/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20852253]

>>20851706
evidently the janny didn't realize we were talking about a book (Shankara's discussion of reflexive awareness in his brahma sutra bhasya and in his upanishad commentaries)

>I was reading a section from Aristotle's De Anima and I want to know how this thesis of Aristotle's squares with Advaitin Metaphysics, specifically Shankaracharya's formulation of reflexive awareness.
Shankara engages with a variety of different philosophy-of-mind positions in his works and he gives reasons why the non-Advaita ones don't make sense and/or don't account for the nature of our experience. The position of viewing the intellect/mind as the sole locus of knowing/experiencing without any separate awareness or knower that is behind/above/underlying it is common to materialists and (medieval Indian but not all) Buddhists alike and Shankara argues against this "intellect as the final terminus of sentience/knowledge" notion in his written arguments directed against both parties. There are multiple issues with this notion that Shankara points out such as 1) it involves something being both an object and subject of itself (this issue is not true of a reflexive awareness like the Atman's that is partless and hence without distinctions that would need to be bridged by a subject/object link) and 2) the changing states of the intellect cannot reveal or witness their own arising and falling or their transition from one to another because this necessitates a viewer or a knower being present throughout that change of state who can thereby reveal or detect it (the state cannot be present to witness its own absence or replacement for the very idea is a contradiction); this is discussed primarily in the brahma sutra bhasya and the brihadaranyaka bhasya

>Now since we perceive that we are seeing or hearing, it must either be by sight that something perceives that it is seeing or by some other sense. But given the consequent identity of the sense that perceives sight and that which perceives the colour that is the object of sight, there will either be two senses with the same object or one sense will perceive itself.
When Aristotle says "given the consequent identity of X and Y" I assume he means united in the same moment of experience as two things or two aspects that characterize a single moment of experience ie both the visual knowledge of the tree being given to us but also the self-evident disclosure of the fact that we as the knower is having the objective knowledge being disclosed to us (the latter knowledge of ourselves as the subject or as what underlies the subjectivity of any moment is not a visual knowledge like the tree).

[Anonymous No.20852255]

>>20852253
Now here Advaita would probably respond by saying:

The identity of these two in experience is explainable on account of:
1) The objective/visual knowledge being a transformation or vṛitti of the insentient intellect that when it is illumined by non-intentional awareness gives rise to the appearance of temporary intentional (object-directed) conscious states
2) The self-evident, immediate and non-discursive knowledge of ourselves as the knower/experiencer which is simultaneous with the visual knowledge being nothing other than the reflexive awareness of the Atman standing behind the intellect

>Further if the sense that perceives sight were some other sense than sight, the only alternative to an infinite regress will be that there is some sense that perceives itself. Why not let this be a feature of the first of the series?
Advaita would agree here with Aristotle that in order to eliminate a final regress in any consistent account of knowledge that there has to be a final knower or experiencer underlying experience that is in a sense self-knowing or self-perceiving in a self-evident manner; this is the very same argument that proves that awareness is reflexive and why 'non-reflexive awareness' models are illogical because of the regress they involve. To the question "why not let this be a feature of the first of the series" Advaita would reply that because then the different acts or transformations of the intellect would be unable to witness or disclose their own arising and falling in succession such as occurs in our daily experience and this is so because directly witnessing or detecting such a change requires an awareness being present for the duration of that change to experience it; if each temporary thought/perception had its own temporary subjectivity they would all be cut off from each other and there would be nothing to combine them into our naturally united experience. Thus, the basic argument is that because of a regress there has to be a final self-disclosing or reflexive knower but that this cannot be identified with the intellect and its changing states and has to instead be placed beyond the intellect because otherwise you there is the problem of the intellect being both the subject and object of itself and also the problem of the changing acts of the intellect being unable to witness their own arising and falling

So Advaita is taking the first of the two options listed by Aristotle, in a sense

[Anonymous No.20852256]

they do it for free

[Anonymous No.20852268]

im pretty sure the mods just dont like general threads for phil/religion. tranners wage a literal war against the autistic thumpers who just wanna have a TradCath(tm) Lifestyle Thread on lit

[Anonymous No.20852323]

