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CHAPTER THREE

THE SEARCH FOR WISDOM

The present age quivers with a reawakening quest for wisdom.  When you are not preoccupied with the struggle for survival, when you enjoy a degree of security and comfort, you may turn to the next frontier: cultivating a quality of thinking.  Seekers comb over ancient wisdom traditions for insights; books pour forth on cosmology and the integration of science and religion.  Wisdom comes in proverbs and epigrams, in stories and poems, in the observation of nature, in humor, and in actions without words.  The search quickens as people begin to suspect that philosophy is the organizational headquarters of the mind.

During the decade I spent in Berkeley, California, I felt a new age being born at the intersection of cultures.  We had the thrilling sense: We are shaping it!  East and west, north and south rubbed shoulders.  Jogging at the track near my home, nothing was easier than to start conversations with "strangers" whose interests ranged easily from science and nature and art to philosophy and religion.  A friend of mine who was earning a living at the time by painting houses went to a high school reunion.  Former classmates swapped stories of the years since they had seen each other, mentioning marriages and children and jobs.  My friend, however, found that he got a special respect for telling that what he had been doing during the previous decade was building a philosophy of living.

We who survey the facts and causes of the evolving physical universe are thinkers.  We are mind as well as matter.  Perception roots us in the here and now, while imagination and intellect range far beyond to remote past and future.  We inhabit an environment of thought as well as a physical environment; we are surrounded by ideas and cyberspace and books as well as wind and trees and animals.  The things and events of daily life do not confront us as utter strangers, because we continually live with some sense of them, some interpretation of their meaning.  Just as it takes scientific care to get a good grasp of facts, it takes philosophic care to get a good grasp of meanings.  As there are principles of scientific thinking, there are principles of philosophic thinking.  We participate in both physical evolution and intellectual evolution.

            Our thinking transpires in a sea of wisdom.  Our individual minds, swimming in this sea, strive to make sense, to interpret, to resolve the culture's conflicts and our own personal questions.  When we fail to appreciate our powers of mind, we hardly suspect the wisdom that is available.  We engage in partisan disputes, forgetting our commonality with all thinkers.  At such times, the mind feels isolated if not besieged.  However, when we enjoy a strong and full insight, the sense of isolation is lifted; we move with delight in the environment of mind.  Moments like that give rise to metaphors about a sea of wisdom surrounding us.

At the same time, the men and women of quest for wisdom cope with the chaos of competing philosophies.  One book explains all of life in terms of natural selection or some principle of physics.  Another teaches that we just need to realize that we are already spiritually perfect.  Many seekers spend years following gifted and accomplished teachers who nevertheless fail to open to them the fullness of the adventure of inquiry and dialogue.  Since each perspective does indeed attain some grasp of the real, we can learn from the best in these writings.  Since everything can indeed be viewed through the lens of a one-sided perspective, a certain sort of confidence flows to those who channel their thinking in this way.  But the seeker after wisdom is left in a noisy marketplace the problem that piecing together one-sided discourses does not add up to wisdom.

A few basic affirmations, a few confessions of humility, a few insights, and you transform the chaos.  Not that you have ascended intellectual Mt. Everest, but at least the lines of philosophical adventure become unblocked.  Once the path opens out, thinking can become complex without leading you astray.

The goal of this chapter is to give you a sound framework for your philosophic adventure. First you will begin your personal collection of words of wisdom--proverbs, epigrams, and so on--that you have already come to cherish.  There follows some examples of the leverage of philosophic reflection in daily life.  Then we shift into a discussion of the gears of the mind and the regions of reality they disclose.  Next comes a discussion of the practices of philosophy and a new perspective on what this book is doing.  Finally we consider a technique of meditation that opens the mind to higher wisdom.  This chapter lays foundations for the rest of the book and gives you a rudder to stabilize your thinking.

Collecting words of wisdom

            In philosophy as in other areas it is true that simple beginnings can be great.  I would guess that you have seen some pretty wise and wonderful teachings in the past.  Now I propose to you: Create your own list of words of wisdom, a couple dozen proverbs or wise sayings that you appreciate.  Go back to teachings that you have cherished for years.  Harvest from the past the sayings that have proven themselves for you.  Add to your list as you discover new things.  Look for the gems in what you read.  You can draw on any source--a commercial, a popular song, advice from a friend, a book of quotations, a story from another culture--anything.  Create your own motto.  "Gold is where you find it" was a slogan of miners during the gold rush in California.  They fail to find gold in places they expected to find it, and they would find gold in unexpected places.  Truth is where you find it, too.  One of these days, there is going to be a truth rush, and when that day comes, all credit to the person who is ready to recognize and use truth from any source.

            Have the courage to modify what you find so that it satisfies your inner sense of truth.  The wording you find may need an update, a revision to make it fit your situation, your generation, your vocabulary.  In excerpting a sentence or two from a book, do not hesitate to do a paste-and-scissors job on the book you are using.  You do not even need to have complete sentences in every item on your list.  You might find a phrase that expresses a concept or a sequence of ideas so beautifully that you don't need it in the form of a sentence.  Rephrase something if you like.  Next year you will be wiser, and you may want to go back to the original wording or create another wording.  You may want to remove some items and add other items from your list.  Once you have really learned a lesson, you can go on to something else.  The greatest teachings you find, however, may well last you a lifetime.  Look for thoughts whose value is more than momentary; look for eternal truth.  I used to collect cartoons from  New Yorker magazine; I found that at least a third of the jokes that would strike me as funny and insightful and useful would lose their luster quickly, while others continued to express an insight delightfully.

            You may want to make a special collection to help you deal with some problem you are facing, some personal growth issue.  I know this technique is helpful.

            Let your collected words of wisdom sink in.  Memorize them.  Meditate on their meanings.  Take time with them repeatedly.  Share them with friends.  Live anew in their light.  Without living the wisdom you find, you can hardly comprehend it.  Make a project of living the gem of truth you find today--for as long as it takes for that gem to transform by becoming a part of you, integrated as a layer in the Grand Canyon of your evolving character.

