Footnotes to Plato on Cosmotheandrism
by Adam Robbert
A response to my earlier post on OOO and ecological ethics (itself a commentary on a post over at After Nature from earlier this week). Matt Segall (Footnotes) continues to argue, following Raimon Panikkar, for a cosmotheandric vision of the cosmos; a trinity of theos, anthropos, and cosmos. I have no particular qualms with this brand of theology, and find it incredibly refreshing and expansive in comparison with many religious positions that attempt to reconcile religion with cosmology (I’m looking at you I.D.).
As is usually the case, I’m not sure that Matt and I are having a substantial disagreement. He continues to champion a process-relational view over an object-oriented one, I continue to maintain that the differences are slight, perhaps even insubstantial. On this note, Matt and I both take a different view on the PR-OOO debates than some, given that neither of us think that Whitehead reduces entities to their relations and that we also understand OOO to be a heavily process-infused philosophy. But lets take a few these points one at a time anyway.
1) I had some choice words regarding the “trauma” inflicted upon european societies when I wrote:
“[OOO] reveals that the human has not been traumatically ‘decentered’ by the triple revolutions of Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud (feel free to add to this list your favorite ‘traumatic’ decentralists…). This decentering, we can now see, was actually only a traumatic event from a particularly eurocentric, dualist, and transcendentalist perspective. I think its time we stop whining about the poor european psyche’s ‘displacement’ and realize that immanence, ontological parity, and evolutionary cosmology actually center uswithin the context of things.”
To which Matt responds:
Civilized life is predicated on the assumption that our species, at least at its scientific and spiritual best, represents a unique example of a universal anthropic tendency intrinsic to cosmogenesis. Without faith in this highest human potential, I believe we simply lose the will necessary to live together peacefully on earth. Without an anthropic orientation, in other words, our ethicality and zest for life (as Teilhard calls it) would shrivel and die within a generation or two. Indeed, I think European civilization is growing precariously close to the death of belief in the Anthropos, just as it has already killed God.
Nothing I wrote in the above implies the loss of any of the notions that Matt calls our attention to — humans are still unique and noble creatures (at their best). I also agree with Matt that there is quite a bit of good theoretical evidence that the universe does indeed tend towards the emergence of life (possibly even intelligent, humanoid life). However, I don’t see this as being an archetypal necessity (as Matt does) but rather, a constitutive property of the universe’s own self-organizing dynamics.
2) Matt writes:
I am all for immanence, ontological parity, and evolutionary cosmology; but I affirm the importance of these principles right alongside those of transcendence, ontological depth, and involutionary metaphysics. There are cross-cultural parallels in the philosophies of India and of various indigenous traditions for these three notions; they are not simply anomalies of a deranged European mentality (e.g., the Indian Vedas and the Mayan Popul Voh). The modern scientific “displacement” of humanity is unavoidable, but if our civilization is to survive the 21st century, I think we must also seek out and discover some sort of cosmotheandric re-orientation.
Ontological depth is not at odds with an object-oriented approach to ecology and environmental ethics. There is no conflict here. Further, ontological parity does not deny the uniqueness of human beings, and the depth of individual entities is definitely still on the table for discussion (these are the “psychological layers” of the cosmos Harman points to). So on this note, I think, we still agree since there has not been much of a real disagreement to begin with.
Further, I certainly don’t think that transcendence, ontological depth, or involutionary metaphysics are the products of a “deranged european mind,” though I wouldn’t try and justify any of these beliefs by an appeal to their appearance in multiple cultures (we had a long debate a while back over facts of experience vs. truths of experience — these issues, for me, fall in the former, but not necessarily the latter).
My only point here was to point out that certain forms of european dualism (coupled with an exclusively transcendental christianity), create the illusion of a massive displacement in the european psyche. I hold that this was not an inevitable experience, but rather the product of unique historical circumstances. Had europeans abstained from “bifurcating nature” in the first place, the insights of Copernicus, Freud, and Darwin could have been received very differently.
