by Greg Goode
So here is the excerpt from Heidegger. Imagine an astronomer thinking about a faraway star. The star is experientially very close because of the astronomer’s engagement, whereas a pen on his desk that he’s indifferent to may be far away.
When we speak of man and space, it sounds as though man stood on one side, space on the other. Yet space is not something that faces man. It is neither an external object nor an inner experience. It is not that there are men, and over and above them space; for when I say “a man”, and in saying this word think of a being who exists in a human manner – that is, who dwells – then by the name “man” I already name the stay within the fourfold among things.
Even when we relate ourselves to those things that are not in our immediate reach, we are staying with the things themselves. We do not represent distant things merely in our mind – as the textbooks have it – so that only mental representations of distant things run through our minds and heads as substitutes for the things.
If all of us now think, from where we are right here, of the old bridge in Heidelberg, this thinking toward that location is not a mere experience inside the persons present here; rather, it belongs to the nature of our thinking of that bridge that in itself thinking gets through, persists through, the distance to that location. From this spot right here, we are there at the bridge – we are by no means at some representational content in our consciousness. From right here we may even be much nearer to that bridge and to what it makes room for than someone who uses it daily as an indifferent river crossing.
Spaces, and with them space as such – “space” – are always provided for already within the stay of mortals. Spaces open up by the fact that they are let into the dwelling of man. To say that mortals are is to say that in dwelling they persist through spaces by virtue of their stay among things and locations. And only because mortals pervade, persist through, spaces by their very nature are they able to go through spaces.
But in going through spaces we do not give up our standing in them. Rather, we always go through spaces in such a way that we already experience them by staying constantly with near and remote locations and things. When I go toward the door of the lecture hall, I am already there, and I could not go to it at all if I were not such that I am there. I am never here only, as this encapsulated body; rather, I am there, that is, I already pervade the room, and only thus can I go through it.
Heidegger (2001) (paragraph separations are ours)
References
de Man, Paul (1983) “Criticism and Crisis.” In: de Man, Paul Blindness and Insight. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Heidegger, Martin (1998). The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press
Heidegger, Martin (1992). The Concept of Time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Heidegger, Martin (2008). Being and Time. New York, NY: HarperCollins
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge
CHAPTER 17 – LIBERATING YOURSELF FROM RIGID BELIEFS
The target in this chapter is belief. We characterize belief in its Western sense, where belief is a strong and stable attitude towards a claim or statement. Belief often causes us to defend the claim against opposition. Belief is considered necessary for knowledge, because knowledge is usually defined as “justified true belief.” This means that for you to know something – call it “S” – requires that (i) S is true, (ii) you believe S, and (iii) you are justified in believing S by having very good reasons for believing S.
So what if you don’t even believe? Then you can live peacefully in “not-knowing.” This is the goal of the present chapter.
Our approach is based on Ancient Greek Pyrrhonism. This is a way of life inspired by Pyrrho, a mystic philosopher who was reputed to have met Indian mystics. The most prolific Pyrrhonist expositor was the physician Sextus Empiricus.
Pyrrhonism is perhaps the easiest kind of non-dual emptiness teaching to put into practice. You find ataraxia or tranquility by living adoxastos or without belief. Is this possible? Yes, say the Pyrrhonists.
Here’s an analogy of how this can happen, according to Sextus.
[Once upon a time, when the painter Apelles] was painting a horse and wished to depict the horse’s froth, he failed so completely that he gave up and threw his sponge at the picture – the sponge on which he used to wipe the paints from his brush – and in striking the picture the sponge produced the desired effect.
Sextus Empiricus, In: Mates (1996)
We are like the painter, looking for peace by finding the truth about things. In the conduct of our life, especially in our spiritual searches, we find a huge variety of beliefs, myths, views, claims, assertions and theories. The Pyrrhonist calls these kinds of assertions “propositions.” Propositions differ from each other in conflicting and opposing ways. When we believe that propositions are true (or false), we easily become invested in them. We seek to defend our favorite propositions and attack opposing ones. We come to identify propositions with their defenders or detractors. Sometimes we act in dishonest ways so as to try to make propositions seem true to ourselves and others.
But if we simply stop believing these propositions, things will change. If we give up trying to settle on the true or the false in matters of belief, we will find the peace that we had sought from the very beginning. This is the guiding discovery of the Pyrrhonist approach.
Pyrrhonism and Dogmatism
Ancient Greek Pyrrhonism distinguished itself from dogmatism. In ancient Greece, this word did not have the negative connotations it has today. A dogmatist was simply someone who assented to one of the non-evident matters investigated by sciences, religions or philosophies.
For the Pyrrhonist, there can be two kinds of dogmatists. The positive dogmatist believes he has found the truth about things. The negative dogmatist believes something more along these lines: that there is no truth, that truth cannot be found, or that we can’t really know. Some modern skeptics have argued along the lines of negative dogmatism.
But the Pyrrhonist avoids both positive and negative dogmatism by withholding assent or suspending judgment on these matters.