            One of my favorites is the golden rule, "Do to others as you want others to do to you."  For many reasons, my interest in this simple teaching grew, and I spent a dozen years researching it in Chinese, Jewish, and Christian texts and writings of psychologists, philosophers, and theologians.  Contained in a very plain package I found a wealth of life (presented in The Golden Rule (Oxford, 1996).

            Proverbs, epigrams, jokes, stories, and parables pack so much wisdom that philosophers would do well to pay more attention to them.  Philosophy, etymologically speaking, is the love of, or the striving for, wisdom.  And you make an important beginning in your quest for wisdom by creating your personal collection of gems.

The leverage of reflection

            In addition to the mottoes and proverbs that give wisdom for daily living, philosophic reflection enables you to do many things:

·        Find meaning in ordinary activities.

·        Improve the quality of your thinking generally.

·        Make better decisions.

·        Become aware of your own reactions to situations so that you can improve them.

            Finding meaning in daily life is as necessary as food and drink, according to psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who survived his years as a prisoner at the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz.  In those unthinkable conditions, the prisoners appreciated the beauties of nature as never before.  They added richness to their lives by recalling bits of poetry and philosophy.  The spark of religion burned brightly in the camps, and many prisoners managed to keep going out of devotion to a loved one in another camp, despite utter uncertainty about whether the beloved was still alive.

To shift to an incomparably more conventional setting, imagine that you are working in a large factory where your contribution to the planet seems trivial.  You have to mobilize all your philosophical capacity to think appreciatively of your role in the company, the role of the company in the economy, the meanings of economic activity generally, and the value of these activities for the emerging well-being of humanity.  Nevertheless, you make the effort, and for the duration of your employment there, you are able to banish the sense of meaninglessness about your job so you can enjoy your co-workers and concentrate on doing quality work.

            Improving your quality of thinking lets you avoid needless conflicts.  Suppose you are involved in current discussions about the relations of men and women; some are speaking up for equality and others for the idea that women and men are different and complementary.  You refuse to be captured by just one side of the discussion, and you propose to think equality and complementarity together.  You affirm unqualified spiritual equality while noting biological and psychological complementarity.  Or imagine that you are studying a book written by a variety of authors.  You notice apparent contradictions and wonder whether the authors disagree.  You realize that the fact that the same word is being used does not imply that the same meaning is being attached to the word.  You begin to study more deeply what the authors mean in context.  Perhaps an author deliberately uses the same word with different meanings in different situations to try to teach a lesson about the related meanings of a word or a lesson about the flexibility of language.  You learn to listen to others better, not to jump to conclusions when you hear key words used.

            Philosophical thinking culminates in better decisions.  When you drive a car, you have to decide how fast to go.  You consider the facts of the traffic conditions, the likelihood of being caught for speeding, the privilege of obeying the law in a republic where laws are made by the people's representatives, your purpose in traveling, and your being on the road together with your neighbors.  You come to a decision based neither on impulsive haste nor on rigid legalism.  The mind is the arena for making decisions, and philosophic decision-making brings all factors into consideration.

            Philosophy concerns the fundamental powers of the mind, one of which is the capacity for self-awareness.  "Know thyself," said Socrates, to which Nietzsche added, "Of ourselves we are not knowers."  Yes, our self-knowledge is incomplete, distorted; but this is not the whole story.  We are also capable of honest insights into our motives and our conscious life.  Reflection, one of philosophy's most powerful tools for growth, enables you to become aware of your own reactions.  For example,

·        Once you become aware that your blocked conduct in a situation results from fear, you can open up to a higher perspective and set fear aside.

·        Once you notice that your attraction for someone is basically sexual, you can choose to rechannel your physical, mental, and spiritual energies in a helpful direction.

Of course it can be difficult to let the higher perspective prevail in our mind and conduct, but that work cannot even begin until reflection makes us aware of what is going on and gives us a bit of distance from the emotion, a bit of room to maneuver.

The cardinal philosophic virtue

Although we can say that a sea of wisdom surrounds us, the limit of the metaphor is that floating in the ocean may be easy, while philosophy takes effort.  Philosophic work, like physical labor, has its skills, its problems and satisfactions, its teamwork.  The next several sections offer some general lessons in thinking.  They deal with the gears of the mind and the areas of reality they disclose.  I want now to take you through a somewhat thicker part of the forest than you may feel you need to go through.  The culture, however, is in crisis, and when you are challenged on your most basic affirmations, I want you to be able to handle yourself so as to avoid humiliation.  When you are up against the wall, or when you are in doubt, unable to justify your affirmations any further, I want you do know the moves that keep your adventure from shutting down.  My aim in this section is to help you mobilize the affirmation: I CAN.

            Your quest is already under way.  You bring some wisdom that you have already gathered as you take this present step in your ongoing quest.  You have already begun to recognize and cherish wisdom.  You can reflect on your own experience now.  Ask yourself: What qualities are needed for engaging in philosophy?

There are many fine answers to that question.  The virtues mentioned previously first in connection with science are relevant here, too, since they are virtues in any inquiry.  The special virtues of philosophy are specific developments of the general virtues of inquiry already listed. For example, logical rigor should be mentioned; of course it is a virtue in science, but it is a specialty of philosophy.  We can also mention clarity in thought and expression, sensitivity to possible objections to one's line of thinking, depth, and the wisdom that comes from broad experience with an area.  The attitude of adventure gives direction to all these activities.

What I want to emphasize here is the quality I take to be the cardinal philosophic virtue.  This quality expands the idea of confidence in your ability to investigate.

            Since philosophy is the quest for wisdom, its first virtue is an affirmation:

The quest is meaningful.  There is wisdom to be found, and the human mind can find it.  Further progress is always possible.

Thus the first virtue in philosophy is a choice of attitude.  We previously distinguished the attitude of adventuresome thinking from dogmatism and skepticism.  Now let us examine these attitudes in greater depth.  If dogmatism speaks of truth, beauty, and goodness, it regards them as having been definitively embodied in the past.  Dogmatism constructs its system too well.  Its static concepts cannot do justice to diverse sources of truth, the many-sidedness of reality, the mystery of personality, the fluidity of language, or the fact that the truth as we know it is relative to our experience.  Religious dogmatism tends toward fanaticism, suppressing the freedom of thought and confusing the impulses of the mind with the divine inner voice.