3) Where the real difference lies, I suspect, is that Matt is much more comfortable with an involutionary metaphysics (i.e., alongside of a material evolution complexifying in space-time there, is also an involution of divine influence into the cosmos). I won’t deny that this may indeed be the case, but I don’t go so far as to say it is necessary for this universe to be how or where it is today — let alone an established fact of existence.
Further, there are multiple ways to construe a sacred dimension to the universe, and Matt highlights only one among many possible options. Where I take issue on this point is with the tacit suggestion that a singular cosmotheandric vision is required (Matt states that we “must” seek out a cosmotheandric vision) for us to escape a “disenchanted” cosmos. I think the enchanted/disenchanted binary is a bit of a worn shoe, and don’t really see it as the hook for too many problems in particular. I say let a thousand gods bloom, die, and be reborn as they see fit. I like atheists too.
4) Matt’s final statement was “Everything actual possesses a degree of interiority (and so withdrawnness) precisely because it is a process of becoming.” To which I add (somewhat sluggishly — the point has been made too many times), there is no conflict between a process of becoming and the substantiality of objects emerging, perishing, and transforming.
I say we “must” seek out A cosmotheandric worldview, not THE cosmotheandric worldview. And I argue this not because the alternative is a disenchanted cosmology, but because the alternative is cultural disintegration and ecological devastation. Unless the universe and other beings (human, animal, plant, bacterial, elemental) are treated like gods incarnate, the is no future for human civilization. That, in short, is my contention. I think this contention is fully compatible with Graham Harman’s version of OOO; incompatible with Levi Bryant’s atheistic version; and conversant with Tim Morton’s (I think this conversation has a lot to do with the Buddhist-Christian dialogue).
I just don’t see why, without a cosmotheandric view, the alternative is “cultural disintegration and ecological devastation.” Why would it be the case that “Unless the universe and other beings (human, animal, plant, bacterial, elemental) are treated like gods incarnate, the is no future for human civilization.” I don’t find it tenable to suggest that a specific set of actions can be caused by a specific set of beliefs (I think this is what dmf is pointing to below as well).
If people want to treat the entities in the cosmos as godly, then I’m all for it, thats their business and their right. But it certainly does not follow that, if we don’t, that human civilization is inevitably doomed. This type of thinking is, to mind, divisive, near-sighted, and not nearly expansive enough to rally the kind inclusiveness that a global eco-justice movement would require. Theology might not be up to the task, though it may be a helpful branch in some instances.
The relationship between beliefs and actions is complex, no doubt. It seems tied up with the is/ought problem. I think religion is too often defined by academics as “a system of propositions or beliefs about the way the world is.” This is only one of many forms of representation evoked by the world’s religions, and perhaps the least significant. Religion is traditionally practice-oriented; it arises out of certain ways of ritualistically enacting the world, bodily and socially, as well as intellectually. Only when a civilization’s ontology has become totally unmoored from its aesthetics does religion become primarily about verbal admonitions and definitions, mere moralizing. I follow Whitehead in making aesthetics the principle ground of metaphysical speculation, such that knowledge of being is seen to arise out of deep feeling for and sensitivity to being (rather than by sustaining the distance from it implied by those who would defend “religious knowledge” by pointing to its letters instead of its liturgy). I’ve written on what is clumsily called “aesthethics” in an attempt to flesh out the artery between what “is” and what “ought to be” a bit more: http://footnotes2plato.com/2011/09/27/aesthethics-loving-the-beauty-of-goodness/
When I refer to the ideal of treating all beings as “gods incarnate,” I am giving my own gloss on Levinas’ ethics of the Other. There is an infinite identity within every creature we encounter, and the very encounter commands us to obey, to bow to the authority of their glorious otherness instead of stamping them on the forehead as the Same.