>>20851922
>The regress argument of Aristotle is a common feature of advaita arguments and is a common feature of indian philosophy in general, that is assuming that there was some sense other than sight, is appealing to some assumed other-perception of a perception of sight, which could be extended infinitely into an argument for there then being a perception of a perception of a perception of sight ad. infinitum - which is a sort of argumentation which collapses in on itself and is in general quite unserious, just change the term perception to awareness and you have the advaita variant of the argument
This is incorrect and Shankara explains why in his writing when he points out that the regress argument cannot actually be extended to the witness of vision with any justification because if the witness of vision is reflexive like Advaitins say then it is naturally self-evident to itself and when it is naturally self-evident to itself via immediate and reflexive 'auto-awareness' then there can be no occasion or basis to allege that something else is required for there to be knowledge of the witness since it naturally has knowledge of itself.

>The opponent will perhaps counter this with the remark that if a cognition has to be cognized by another cognition, different from itself, that other cognition will have to be cognized by another again and so on, leading to infinite regress. Nor is this all. Knowledge indubitably reveals things, like a lamp does. To assume a further cognition to reveal a cognition would therefore be meaningless, because, since both cognitions would have the function of revealing, they could not stand mutually as revealer and revealed. But both these contentions are wrong. For when once a cognition is actually perceived, no demand to perceive the
Witness of that cognition arises (as it is already self-disclosed), so that there is no occasion to speak of an infinite regress. And the Witness and the cognition can stand as perceiver and perceived, since they are different in nature. And the Witness is self-established, so that its existence cannot be denied

[Anonymous No.20852337]

>>20852323
>And there is another point. To claim that a cognition is like a lamp, and that cognitions are therefore able to manifest of their own accord without depending on anything else to illumine them, is as much as to affirm that they are inaccessible to any means of knowledge and have no one to know them. It would be like talking of the radiance of a thousand lamps that were enclosed invisibly in the (individual) hollows of a thick mass of rock. Nor can you accept this and tell me that, since cognitions are self-luminous experience by their very nature, I am here only adopting your own view. For lamps and the like are only found to be manifest to some knowing subject, who is other than themselves, and who is equipped with eyes to see them. Like them, cognitions too, require to be illumined. Hence we conclude that they, too, like lamps, are manifest only when there is a subject to know them. The opponent may now say that if I claim that the Witness, as the knower in question, is self-established and itself illumines the cognition by its own power, I am only restating his own doctrine (of the self-luminosity of knowledge) in different language and with different arguments. But this is wrong, as knowledge as he understands it (the mere series of particular cognitions) is marked (not by independent existence but) by origination, destruction, plurality and other such characteristics. So our point that the individual cognition, even though (it reveals things) like a lamp, itself requires to be known by something else, stands proved

[Anonymous No.20852373]

>>20852255
>with the intellect and its changing states and has to instead be placed beyond the intellect because otherwise you there is the problem of the intellect being both the subject and object of itself and also the problem of the changing acts of the intellect being unable to witness their own arising and falling
where does aristotle talk about intellect here? I took it that he was just talking about sight consciousness which would be more a question of manas, and even then the whole argument of Aristotle is not that the insentient divisible transient faculty is the impartite reflexive consciousness, as that does not follow from what he has written,
in the later paragraph he makes sure to discriminate between what he leaves unsaid namely the two "sense-organs" the ultimate one is not what is mere "discernment" but "that" which discerns without differentiating that amongst any faculties necessarily in potentiality, and even then from his logic of this awareness being described as indivisible, and therefore not some aspect of a mediating faculty be it intellect, mind or otherwise,
>will be that there is some sense that perceives itself. Why not let this be a feature of the first of the series?
When aristotle clarifies "Why not let this be a feature of the first of the series" which is the alternative to the infinite regress argument, he is affirming that "that there is some sense that perceives itself" in the sense that there is a veridical awareness which is something reflexive self-existent, and undifferentiated.
>being both the subject and object of itself and also the problem of the changing acts of the intellect being unable to witness their own arising and falling
yes but Aristotle does not go into details here, and even if he does, there is always a "that" which is prior to differentiated actualization, which is existent nonetheless, so he is not necessarily appealing to the intellect, or mind, as the faculty which in the final analysis self-revealing, "that" is not necessarily a power of cognition, or apprehension but maybe something like "Atman" existence itself, or an ineffable self-illuminating witnessing consciousness, which aristotle never claims to exhaustively define, or limit with concepts its nature is something unsaid, so who knows if aristotle has more to say on this, not much of his work survives apparently.