Skepticism denies that there is any real meaning and value to be found.  It attacks the pretensions of dogmatism but carries critique to such extremes that it contradicts itself.  It denies that there is such a thing as truth--as though it could survey all thought from its own mountain peak of insight.  And any claim to insight, however, is an implicit claim to truth.  Skepticism rejects the ideal of beauty--with aesthetic disgust.  And aesthetic disgust expresses a judgment about something as not beautiful.  Skepticism spurns the notion of goodness--as repressive and authoritarian; and a critique of authoritarianism is an ethical protest.  When skepticism becomes lucid about its own self-defeating tactics, it turns cynical and makes art and humor into vehicles of self-assertion.  For skepticism science is revisable, philosophy mere opinion, and religion superstition.  Morality is a denial of life, interfering with the freedom to do whatever one pleases.  In such an environment, beauty's links to truth and goodness are severed.  Rejecting higher norms for thinking, feeling, and doing, skepticism tries to operate as its own cosmic center.

            Skepticism masquerades in relativism's slogans of tolerance and sensitivity to diversity.  "It all depends on how you look at things"; "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"; "It's all relative."  We tend to greet such statements with a smile.  They function almost like trump cards in some conversations.  But relativism denies that talk of truth is meaningful, and relativism deprives us of all standards that could help us work through differences together.  It is a fact that people disagree, but it does not follow that each person is equally justified in his or her view.  Furthermore, we agree that it is often appropriate for people to act on the basis of very different convictions, e.g., in voting.  But to assert the value of tolerance or the principle of "Ballots not bullets" is not a relativistic assertion.  Relativism seems attractive because it highlights the value of diversity, that people should not be made to be alike.  But relativism challenges all standards of value, and thereby subverts the values of liberty and diversity it appears to uphold.

The relativist correctly points out that the same house would be differently regarded by a carpenter, an artist, a real-estate agent, a tax assessor.  To insist on asking "whose house" is the real house conceals the truth that everyone involved realizes that there is one house, the focus for all these different interests.  Each perspective presupposes that there is a house that everyone can refer to.  But a house is fundamentally a dwelling, and those who live there, together with the neighbors, have the privileged perspectives that make the various professional perspectives possible.

Sometimes the appearance of skepticism is but a shell.  When I spoke to students at Beijing University, I could not help feeling that behind the skeptical surface of their questions they were eager for positive answers.

            In daily life the three attitudes of thinking--dogmatism, skepticism, and adventuresome thinking--can operate actively or passively, in speaking or listening, writing or reading, in leadership or teamwork.

Options in philosophy

            Different philosophies compete and mix chaotically in the present age, stimulating creativity and confusion.  One man told me that the philosophy department in his university had filled him so full of negative thinking that his life was "messed up for several years."  I have seen lives degenerate into immorality and insanity under the influence of chaotic philosophies.

            One way to classify philosophies is in terms of their approach to spiritual experience.  Some philosophies are science-centered.  They explain spiritual experience in biological, psychological, and sociological terms as an evolutionary product of factors including fear, superstition, wish fulfillment, and social influences.  They interpret the joys of religion as brain events.

A second type of philosophy is humanistic.  The humanist accepts the data of the sciences, but goes on to affirm special values in human beings, culture, and the life of the mind.  This perspective views the spiritual as the noblest side of the human mind, expressed, for example, in the arts and activities to relieve the suffering of human beings and other creatures.  Humanism recognizes peak experiences as beneficial, but not as coming from a higher source.

A third type of philosophy is religious.  Religious philosophy acknowledges all that the science-centered and humanistic philosophies affirm and more.  The third perspective insists that the first two tell part of the story but not the heart of the story when it comes to spiritual experience.  Religious philosophy affirms the reality of God or some transcendent reality.

The mind's three gears

            Philosophy offers an idea of the powers of the mind.  The mind, I propose, has three gears, capacities to operate in three dimensions of reality: matter, mind, and spirit.  These are capacities for developing our intuitive contact in these realms.  One of the great choices in constructing a philosophy of living is whether or not to acknowledge their validity.  Each kind of experience correlates with its own dimension of reality.

        1.  Mind has a sense of the reality of the material domain and an ability to perceive facts and understand causes.

        2.  Mind senses the meanings of things and is conscious of itself.  Mind has, for example, an awareness of the meaning of the situation and a sense of what should be done.

        3.  Mind enjoys experiences of spiritual levels of value--realizations of truth, feelings of beauty, and actions in which we participate in goodness.  We all have had moments of being wondrously touched by supreme values.

            Meaning and value are more difficult to grasp than fact.  The human mind would like to define them in terms of more basic realities, but they are too basic to define in this way.  Instead meaning and value must simply be grasped in experience, in correlation with the activity of the personality that recognizes them.  On all levels the correlation between consciousness and its "objects" is so intimate that key terms are sometimes used interchangeably: thus science is identified with thing, fact; philosophy with meaning; religion, with value.

·        Meanings are what the intellect understands in single words, sentences, and discourses.

·        Values are what the soul feels and the will pursues.  Values are potentials for striving and actualities for rejoicing. 

            In the triad of fact, meaning, and value, philosophy specializes in meaning, which bridges between the other two.  Philosophy considers facts and values, but its reflections do not appeal to the empirical evidence found in science, nor does it exalt ideals with the power of religion.  Rather, reflecting on the meanings implicit in facts and the meanings implicit in values, philosophy offers its own kind of satisfaction to the mind.  Most of all, a satisfactory philosophy can be lived out.