Yes thats all well and good. But Levinasian ethics also implies that we do not quite know how to engage the Other on her terms. We do not necessarily know that “god incarnate” is something that the Other wants to be seen as, or even finds palatable. The infinite transcends the totalization of “god” and instead puts one in place beyond god(s)/not god. By using the label “god” we are already making a judgement call on how that person might like to be perceived, and thereby are converting them to the same.
there is no objectively compelling evidence for “Without faith in this highest human potential, I believe we simply lose the will necessary to live together peacefully on earth.” (there may be no objectively compelling evidence for any-thing) while there are a whole host of all-too-human reasons for finding less violent/coercive ways of being together which are played out even in the lives (past and present) of those who proclaim such commitments, and it comes very close to saying that those of us who do not share such faith commitments are somehow unethical. We should be very careful about insisting on a clear/delineated equation between ontology (what is) and ethics (what should we do) as there is no necessary relationship there and if we feel the need/call to impose one we should own it as such.
What each of us is willing to take seriously as “evidence” depends entirely upon the theory we have already employed to tell us what we “should” expect to happen. The is/ought problem is way worse than just being unable to derive one from the other; we can’t even tell with which we have started in any given case.
I do not stand above anyone when I say that ethicality is necessarily rooted in an incarnational metaphysics (http://footnotes2plato.com/2011/10/04/speculative-philosophy-and-incarnationalism-in-whitehead-and-meillassoux/). There is a disconnect between beliefs and practices in my personal life and in many of those I consider close to me. I cannot yet live up to the ethical potential represented by the Anthropos; and yet I continue to strive toward it, and to encourage those close to me to strive toward it, only because I imagine it to be possible. If Wisdom and Love were not possibilities for us, our most elevated emotional state as humans, it seems to me, would be but a tragic sense of irony, something Sartrean, nauseating. This dizzying and alienated “freedom” may be enough for some people to wake up every morning to make the world a more beautiful, compassionate place, but its not enough for me. Care for others is mere sentimentalism if Love is just 4 letters.
mds, seems to be a whole spectrum of ways of being-in-the-world between theology and Sartrean nausea but if you had framed your contribution in terms of what is and is “not enough” for you and not in such universal terms than it wouldn’t have been a problem, you seem more comfortable identifying your Christian commitments which is good/helpful to make explicit but perhaps should spend sometime looking into the history/effects of supersessionism.
Yes, I think this exactly pinpoints the issue. I tend to have a sensitive reaction to directive or totalizing statements — even if they point to the emergence or support of seemingly positive worlds. The quality of vision is not the issue in this sense, but rather the claim to its universal applicability.
Further, I don’t think freedom in the absence of ultimates, universals, or divine archetypes necessarily leads to any kind of nausea or alienation — though clearly it might for you Matt. In this case I think it wise to couch these kinds of statements in terms of your situated experience, rather than has imperatives that others “must” adhere to.
Wisdom, love, and higher values are all possible without the kind of theological frame you are arguing they require. Again, I’m not against your position, but rather for a much wider diversity of perspectives (including atheisms, materialisms, or secular/postsecular views etc.).
In this context, I would appeal to Isabelle Stengers’ “ecology of practices” so that we might situate ourselves not just in terms of our truths and believes, but also in the effectsour truths and believes have amidst those significant others to which we are always-already bound.
If DMF has properly articulated Matt’s view, then I am with DMF. A religious worldview can be one solution to a problem, but it shouldn’t be taken as the only solution.
[...] Over at Knowledge-Ecology, it seems that my attempt to carry forward the cosmotheandric vision first expressed by Panikkar is being reduced to its theological component. I need to further develop the anthropological and cosmological aspects of the trinity by unpacking, 1) the significance of religious practice in human evolution (reading Robert Bellah’s latest book is helping with that) and, 2) explaining why an ethical response to the ecological crisis implies entering into relationship with an ensouled universe. There is a 30-page essay here somewhere… 37.774929 -122.419415 Advertisement Eco World Content From Across The Internet. Featured on EcoPressed Climate Change: We are also the 99% Rate this: Share this:FacebookTwitterDiggEmailLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. This entry was posted in Cosmology, Philosophy and tagged cosmotheandric, human, Raimon Panikkar.Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment [...]
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