anyway here are some articles which try to study this part of aristotle
https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-pdf/113/451/513/2817959/1130513.pdf
https://ancphil.lsa.umich.edu/-/downloads/faculty/caston/aristotle-consciousness.pdf
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003008484-8/perceiving-seeing-hearing-pavel-gregoric

[Anonymous No.20852408]

>>20852323
>>20852323
>This is incorrect and Shankara explains why in his writing when he points out that the regress argument cannot actually be extended to the witness of vision with any justification because if the witness of vision is reflexive like Advaitins say then it is naturally self-evident to itself and when it is naturally self-evident to itself via immediate and reflexive 'auto-awareness' then there can be no occasion or basis to allege that something else is required for there to be knowledge of the witness since it naturally has knowledge of itself.
Maybe you have misunderstood something but I am not proposing that Advaita uses the regress argument, I mean that it points out the that the regress argument cannot be used. Just like aristotle does, and assumes a veridical awareness to be the first term as aristotle does, such that this awarenss is in itself affirming its own existence by its awareness of a thing.
So I think you have misunderstood what I have written, I mean advaita counters the anti-foundationalist regress argument against awareness being reflexive, in the same way aristotle uses it for perception, but that following aristotle they replace perception for awareness, in argument against an opposition.
>Witness of that cognition arises (as it is already self-disclosed), so that there is no occasion to speak of an infinite regress. And the Witness and the cognition can stand as perceiver and perceived, since they are different in nature. And the Witness is self-established, so that its existence cannot be denied

>The opponent will perhaps counter this with the remark that if a cognition has to be cognized by another cognition, different from itself, that other cognition will have to be cognized by another again and so on, leading to infinite regress. Nor is this all. Knowledge indubitably reveals things, like a lamp does. To assume a further cognition to reveal a cognition would therefore be meaningless, because, since both cognitions would have the function of revealing, they could not stand mutually as revealer and revealed. But both these contentions are wrong. For when once a cognition is actually perceived, no demand to perceive the
Yeah and that is what aristotle is saying no?
and i don't disagree here.
>But this is wrong, as knowledge as he understands it (the mere series of particular cognitions) is marked (not by independent existence but) by origination, destruction, plurality and other such characteristics. So our point that the individual cognition, even though (it reveals things) like a lamp, itself requires to be known by something else, stands proved
okay sure.

[Anonymous No.20852427]

>>20852408
and by its awareness of a thing I don't mean to make existence contingent upon a particular cognition,
but in the way you wrote it here
>The objective/visual knowledge (result of the cognition) being a transformation or vṛitti of the insentient intellect (the result of which is what would constitute the series of individual cognitions) such that when it is illumined by non-intentional awareness it gives rise to the appearance of temporary intentional (object-directed) conscious states
the point is, the existence is, without actualization theoretically, and does not require some sort of phenomenal contingency, and I don't think aristotle assumes that to be the case.

[Anonymous No.20852441]

>wall of cope midtwit thread
ouuh this straight bussin, im vibin

[Anonymous No.20852531]

>>20852373
>where does aristotle talk about intellect here? I took it that he was just talking about sight consciousness which would be more a question of manas?
For Shankara manas and buddhi are just the higher and lower aspects of the same thing so for the purpose of the present discussion if I used both terms by writing 'manas/buddhi' or 'manas+buddhi' every time instead of just 'intellect' it wouldn't lead to any significant practical difference in the arguments for the Advaita position

>and even then the whole argument of Aristotle is not that the insentient divisible transient faculty is the impartite reflexive consciousness, as that does not follow from what he has written
Aristotle says "Now since we perceive that we are seeing or hearing, it must either be by sight that something perceives that it is seeing or by some other sense" he is asking about how something "perceives that it is seeing" which to me seemed (perhaps wrongly) to be asking "what accounts for knowledge of oneself (or knowledge of the mind-body) engaged in any action like sight? For Advaita the intellect/mind-complex does not ultimately account for knowledge of the fact that it itself is seeing because said complex is insentient and has no awareness of itself and instead knowledge of the mind/intellects actions (including both visual knowledge and thought) is ultimately accounted for by the fact of the light of the Atman providing constant non-discursive non-dual auto-awareness as the background of everything and when the mind assimilates the light of this background and forms it into the subjective pole of experience then whatever the intellect/mind complex is doing is thereby experienced. The buddhi may perform higher-order functions with regard to the content generated or synthesized by the manas but asking about "what accounts for our perceiving of ourselves perceiving" does not seem to be a question about higher-order thoughts and analysis but rather asking about the light that reveals sight