            We can realize meanings dimly or with stunning clarity.  Two experiences unforgettably impressed upon me the reality of meanings.  In the middle of a seminar on Plato, studying the Parmenides with Mitchell Miller's commentary, I was totally mobilized in a sustained quest for comprehension.   Plato taught that such simple ideas as largeness and motion are realities that can be grasped in intellectual insight.  One day, driving over the bridge to school, I suddenly had a revelatory grasp of largeness.  Then, a week or so later, taking a break from work on the computer, looking blankly out my office window at a group of students passing by on the sidewalk, I was suddenly seized by an insight into motion.  It was scary to be able to see a crowd in such total abstraction from the fact of their humanity.  The purpose in relating these experiences is not to encourage anyone to strive for them--how could one strive for such an unusual moment?  The purpose is to emphasize that even very simple words can indicate meanings with cosmic reality and that it is well to respect them.  The difference between an initial, intuitive sense of meanings and an unchallengeable insight into meanings may be compared to the difference in the magnitude of the brightness of stars as seen from the earth.  Astronomy classifies stars according to their degrees of brightness, the first magnitude stars being the most bright, the second magnitude somewhat less bright, and so on until the human eye can no longer discern them.  In the light of a first magnitude experience of largeness, it was evident how faint the ordinary grasp is.  I could not believe that such ideas or meanings were merely cultural constructs or abstractions.  Our ideas of many things may indeed be socially constructed, but there are core meanings for us to discover.  Meanings, I saw more clearly than ever, are real!

The quest for meaning leads to careful reading.  Let me briefly summarize the themes from a successful conference on reading I organized a few years ago.  Look for gems of truth.  Recognize that there may be truths that surpass the capacity of the human mind to grasp them fully.  The best teachings you find are worth your utmost efforts to comprehend them.  Stop and ponder.  Memorize and meditate on them.  Read with a mind open to facilitate the work of the inner spirit, helping you realize their meanings and values.  Balance the study of spiritual truth with other studies to avoid one-sidedness.  Acquire a large supply of information.  Look for lessons in thinking, feeling, and doing.  Study with an eye to historical context.  Finally, look for the creative design, in this case, the purpose behind the sequencing of chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences, and words in phrases and items in lists.

            What are the values that are the content of spiritual intuition?  It is not easy to characterize what becomes clear only gradually and can only partly be put into words.  Prophets and artists, more successfully than philosophers, evoke a sense of spiritual intuition.  The best spiritual writing is a trampoline, not a paved road.

Spiritual values have a fluidity unlike the stability of facts, a vitality that may well express itself in speech but resists confinement in doctrines and dogmas.  Spiritual values approach and vanish, illumine and recede.  They stun and chasten and refocus.  "The wind blows where it wants." 

            In the experience of higher values our consciousness feels as though it is in a different gear.  Strolling through a crowded market, one may get caught up in the shapes and colors and movements of some momentarily fascinating scene.  One can analyze--what kind of marketing strategy is behind this advertisement?--or criticize--what kind of culture is manifest here?  Or one can attune to the qualities of soul disclosed in the faces and manner of the people nearby.  An utterly different "gear" feels engaged in the soulful look.  The intuitive grasp of value or lack of value is a feeling.  We get a feel for the quality of happiness or unhappiness, spontaneous generosity or anxious need, in a person.  If we observe someone interact with others, we get a sense of character.  To be sure, these are first impressions, and it takes more than one meeting to know someone.  The point is simply that soulful attention involves feelings of a higher order.  Spiritual values feel good, not because the mind is emotionally gratified and released from responsible dealing with reality, but because the soul feels values and these values engage us, empower us, and ennoble us.

            A philosophy affirming that values are real needs flexibility to allow for the variety, many-sidedness, and non-static character of values.  Some disagreements about values are legitimate, since unique individuals with different histories appropriately differ in their views of what is true and beautiful and good.  Children and adults appropriately prefer different kinds of music.  Not everyone can realistically be expected to grasp value at the same level.  Moreover, the universe of value, for all its unity, is also endless diversity.  Despite differences, people have much in common: all make value judgments, have a personal investment in these judgments, agree in many cases, and even when they disagree about a complex case agree about aspects of the situation.  Two people may disagree about the rhythm section in a certain popular song.  The first person calls it energizing, and the second calls it monotonous.  They agree that energizing is a positive quality and monotony a negative quality.  Or they may dispute the merits of the song, while agreeing that the lyrics are great but the tune is mediocre, because the lyrics matter hardly at all to one person and most of all to the second.  The point is that there is an objectivity or reality to values that can be seen even when disagreement arises.  Often there is hardly any disagreement at all.  Who really believes that the difference in value between the life work of a dictator and a humanitarian is merely subjective?  We assume there is something real worth exploring and discussing, whenever we investigate values at all.  The quest begins only for those who assume that there is a goal for the striving.

            As spiritual intuition grows, the feeling develops of a wonderful something or someone, usually felt as personal, most commonly referred to as God.  Awareness grows of an indwelling spiritual presence.  Spiritual perception is notoriously fallible, as the mind takes emotions or striking inputs from the unconscious mind for spiritual revelations.  And much fanaticism results from conversion experiences where a genuine spiritual breakthrough becomes associated with an entire text and its social context and tradition.  The convert then confuses the riverbed with the river.  Nevertheless, there is a spiritual flavor to divine truth, and the more you explore, the more your discernment grows.

            Those who do not affirm the reality of God can translate the concept as follows: "God" is a name for a figure that we project, for evolutionary psychological and social reasons, personifying our highest ideals.  Religionists can acknowledge each aspect in this definition as part of the story, while continuing to affirm that evolutionary and subjective aspects as part of the Creator's plan for our religious growth.

            Of the three kinds of intuition, the spiritual is most a matter of choice.  One can live and die with only a minimum of experience in this realm.  Evangelists proclaim that the most important decision of life is whether to accept some central spiritual truth.  Secularists regard that option as of secondary importance.  For both, however, it is a choice whether to accept the validity of what experience appears to teach: that perception and the body and the material energies of nature are real; that mind and meanings are real; that the soul and the spiritual levels of the truth we realize, the beauty we feel, and the goodness we participate in are real, too.

Sharpening Intuition

What a difference it would make in education if students were encouraged to believe in their intuitive capacities!  Instead, so many teachers give lectures and assign readings, giving the unspoken message that student should leave their previous experience at the door.

