND
The Middle Way
Evocations of Groundlessness
Our journey has now brought us to the point where we can appreciate that what we took to be solid ground is really more like shifting sand beneath our feet. We began with our common sense as cognitive scientists and found that our cognition emerges from the background of a world that extends beyond us but that cannot be found apart from our embodiment. When we shifted our attention away from this fundamental circularity to follow the movement of cognition alone, we found that we could discern no subjective ground, no permanent and abiding ego-self. When we tried to find the objective ground that we thought must still be present, we found a world enacted by our history of structural coupling. Finally, we saw that these various forms of groundlessness are really one: organism and environment enfold into each other and unfold from one another in the fundamental circularity that is life itself.
Our discussion of enactive cognition points directly toward the heart of our concerns in this chapter and the next. The worlds enacted by various histories of structural coupling are amenable to detailed scientific investigation, yet have no fixed, permanent substrate or foundation and so are ultimately groundless. We must now tum to face directly this groundlessness of which we have had multiple evocations. If our world is groundless, how are we to understand our day-to-day experience within it? Our experience feels given, unshakable, and unchangeable. How could we not experience the world as independent and well grounded? What else could experience of the world mean?
Western science and philosophy have brought us to the point where we are faced with, in the words of the philosopher Hilary Putnam, lithe impossibility of imagining what credible 'foundations' might look like," but they have not provided any way for us to develop direct and personal insight into the groundlessness of our own experience. Philosophers may think that this task is unnecessary, but this is largely because Western philosophy has been more concerned with the rational understanding of life and mind than with the relevance of a pragmatic method for transforming human experience.
Indeed, it is largely a given in contemporary philosophical debate that whether the world is mind-dependent or mind-independent makes little difference, if any, to our everyday experience. To think otherwise would be to deny not only "metaphysical realism" but empirical, everyday commonsense realism, which is absurd. But this current philosophical assumption confuses two very different senses that the term empirical realism can have. On the one hand, it might mean that our world will continue to be the familiar one of objects and events with various qualities, even if we discover that this world is not pregiven and well grounded. On the other hand, it might mean that we will always experience this familiar world as if it were ultimately grounded, that we are "condemned" to experience the world as if it had a ground, even though we know philosophically and scientifically that it does not. This latter supposition is not innocent, for it imposes an a priori limitation on the possibilities for human development and transformation. It is important to see that we can contest this supposition without calling into question the first sense in which things can be said to be real and independent.
The reason this point is important is that our historical situation requires not only that we give up philosophical foundationalism but that we learn to live in a world without foundations. Science alone, that is, science without any bridge to everyday human experience, is incapable of this task. As Hilary Putnam incisively remarks in a recent work, "Science is wonderful at destroying metaphysical answers, but incapable of providing substitute ones. Science takes away foundations without providing a replacement. Whether we want to be there or not, science has put us in the position of having to live without foundations. It was shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our historical position - and no end to it is in sight - is that of having to philosophize without 'foundations'."
Although it is true that our historical situation is unique, we should not draw the conclusion that we stand alone in the attempt to learn to live without foundations. To interpret our situation in this way would immediately prevent us from recognizing that other traditions have, in their own ways, addressed this very issue of the lack of foundations. In fact, the problematic of groundlessness is the focal point of the Madhyamika tradition. With one or two exceptions, Western philosophers have yet to draw on the resources of this tradition. Indeed, one often gets the impression that Western philosophers are not simply unfamiliar with Madhyamika but that they suppose a priori that our situation is so unique that no other philosophical tradition could be relevant. Richard Rorty, for example, after thoroughly criticizing the project of foundationalism in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, offers in its place a conception of "edifying philosophy" whose guiding ideal is "continuing the conversation of the West." Rorty does not even pause to consider the possibility of there being other traditions of philosophical reflection that might have addressed his very concerns. In fact, it is one such important tradition, the Madhyamika, which has served as the basis for our thought in this book.
Our discussion of enactive cognition points directly toward the heart of our concerns in this chapter and the next. The worlds enacted by various histories of structural coupling are amenable to detailed scientific investigation, yet have no fixed, permanent substrate or foundation and so are ultimately groundless. We must now tum to face directly this groundlessness of which we have had multiple evocations. If our world is groundless, how are we to understand our day-to-day experience within it? Our experience feels given, unshakable, and unchangeable. How could we not experience the world as independent and well grounded? What else could experience of the world mean?
Western science and philosophy have brought us to the point where we are faced with, in the words of the philosopher Hilary Putnam, lithe impossibility of imagining what credible 'foundations' might look like," but they have not provided any way for us to develop direct and personal insight into the groundlessness of our own experience. Philosophers may think that this task is unnecessary, but this is largely because Western philosophy has been more concerned with the rational understanding of life and mind than with the relevance of a pragmatic method for transforming human experience.
Indeed, it is largely a given in contemporary philosophical debate that whether the world is mind-dependent or mind-independent makes little difference, if any, to our everyday experience. To think otherwise would be to deny not only "metaphysical realism" but empirical, everyday commonsense realism, which is absurd. But this current philosophical assumption confuses two very different senses that the term empirical realism can have. On the one hand, it might mean that our world will continue to be the familiar one of objects and events with various qualities, even if we discover that this world is not pregiven and well grounded. On the other hand, it might mean that we will always experience this familiar world as if it were ultimately grounded, that we are "condemned" to experience the world as if it had a ground, even though we know philosophically and scientifically that it does not. This latter supposition is not innocent, for it imposes an a priori limitation on the possibilities for human development and transformation. It is important to see that we can contest this supposition without calling into question the first sense in which things can be said to be real and independent.
The reason this point is important is that our historical situation requires not only that we give up philosophical foundationalism but that we learn to live in a world without foundations. Science alone, that is, science without any bridge to everyday human experience, is incapable of this task. As Hilary Putnam incisively remarks in a recent work, "Science is wonderful at destroying metaphysical answers, but incapable of providing substitute ones. Science takes away foundations without providing a replacement. Whether we want to be there or not, science has put us in the position of having to live without foundations. It was shocking when Nietzsche said this, but today it is commonplace; our historical position - and no end to it is in sight - is that of having to philosophize without 'foundations'."
Although it is true that our historical situation is unique, we should not draw the conclusion that we stand alone in the attempt to learn to live without foundations. To interpret our situation in this way would immediately prevent us from recognizing that other traditions have, in their own ways, addressed this very issue of the lack of foundations. In fact, the problematic of groundlessness is the focal point of the Madhyamika tradition. With one or two exceptions, Western philosophers have yet to draw on the resources of this tradition. Indeed, one often gets the impression that Western philosophers are not simply unfamiliar with Madhyamika but that they suppose a priori that our situation is so unique that no other philosophical tradition could be relevant. Richard Rorty, for example, after thoroughly criticizing the project of foundationalism in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, offers in its place a conception of "edifying philosophy" whose guiding ideal is "continuing the conversation of the West." Rorty does not even pause to consider the possibility of there being other traditions of philosophical reflection that might have addressed his very concerns. In fact, it is one such important tradition, the Madhyamika, which has served as the basis for our thought in this book.
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