>he is affirming that "that there is some sense that perceives itself" in the sense that there is a veridical awareness which is something reflexive self-existent, and undifferentiated.
Advaita agrees that there is a veridical awareness that is simultaneous with the sight of the tree; but they say that the mental act of seeing itself (that you can consider an act of the manas function/aspect) does not have this veridical awareness (either via itself or buddhi) and that there are serious logical problems with affirming that it does. I am a little confused, If Aristotle is not asking about the visual perception itself and is also not asking about the impartite reflexive awareness of the knower then what exactly is he asking about when he asks about knowledge of ourselves perceiving? is it another kind of third 'knowledge' that's not either of these like the buddhis higher-order discursivity with regard to the content of the manas?

[Anonymous No.20852542]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXPC2HXjrYU

[Anonymous No.20852570]

>>20852373
>yes but Aristotle does not go into details here, and even if he does, there is always a "that" which is prior to differentiated actualization, which is existent nonetheless, so he is not necessarily appealing to the intellect, or mind, as the faculty which in the final analysis self-revealing, "that" is not necessarily a power of cognition, or apprehension but maybe something like "Atman" existence itself, or an ineffable self-illuminating witnessing consciousness, which aristotle never claims to exhaustively define, or limit with concepts its nature is something unsaid, so who knows if aristotle has more to say on this, not much of his work survives apparently.
The Islamic philosopher Suhrawardi elaborates a fairly comprehensive account of knowledge-as-presence (basically reflexive awareness) about 500 years after Shankara in the 12th century that is partly rooted in Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism. He writes about a luminous incorporeal presence that is beyond/prior to mental distinctions and the subject-object divide and which still persists when they are present. He attributes the inspiration for this to a dream visit from Aristotle to 'seek the self' and understand knowledge as presence, the Arabic Aristotle in a sense was actually Plotinus because of the Enneads being labeled as Aquinas work in Arabic translation. However according to one online source Suhrawardi thought that text was by Plato since it was mixed with the Plato works in certain Arabic redactions. It's very interesting that someone who was steeped in Greek writings and Sufism and Islamic theology could end up arriving at a similar conception to consciousness as Advaita even though that notion isn't very explicit (although possibly implicit) in Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus etc; Suhrawardi is on my to-read list but I have not yet gotten to him so I don't know the full extent to which he supports his logical arguments for reflexive awareness with references to Greek philosophers or to what extent his arguments draw from them

>The concept of self-awareness informs the epistemological and ontological aspects of Suhrawardi’s metaphysic of lights. Building upon a basic type of self-awareness found in Avicenna (but without its inference to the substantiality of the human soul) and the selfhood (of the contemplative soul) of the Arabic Plotinus, Suhrawardi introduces a pre-cognitive level of self-consciousness or self-awareness, logically prior to any distinction between subject and object (Kaukua 2011, 141–4). Self-awareness of human beings is equated with the self-awareness that incorporeal lights possess and share. Suhrawardi writes, “It has been shown that your ego (ana’iyya) is an incorporeal light, that it is self-conscious, and that the incorporeal lights do not differ in their realities.

[Anonymous No.20852580]

>>20852570
>Thus, all the incorporeal lights must apprehend their own essences (dhat), since that which is necessarily true of a thing must also be true of that which has the same reality” (PI, §127; cf. Kaukua 2011, 150). He thus distinguishes the ‘object of cognition’ from the ‘subject’, the latter embodied in the ‘I-ness’ (ana’iyya) coined by Suhrawardi to identify the “mode of being proper to a cognitive subject”; self-awareness, as mere apprehension and existence, is now distinguished from the awareness of separate objects (Kaukua 2015, 113; Marcotte 2006).