            Our intuitive capacities are gateways to reality, inherent in human thinking, making experience in various regions possible, and their operation is observed in all cultures.  Without an intuitive grasp of reality you would be hopelessly at the mercy of any bold teaching that comes along.  You sense when something rings true.

Intuition is not static.  It grows with experience.  Intuition gives a continuously updated and simplified summary of the results of previous experience and thinking.  Reflection revises intuition.  Knowing what refined sugar does to the body reduces the appeal of sugary foods.  When you are disillusioned about someone you had trusted, you see the person differently next time.  Your intuitions about the person change.

Intuition thus incorporates the harvest of one's best thinking.  When the careful work has been done, the results, especially if repeatedly put into practice, may be symbolized in a simple phrase or image.  Thus our mental efficiency increases.  We thus pack additional meanings into familiar words.  Advanced problem solving sometimes goes on in the creative imagination, combining images representing key concepts.

Dealing with facts, meanings, or values, intuition is neither a mere hunch, since it is already a grasp of reality; neither is it infallible, since errors occur.  Nevertheless the mind's entrance upon reality is intuition, and it is by sharpening intuition that errors are discovered and corrected.  For example, we discover a perceptual mistake by looking more closely.  We discover self-deception about being angry or depressed by relaxing into more honest self-awareness.  We need intuition in daily life when there is no time for reflection.  We also need it to tell us when to reflect.  In logic we need intuition to help us choose first principles, validate rules of inference, and see the point of arguments.  We also need intuition to grasp the situation we are in.

            If it is rare for people to acknowledge their own intuitive capacities, it is even more rare for individuals to undertake the patient labor required to clarify intuition.  This may be called a meditative process.  Typically we are in a hurry.  We want fast food, fast sex, fast business transactions, fast political solutions, fast education, fast religion.  We skim what we read, in order to decide whether the material is worth reading at all.  There is so much else waiting to be read.  When we do read, we read quickly, with limited goals of comprehension, and we expect the message to be right on the surface.

            The desire for insight lures the mind into the adventure of sharpening intuition.  Even a momentary intuitive glimpse carries an initial claim to insight, even though it may be overturned by further inquiry.  The more experienced a person is, the more likely that quick perceptions will be insightful.  Although insight may still be amplified and its expression be adjusted in minor ways, it is, by definition, a grasp of reality adequate to its given situation.  Even a divine being using a human mind would find it adequate.  We can be mistaken in thinking we have insight, but when we have insight we do not doubt.  Insight depends upon adequate length and breadth and depth of experience.  Further experience may embellish, but not overturn, insight.

            Sharpening intuition involves two additional phases of philosophic thinking, drawing inferences from the intuition and gaining a balanced perspective by synthesizing the other relevant intuitions and lines of reasoning. 

There is an ideal sequence to the process: Begin by clarifying an intuition and formulating it as a proposition.  Continue by drawing implications from that intuition.  Culminate by considering other relevant intuitions and the inferences that may be drawn from them, combining all into a balanced picture of the topic.  In practice, however, it takes reasoning and a sense of perspective to clarify and formulate intuitions in the first place.  The appeal to other relevant intuitions and lines of reasoning is important, since it is all too easy to be incisive and brilliant when working from a narrow set of premises, axioms, or commitments. 

In politics and many other areas, speakers for the "right" or the "left" speak forcefully on the basis of a one-sided view of the issue.  Even when, on balance, the direction they are advocating is correct, their quality of thinking is deficient.  Thinking that gains the needed insights is the product of sustained work.

            When teaching reasoning, I propose the following questions.  Here, in other words, is a one paragraph logic lesson.  What is my purpose in working with this piece of text (or our purpose, insofar as the inquiry is a team project)?  If there are multiple purposes, which purpose is dominant?  What does the author's purpose seem to be?  Are there any empirical claims or assumptions which can be confirmed or disconfirmed in daily experience or science?  Are there claims or assumptions--positive or negative--about religion or spiritual realities?  What words or phrases convey key concepts?  (Do not overlook articles, prepositions, verb forms, etc.)  Is there any term, phrase, or sentence that is ambiguous?  What interpretations are possible?  What interpretation is most plausible?  Or is it the case that more than one meaning is involved (whether or not the ambiguity is deliberate)?  Note that what one finds to be clear depends partly upon the categories one is accustomed to using.  Is there any problem with the concepts being used?  In the sentences where key affirmations are made (assuming, for the moment, that they are not questions, exclamations, commands, or invocations) is the grammar clear?  Are the subject and predicate presented as possibly linked, actually linked, or necessarily linked?  Does a sentence express a necessary condition or a sufficient condition?  What other possible relationships might obtain between subject and predicate?  Do not overlook the interesting structures of paragraphs and groups of paragraphs.  Examine the arguments.  The term "argument," as used in philosophy, does not connote an angry dispute between persons; it simply means that a conclusion is being proposed on the basis of one or more reasons or premises.  In reasoning it is common to use words called inference markers.  "Therefore" indicates a conclusion.  "Because" indicates a reason for a conclusion.  Other conclusion indicators include "thus" and "hence."  Other reason indicators include "since," and (in some uses) "for."  (Argument is not the only way to achieve a strategic sequence in writing.  Authors also use descriptions, accounts, and narratives.)  Identify the conclusion(s), stated and unstated.  What is the text driving at?  What is the main point?  There may be several arguments in the text.  Having summarized the text as a whole, you may focus on just one line of argument.  Identify the reason(s) or premise(s) for each conclusion.  Are the premises true?  Identify any unstated assumptions.  Attribute to the author only those assumptions that you may reasonably expect him or her to be assuming (on the basis of the text).  These are not necessarily the same as the assumptions that are logically required in order for the argument to be valid.  Are the assumptions true?  Construct a diagram of the argument.  It helps to visualize it.  Do the premises and unstated assumptions, if true, constitute strong evidence for the conclusion?  Consider other arguments that are relevant but not mentioned in the argument you are examining.  Give the argument an overall evaluation.  It's easy to pick flaws.  Were your criticisms significant or minor?  Could the author easily fix the argument and make it strong?  What can you do constructively with your analysis that goes beyond the immediate critique?