Pyrrhonism has many similarities to Eastern teachings, and a lot has been written about this topic (see the references at the end of this chapter). The Pyrrhonist is very much like the Taoist Farmer. The Taoist Farmer doesn’t describe events with “That’s very good!” and “That’s very bad!” but with “Hmmm, let’s see...”34 The Pyrrhonist, in living without belief, is like Nagarjuna, who in verse 29 of the Vigrahavyavartani (Westerhoff, 2010), answers a critic by saying how he has no propositions. What Nagarjuna means is that he is making no claims about a reality independent of mind or convention.
But Can We Live Without Belief?
In the next section, we’ll talk about how you can come to withhold assent to matters of belief. But first, let’s consider this: Is it even possible to live without belief? Don’t we need to believe even to cross the street? Don’t we need to believe that it is safe?
No, we don’t need to believe that it is safe. Instead, we follow appearances, without believing that they are true about an external reality. Pyrrhonism draws an important distinction between appearance and belief.
Appearance: “The honey seems sweet” or “It appears to me now that the honey is sweet.” This is not a belief. It’s not a proposition, but what the Pyrrhonist calls an appearance. It’s not about the world, but more like a momentary reaction or report. We don’t believe that the honey seems sweet – the “seemingness” is just something that appears in a momentary, unsupported way. Appearances like this aren’t correct or incorrect. No comparison is attempted between the momentary appearance and a mind-independent reality. No presumption is being made about the true existence or sweetness of honey in itself.
Belief: “The honey is sweet.” This is a claim about how honey is in itself. It is a proposition that is supposed to be true or false, regardless of your beliefs.
Propositions are claims that are made about matters of fact supposedly occurring independently of appearances and about a mind-independent reality. You can be right or wrong about a claim like this.
We can enjoy tea with honey without believing anything about how the tea or the honey are in themselves.
How does one live like this? The Pyrrhonist is not catatonic or inactive. If one follows appearances or resonances in a global way, it becomes a way of life. According to Sextus, one lives according to the “ordinary regimen of life.” This is similar to the Buddhist ideas of “conventional truth” or “back to the marketplace.” This is how the Pyrrhonist is not nihilistic. Sextus sees the ordinary regimen of life as fourfold:
1) The guidance of nature. This refers to our capability to have sensations and appearances.
2) The compulsion of the states of your mind. This refers to hunger driving us to eat and thirst driving us to drink.
3) The handing down of laws and customs. This refers to how we can go along with our culture or local ways of life without having beliefs about them. Sextus gives the example of going along with the social idea that piety in the conduct of life is good and impiety is bad. You can live in accord with these customs without believing that they are true.
4) Instruction in the arts and crafts. This refers to making your living and conducting your activities. Sextus himself was active – he was a physician, philosopher and writer.
At the end of this list in Sextus’ outlines, he adds, “And we say all these things without belief.”
But Doesn’t the Pyrrhonist Dogmatize Too?
The Pyrrhonist makes many statements. Aren’t these just as certain and dogmatic as the statements that Pyrrhonism is examining?
No, because the Pyrrhonist is not saying or believing any of these things in an objective or mind-independent sense. The Pyrrhonist is not making any claims about whether knowledge is possible. He’s not even saying that Pyrrhonism is true. Rather, he’s reporting how things seem at the moment, which is to say, “I did this, and then this seemed to be the result.” That entire sentence is not believed or defended. It’s just how things seem to be at the moment.
Remember the image from a few paragraphs ago of Apelles the painter. Apelles was frustrated trying to paint the horse’s froth. He wanted to get it just right. But nothing worked until he gave up and threw the sponge. It was an accident! Only then did he achieve the desired result.
How Can This Help?
The official goal of Pyrrhonism is to be tranquil in matters of belief and unperturbed in matters “that are forced upon us” (in Sextus’ words), such as disease, poverty, pain and death. This difference between matters of belief and matters that are forced upon us is reminiscent of the Buddhist distinction between suffering, which is optional, and pain, which is not. Even pain is much less unpleasant without the additional discomfort of the belief that “This is truly bad,” or “This really shouldn’t happen to me.”
The Pyrrhonist proceeds by opposing claims and appearances against each other during the inquiry into matters of belief. The topic of inquiry could be anything, but most of the examples in the Pyrrhonist writings have to do with science, philosophy, religion or spirituality. The opposing claims and appearances do not permit one appearance or claim to be clearly and justifiably superior to all others. So the Pyrrhonist withholds assent to any option, and tranquility arises.
The sequence goes like this:
5) You inquire into a matter.
6) You encounter conflicting options and views.
7) You withhold assent from all options because you can’t make out a clear way to proceed.
8) Tranquility sets in.
For example, let’s say you want to find a spiritual path or philosophy of life that is the most accurate, true and effective. In the process, you’ll encounter many thoughts, feelings, views, claims, suppositions, customs, matters of taste and even ways of life.
Along the way, you encounter conflicts, differences, contradictions and incompatibilities. Theism, atheism, agnosticism, science, religion, monotheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Advaita, Madhyamika, Dzogchen, self, no-self, practice, no-practice, idealism, materialism, perennialism, reincarnation, no reincarnation, and many more.