>It is upon self-awareness that Suhrawardi builds his “revisionist concept of knowledge as presence” (Kaukua 2015, 125–42). In his Intimations, the ‘Plotinian’ (cf. Enneads V 3.6) Aristotle figure of Suhrawardi’s famous ‘dream-vision ‘ provides an illustrious example of what constitutes real knowledge based on immediate and intuitive knowledge: “return to your self (nafs)” (1993a, 70), that is, knowledge one obtains through one’s own soul. This Aristotle continues to explain how one knows, introducing intellection as “the presence (hudur) of a thing for a self (dhat)”, presence (hudur) or appearance (zuhur) being a “function of luminosity”. These passages of Intimations introduce central elements of Suhrawardi’s knowledge by presence (Suh. 1993a, 71–4; cf. Walbridge 2000, 225–9; Eichner 2001, 127–40; Kaukua 2013, 310–7, 2015, 127–33; Fanaei Eshkevari, 1996).

>In Suhrawardi’s ‘science of lights’, the object of apperception — light — cannot be known discursively, but only through an immediate presence or awareness of its luminosity, as not to fall into reification. Mystical vision and contemplation operate through this intuitive process of knowing metaphysical lights. Individuals achieve such states through spiritual and ascetic practices that enable them to detach themselves from the darknesses of the world in their quest for the apperception of those lights. Intuitive knowledge (dhawq) thus constitutes a superior means of accessing the luminous reality and the divine realm of metaphysical truths.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suhrawardi/

To the OP of the original thread that got deleted you may enjoy checking out Suhrawardi's works in addition to Shankara's if you want to explore an Aristotle/Greek connection

[Anonymous No.20852752]

>>20852408
>Maybe you have misunderstood something but I am not proposing that Advaita uses the regress argument, I mean that it points out the that the regress argument cannot be used. Just like aristotle does, and assumes a veridical awareness to be the first term as aristotle does, such that this awareness is in itself affirming its own existence by its awareness of a thing. I mean advaita counters the anti-foundationalist regress argument against awareness being reflexive, in the same way aristotle uses it for perception, but that following aristotle they replace perception for awareness, in argument against an opposition.
Whether or not the regress argument is valid or whether it presents a serious issue depends on the context of what kind of awareness/knowledge you (or Aristotle) are talking about. To just talk about the insentient mind or even the eyes processing sense data like sight the argument is not valid because at that point we are not talking about anybody being aware of the mind doing so. However the second one starts talking about YOUR mind communicating knowledge of sight to (YOU) and my mind providing visual knowledge to me and thereby "perceiving that I am perceiving" the argument because immediately valid because the changing mental acts of sight cannot be the (YOU) that witnesses their own arising and falling as known contents because of the impossibility of observing one's own absence (and additionally it also is attributing two contradictory aspects to them namely a subjective knowing component and an objective component with color etc); hence were Aristotle or another person to hypothetically say "the visual knowledge is self-established and there is no grounds to call in the requirement of another knower" that would not actually succeed like it succeeds as an argument when Shankara uses it because there are multiple problems with this position that don't occur if you are talking about a partless and unchanging reflexive awareness of self being self-evident to itself.

In other words, it's the inherent problem and contradictions with saying that visual knowledge is self-established and known to us without any separate witnessing awareness that necessitate that there be a separate witness in the first place, and then it is only when we trace back the radiance and arrive at a final knower that doesn't posses the same qualities as that visual knowledge that we finally have something that can meet the criteria of being truly self-evident and self-aware but without any of the problems that occur when you try to assign that same role to the visual knowledge itself; thus eliminating any grounds for supposing a regress that had previously been called up because of said problems.

[Anonymous No.20852757]

>>20852752
>>20852408
I would also add that Shankara says that knowledge both the known object and of the knower qua consciousness are both self-evident and neither have to be confirmed by another when they occur however this isn't the same thing as saying the knowledge of the objective content is self-knowing or reflexive or truly self-aware in the same way that the latter is because knowledge of the former only occurs through the window that the latter provides. He is saying that when an objective content like sight or pain etc is experienced through the mind being illuminated/revealed by non-intentional awareness that the minds said knowledge of tree or pain etc is self-evidently known to the mind (with the aid of luminous awareness) right then when its experienced and that you don't need additional 2nd and 3rd sensations in subsequent moments to know or experience the first one.

[Anonymous No.20852819]

>Guenonfag angry jannies delete his sophistic spam threads