            In any area of inquiry, a question arises: How do you know when enough is enough, when your evidence is sufficient?  When is it justifiable to claim insight?  There cannot be an indubitable criterion for eliminating error, for doubt could arise concerning that criterion.  Thus in every realm of intuition, the mind is engaged in adventure.  Each discipline--physics, history, ethics--has its own methods for refining judgment, but at the very least this minimum guidance might be generalized: Become familiar with the critical methods developed in the relevant disciplines, and be open to approaches outside the mainstream.  Get in there and work at it with perseverance; it may take decades.

Humility and limits of proof

            Children sometimes ask for explanations and persist in asking "Why?" and after each answer they receive.  "Why is the sky blue?"  "Because of the way the light goes through the air."  "Why?"  "Because the light is bent in a certain way."  "Why?"  Even a scientist talking to colleagues would encounter limits in being able to keep answering such questions.  The child's persistent questioning only expresses continuing wonder and desire for more interaction.

When the ability to keep answering the "Why?" question is exhausted, philosophy faces a choice.  Nature, mind, and spirit are all evident, albeit in different ways: something shows up, something expresses itself, something gleams in one way or another.  Nevertheless, logically speaking, the intuitive capacities to grasp matter, mind, and spirit, are assumptions, and they are so basic that we cannot prove them.  The humility of philosophy is to acknowledge its inability to prove its basic assumptions.  Any attempted proof--or disproof- assumes too much or proves too little.  (Of course most philosophers who believe one way or the other think that reason is on their side, so they mount up arguments to persuade, giving the other side ceaseless opportunities to keep the conversation going.)  Note that the assumptions in question are not dogmas, but affirmations of access to regions of reality.  Inability to prove basic assumptions does not mean they are arbitrary, lacking evidence to motivate them.  There is evidence, but one remains free to reject what experience appears to teach.  It is not unreasonable, then, to use unproven assumptions, since the very structure of reason requires it.  The most sophisticated formal system has to begin with axioms.

Logically, then, the primary intuitions are axioms.  Experientially, they are self-evident.  Practically and personally, they are commitments.  The practical dimension to these primary intuitions is a dedication to explore these regions and to act in harmony with what one discovers.

Philosophy can be visualized as taking place half-way up the mountain on a journey from a basic grasp of fact toward a remote and uncertain spiritual peak obscured by clouds.  Half-way up the mountain, one may speak little, or skeptically, or diplomatically about the possibility of there being any worthwhile vista to attain.  Philosophy can also be visualized as an integrative discipline for those who have journeyed to the peak and who now, descending the far slope, are coordinating their understanding of the entire terrain.

            Suppose there is a gorgeous sunset, and you say to me, "Turn around and have a look at that!"  If I refuse to turn around until you prove to me that there is a beautiful sunset, I'm going to miss the sight.  Each of our three assumptions is a window to experience, and this point is most dramatically illustrated in the case of spiritual reality.  Those who debate the existence of God may choose to suspend judgment.  But fear of error may conceal fear of truth.  If knowing God has similarities to knowing another person, then it is reasonable to expect that the evidence will grow bright only for the person who makes the adventuresome turn.  The turn is not a leap of blind faith, however, because of the intuitive, if dim, glimmer of spiritual truth that motivates the question.

How do you know?

            Don't we all crave to grasp cosmic reality and to transcend the ordinary human perspective?  Wouldn't it be ideal to be able to approach any problem by thinking about things in terms of their high origin, evolutionary history, and ultimate destiny?  As philosophers build systems to satisfy the demand for such a perspective, however, ideas get complicated.  Writers and readers get confused.  Then the skeptical reaction sets in, charging that metaphysics, the human attempt to conceive of ultimate reality, is presumption and folly.

            What can justify "metaphysical" talk about matter, mind, and spirit?  The most basic assumptions and categories for thinking are ways of organizing experience, and it seems as though they may be just useful tools, even human constructions.  The pragmatic answer is easiest: working with these concepts promotes growth, as each person is invited to validate in the laboratory of experience.  Life based on these assumptions is more livable, more satisfying, than trying to live out their denial.  I believe, however, that the reason that experience so broadly supports these categories is that they are real.  In other words, we don't only say they are true because they work; the reason they work is that they are true.

            Belief in a Creator offers a profound justification for the basic structures of the human mind.  The God who created the heavens and the earth also created the basic powers of the human mind.  Even though the divine mind is vastly superior to the human mind--"as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts"--we still have some grasp of reality.  Mind and universe we survey come from a common source.

            What a fresh sense of thinking results from this outlook!  Each of us can say that we, as thinkers, are operating with what the Creator has given us.  No matter what our level of education, no matter how incomplete our understanding or how confused our culture, no matter how much own minds are torn by fear and anxiety, we still have basic capacities for reality recognition provided by the Creator.  If religion warns of how sin distorts the mind, it also testifies to the rejuvenating results of faith, repentance, and forgiveness.  As we do our best to pursue truth, we are opening ourselves to whatever higher assistance there may be to help us along our way.

The mind's framework for thinking, then, though it is shaped by culture, is not totally dependent on culture.  Culture shapes our understanding of material thing, moral duty, spirit, and so on.  But the deep structure of the human mind reflects a higher source. 

            A further assurance of the validity of our basic intuitions is available for those who believes that revelation has occurred, that a superhuman source has expressed truth in a way we can understand.  For Jews and Muslims, the very fact that revelation utilized the Hebrew or Arabic language validates the serviceability of human language and thought-forms.  For Christians, the personality of Jesus unites divine nature and human nature.  Hinduism has a comparable belief in Krishna and other avatars; and many Buddhists believe in one or more Buddhas as having descended from a heavenly realm.  For the majority of religionists in these traditions, the thought that such extraordinary persons worked with the powers of the human mind gives a profound validation of what human thinking can be at its best.  To go out on a speculative limb, at the frontier of the ability to conceive such things, assuming that it is meaningful to even think of mind on such a high level, what could the divine mind be doing?  Various answers have been given.  God knows himself.  God knows the creation.  Within the unfathomable unity of God there is sufficient complexity, sufficient self-articulation of Deity, that it is meaningful to think of God as revealing himself to himself.  Thus the ultimate metaphysical meaning of our basic intuitions is that they participate in the process of cosmic mind as the infinite reveals itself to itself.  The practical significance of this idea is to encourage the quest to live the maximum of divinity that the mind can comprehend--truth and beauty and goodness.