Encountering all these teachings brings up an intellectual thicket that you can see no way through. The Pyrrhonist calls this thicket aporia (no pores, no way through), which is Greek for impasse or perplexity. So what do you do at this point? If I am a positive dogmatist, I will do more research and eventually settle on one path that I consider to be the truest and best. If I am a negative dogmatist, I will perhaps end up concluding that the truth can’t be found.
But if I am a Pyrrhonist, I will not conclude anything. Seeing that I cannot make my way through the intellectual thicket of this huge variety of paths, I won’t even try. I won’t become a believer in any of these paths. I’ll withhold assent from all of them. The Pyrrhonist calls this withholding epoche, which is Greek for cessation, stop or suspension.
The result is tranquility, which ironically enough is the ease and peace of mind that I had hoped to gain from finding the truth in the first place! The Pyrrhonist calls this tranquility ataraxia, which is Greek for not being disturbed.
In a nutshell, the process goes like this:
Inquiry → Oppositions → Aporia → Epoche → Ataraxia
This doesn’t mean that you don’t follow any path. Just because you didn’t decide that one path is truer than the rest doesn’t mean you can’t feel inclined towards a path. You can follow a path, whether it be Pyrrhonism, Pragmatism, Buddhist Madhyamika or any other.
The difference between you and the positive dogmatist would be that, for you, your engagement will be guided by appearance, not belief. You will regard the path not as a route to Truth, but as something like a custom, convention or inclination of your mind. (Recall the fourfold “ordinary regimen of life” explained above.) Your engagement will be without belief in matters of fact pertaining to the path. You won’t be able to disagree or become agitated over questions about the truth or superiority of paths. You won’t feel the urge to make paths agree with each other. It won’t occur to you to claim that all paths point to the same truth, or to different truths. You will be peaceful around the topic of the diversity of paths and views.
How Do We Go About It?
When investigating an issue or claim, the Pyrrhonist is brought to a standstill by the various oppositions encountered along the way. Declining to believe any of them, the Pyrrhonist finds peace.
But where do these oppositions come from? They come from the “skeptical modes.” These modes are forms of inquiry that the Pyrrhonist uses to examine claims. There are various collections of modes, but the most well-known are the Ten Skeptical Modes and the Five Agrippan Modes.
The Ten Skeptical Modes
1 – Animal Variations
Various mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and arthropods are so different from each other that we cannot say they perceive objects in the same way. Different species react to different aspects of objects. Even the eyes or light-sensitive organs or membranes are different across the animal kingdom. How can we claim that our human sense of vision or touch or smell represents objects as they are in themselves? Is the honey really sweet? Is the apple really red?
2 – Human Variations
Even within the human species, people are different. Some live in cold climates, some in hot climates. Some are allergic to shellfish. Some are allergic to nuts. Some are allergic to dairy. Some are allergic to wheat. Some are allergic to soy. Some people work with their hands. Some are intellectuals. Some like romance movies. Some like comedies. Some like horror movies. Is the temperature really hot? Is that movie really funny? How can we make such claims about things in themselves?
3 – Variations among the Senses
Even within the same person, the senses disagree with each other. To the sense of vision, a 3D painting seems to have layers, holes or depressions in it. Bu
t to the sense of touch, it is smooth. Perfume when smelt is sweet, but when tasted, it is bitter. Gasoline looks like fruit punch or beer to the eyes, but it tastes horrible. The durian fruit tastes like vanilla custard but smells like a sewer. Can we really say how these things are in themselves?
4 – Variations in Circumstances
Even within the same person, and even for the same sensory modality, things appear differently due to different circumstances or conditions. When I am sick, honey tastes bitter. When I am well, it tastes sweet. When I am full or tired, food has little flavor. When I am wide awake and hungry, the same food tastes great. When I am happy, things seem to be going well and the world seems happy. When I am sad, the world seems sad and prospects seem dim. If I drink orange juice after brushing my teeth, it will taste sour. If I drink orange juice after coming in from a jog, it will taste sweet. Can I determine how these things are in themselves?
5 – Places and Positions
Things also appear differently according to the placing and positioning from the observer. For example, a movie screen seems perfectly rectangular when you are seated in the center of the theater. But it seems skewed, larger on one side than the other, when you are sitting at the side of the theater in the front row. If you hold your thumb close, it seems larger than a car. But at arm’s length, the thumb seems smaller than a car. A flashlight seems dim during the day but bright at night. How can some of these appearances be given preference to others in judgments of how things are in themselves?
6 – Mixtures
Things also seem different according to their mixtures with other things. The same sound seems sharp in clear air but blurred in muggy air. Cologne seems stronger in warm air than in cool air. A body in water is light, but on land is heavy. When the material of the nasal passages is mixed with various other substances, then things seem to smell different. One of the more significant examples given by Sextus is that the intellect adds to what the senses convey, and that we are not sure how much is contributed by each source. How can we give preference to some of these mixtures over others when trying to determine how things are in themselves?