            One more reflection supports the dignity of the mind's basic intuitive capacities.  I may consider myself to be a small and lowly creature.  When I define myself as finite, I may imagine, however vaguely, an infinite beyond me.  Religiously speaking, I imagine the Creator as an awesome infinity, altogether beyond my poor powers.  It is as though there is a great fence, a barrier between me, the finite creature, and the great infinite.  But look.  An infinite that is located on one side of a fence is thereby made into a finite being.  In order to be truly infinite, the infinite must somehow encompass the finite.  However difficult it may be to explicate that "somehow," the finite as it cries out in despair is already included in the infinite.  This idea is already on the books: "In Him we live and move and have our being."

The social side of thinking

            Although thinking is often a lonely vocation, it is a matter of teamwork far more than we usually think.  First of all, we think (most of the time) in language.  Language involves us in culture.  We use most of the terms and assumptions of those with whom we interact.  We went through some school system.  We read things, and discuss with people.  Our flights of independent thinking occur against a backdrop of community participation.  This is not regrettable but inevitable.  Study and experience lead us to gradually alter the way we view things, and we may spiritualize our thinking.  But we remain minds of our age.  Our intuitions are shaped by our location in culture.

Some writers emphasize the fact of different perspectives, different cultures, and different locations in a given culture.  Acknowledging differences--sex, race, class, religion, sexual orientation, language, education, condition of health--reminds us that our own cultural location is not universal, our own perspective not absolute.  In this light, it may seem as though the hope of insight just went out the window, that "truth" is a title for presumption, and that wisdom, synthesis, integration must be regarded as premature or totalitarian until every voice has been heard and understood--an impossible task.  The erroneous impression that wisdom is unattainable, however, comes from insisting on impossible ideals.

Though deeply inconsistent perspectives force us to choose between them, different perspectives often complement each other.  If language and social location were everything, there would be no hope of communication with "outsiders," and nationalism would be the last word in politics.  But people find kindred minds across "barriers" of culture and language.  This is not surprising if the mind that expresses itself in language comes from a common source.  True, there is no way to express that common humanity other than in some particular language.  Today the teamwork of thinking involves participating in a global culture of cultures where differences sharpen intuitions, challenge hasty reasoning, and make the synthesis of wisdom an ongoing process.  However chaotic that culture has been, it remains our mind's immediate home, the "place" from which we attempt our interface with divine mind.

            Dialogue often rouses the hope that perspectives will converge.  It feels wonderful to expand areas of agreement, to find common ground.  The movement toward harmony and unity is thrilling.  Nevertheless, when the perspectives do not converge, people should be able to enjoy contributing to the common good by expressing their particular angle as well as possible.  If group action must be taken, then we can work for fairness in the political process that composes differences.

            Cultural differences cannot block the quest for truth.  Even divine truth can only be communicated to us in ways that we can understand.  If Krishna or Buddha or Moses or Jesus or Muhammad or any other prophet ever brought a higher-than-human truth, the gift arrived packaged in a particular language at a particular time, and it takes wisdom to apply it to the needs of another place and time.  Even eternal truth must be applied.  And the insight sufficient for today may not be enough for tomorrow.  This in no way denies the cosmic validity or eternal truth of the insight, but it does show the magnitude of the adventure.

Forming and integrating concepts

            Philosophy achieves its wisdom synthesis by bringing together many lines of reasoning.  All reasoning begins with propositions.  All propositions link a subject term and a predicate term.  The terms can stand for anything--objects, persons, ideas.  The key terms in the central propositions of this book stand for concepts.

What is a concept?  A concept is an idea plus.  It is an idea that has become invested with rich associations through experience.  It has become linked with high values.  You can pick up ideas as fast as you read, but you cannot pick up concepts without the labor of thoughtful living.

My favorite example of a concept comes from the story of an eleven-year-old Jewish boy who went through a three-year struggle.  On the one hand, he had a supreme desire to be loyal to God and to live according to his understanding of the highest religious standards.  On the other hand, he recognized an obligation to conform to his parents’ demands.  It might have seemed easier to solve the problem one-sidedly, by letting go of one side of the tension, dismissing one group of duties; but he stayed with both sets of legitimate requirements, and day by day he worked out the needed adjustments as best he could.  At the conclusion of that period, he had formed a concept of group solidarity, a concept with several interesting components.  These ingredients were virtues and qualities of relationship: loyalty, tolerance, friendship, and love.  His story illustrates the kind of struggle involved in forming a concept and the kind of ingredient that goes into one.  As I pondered the sketchy story it seemed that the boy solved an immediate family problem in a way that applied to other groups as well.  This shows the universality of concepts.  He could speak of group solidarity, not just the solidarity of his immediate family.  Next, the first ingredient was loyalty to God.  In other words, group solidarity has its ultimate foundation in the members' loyalty to divine ideals.  Group solidarity also requires tolerance, since there are always imperfections that you see or seem to see in others that you simply have to put up with.  On the basis of accepting people for who they are now, a friendship emerges that binds the members of the group together.  And we can save the word love to denote that divine experience that integrates the previous phases and uplifts the relations among the members to their dynamic maximum.

            To set forth a network of concepts is the goal of this book, as stated in the introduction.  The book's conclusion can be put in the form of a thesis:

A full exploration of truth embracing fact, meaning, and value culminates in spiritual experience, whose beauty opens up a fresh experience of nature and the arts, whose inspiration invigorates you for a life devoted to goodness, whose result is a character dominated by love.

            This huge thesis sentence actually contains several propositions: A full exploration of truth culminates in spiritual experience.  Experiencing the beauty of truth opens up a wonderful new experience of beauty in nature and the arts.  Realizing truth and enjoying beauty prepare you for the practices of goodness.  Noble character draws on all these values, and love is its crowning virtue.

            This thesis can be taken as a promise: Follow this path, and you will know fulfillment in a life of love.  It could be stated as an empirical prediction ("If you try out this experiment, I expect you will find consequences like these") or as a command ("Follow this path . . . ").  The thesis implicitly contains a testimonial: I have walked this path far enough to become assured that the promise is trustworthy.

            These chapters try to show links between truth, beauty, and goodness of truth.  While trying to avoid a contentious spirit, I show how to defend religious affirmation of a Creator God against objections based on considerations that every religionist needs to take into account.  Most of all, however, I rely less on logic and more on trying to convey experience.

            The practices of philosophy may be put in a logical sequence:

1.  Sharpen intuition to the level of insight.

            2.  Use reason to draw logical inferences.

            3.  Synthesize a wisdom perspective.

These three stages intermingle in practice, and excellence in each is required for excellence in any one of them. 

1.      Forming concepts.

2.      Stating propositions.

3.      Drawing inferences.

4.      Synthesizing various lines of reasoning.

Excellence in any one of these steps requires excellence in the others.  My main goal is to give you concepts of truth, beauty, goodness, and love that are radiantly alive.  To do so requires the other steps, too.

Meditation

            "Meditation" is a word with many connotations in many traditions.  Meditation can be giving a gentle focus for the mind on its path to transcend every finite object of experience.  Meditation can be as simple as conscious breathing.  The most remarkable insights and experiences can arise in meditation.  But these practices are optional, not essential to the philosophy of living that is my object here.  In addition, I believe, some practices of meditation may be harmful and lead people to mistake psychic alterations for spiritual experience.  It takes a well-balanced path to promote the well-balanced physical, emotional, social, intellectual, moral, and spiritual character that we desire.

Here, when I speak of meditation, I am thinking about taking time to stop and ponder, to think things over.  Meditation may focus on striking words, phrases, sentences, the meanings of events, passages of scripture, spiritual realities.  In meditation we contemplate some reading or teaching whose personal relevance we sense without yet fathoming it.  In reading and listening the adventurer looks for the gems and lets their attractiveness be a magnet for attention.

Meditation is not in a hurry.  Meditation lets associations come to mind, not in a random and chaotic way, but in a creatively purposeful way.  When the mind glimpses higher meanings and values, we customarily move on quickly, thinking that we have gotten the message.  We do not let the message establish roots in the heart, so it has almost no transformative effect on our behavior.

Taking time for thorough meditation increases mental efficiency later on.  For example, in the process of forming habits of spiritual response to a recurring problem, for example, dealing with uncertainty, it may take considerable reflection and inner "work" to acquire (receive) the attitude that gives the necessary leverage for coping with the problem.  It may take something like a meditation, repeated time after time.  For example, you may bring to mind the alternative possibilities, think through their consequences, and prepare yourself at length to face whatever has to be faced and to act constructively in response.  You acknowledge the human tendency to react to uncertainty with fear, but you seek and find a dynamic and positive attitude, an actual appetite for uncertainty.  But gradually, with consistent practice, a habit forms, an ability to summarize and move quickly without going again through all the steps.  Gradually it is not just the uncertainty of this or that situation that can become the occasion for rousing (receiving) your positive appetite; uncertainty itself becomes a stimulus.  Eventually, as soon as you recognize uncertainty, the new and better attitude leaps forth.

Meditation moves in an unhurried way from quietness to openness toward a higher source.  Somewhere along the path from thinking to prayer, meditation gives an opportunity to become permeable to meanings and values that the spirit is trying to bring to mind.  A cousin of mine used to fly the enormous airplanes that refueled B-52s in flight.  A long pipe would extend to connect "the flying gas station" with the B-52.  In meditation, we open ourselves to an input of higher wisdom.  As we saw at the close of the previous section, philosophy functions as an interface between our material, social, emotional, and cultural concerns and our spiritual dimension.

Philosophic reflection enables blind struggles to be recognized as problems, and enables problems to be conceptualized in a way that prepares the mind most effectively to seek higher wisdom.  For example, you are tired, but there is a task you need to finish.  You can simply persevere and drive yourself into needless exhaustion or you can put up your periscope of reflection.  Recognizing the fact, you say, "Oh!  I'm exhausted."  Recognizing the meaning of the situation in its generality, you consider that this is the sort of experience that a mortal goes through who has been doing the things you have been doing recently.  You open your faith-receptivity for the divine presence and its refreshing energies, and you gain a new sense of purpose, a new shape on the arc of the experience you are going through.  The fatigue might not disappear, but your experience will be altered, and you will not be enslaved by what you have to go through.

In meditation, thinking gives way to spiritual communion.  Words surrender to the soul's expression of attitude.  In silent receptivity, uplifting and refreshing energies and perspectives infuse into the mind.  Those with science-centered or humanistic philosophies may reinterpret this practice as physiologically soothing, idealistically socializing, and so on.  For believers, the practice of philosophy carries the mind toward divine communion, sharing the inner life with God, opening to prayer.

Conclusion

You now have in your hands the essentials for sustaining a ceaseless philosophic adventure.

1.      Collect and cherish words of wisdom.

2.      Reflect on your own course of thinking when you run into problems.

3.      Affirm your capacity to gain wisdom, to coordinate your grasp of physical facts, intellectual meanings, and spiritual values.

4.      Use your gifts to sharpen intuition, reason accurately, and synthesize wisdom.

5.      Form and integrate concepts from your life and thought.

6.      Meditate on problems so as to open up to higher wisdom.

Integral, religious philosophy satisfies all sides of life.  It affirms all our powers to explore nature, mind, and spirit.  Nevertheless, science-centered and humanistic options remain possible, and religious philosophy, which wants to include the others in its wider synthesis, cannot prove that the others are wrong.  Those who choose, however, can let meditative thinking open toward communion with higher wisdom.  Their affirmation opens the door to spiritual adventure in the sea of wisdom.