From: "Richard"
Date: July 23, 2005 2:21:02 PM PDT
To: rjon@vzavenue.net
Subject: well,..why (how) even talk about it'!!!

Ok long post so a brief summary is in order for those who want to follow its meandering way. In short I believe it goes right to the heart of the reasons we had for starting this forum in the first place.

In seeking to justify the reasons for this forum the post seeks to define the utility of intersubjective discourse and the justification for it in Sri Aurobindo's works. Along the way it also addresses Rod's doubts regarding the notion of intersubjectivity and points to concerns others made at AUM - namely Matthijs and Bindu - regarding the possibility of successfully entering into a wider cultural dialog concerning IY and science. To do this it examines the notion of intersubjectivity in Juergen Habermas, and to the extent in which Sri Aurobindo would seem to be in concurrence. It then examines practical realities as mentioned by Alok and Ron and then points to examples in the works of Don, Michael, and Savitra, in which I believe successful attempts are being made to enter into a wider cultural dialog. It ends by addressing what I believe are the perils to spiritual communities, Auroville include, if they choose to ignore a proper intersubjective dialog.

I will start off by saying that in this current era, circa 2005, I am not sure what there is to "doubt" about the notion of intersubjectivity especially in the Habermasian use of the term - of which I will post a more inclusive summary below for those unfamiliar -. I guess I can understand a doubt about whether it is possible, but its methodology seems to me quite flawless in its attempt to develop a "rational consensus"

As an example here is one of the claims of Habermas's intersubjectivity:

"While an individual may arrive at knowledge through a sudden flash of insight, Habermas insists that such knowledge enters the intersubjective sphere only by being translated into rational, accessible discourse."

Such rational accessible discourse is the foundation for an "ideal secular democracy" in that no one can come to the table to impose meta-physical validity claims which can not be demonstrated to the rest of the community, who justifiably would not accept those claims, if they clash with their own meta-physical or rational assumptions. Here is another excerpt:

"Habermas recognizes that people may reach a consensus satisfying to themselves, but that others would judge non-valid. (Let us imagine ourselves, say, listening in at a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.) A further distinction is necessary; rational consensus vs. false consensus. In order for any consensus to be rational, each of the implicit validity claims must be redeemable'"supportable by rational argumentation, open to questioning of assumptions"

I just don't see anything to doubt about here, at least in the methodology. Its just good old critical thinking and the foundation for a free democracy, and for example, why public education teaches evolution (which has some evidence for its validity claims, and not Genesis of the Old testament in the classroom, which does not)

In my reading (e.g. interpretation) of the Human Cycle at this stage in the evolution of society (when the bulk of the population are still motivated by irrational motives) Sri Aurobindo would champion this form of public discourse although given the irrationality of the masses he may have doubts about its success.

He writes:

It is sufficient for the first purpose of the rational age that each man should be supposed to have sufficient intelligence to understand views which are presented and explained to him to consider the opinions of his fellows and to form consultation in his own judgments. His individual judgment so formed and by one device or another made effective is the share he contributes to the building of the common judgment by which society must be ruled, the little brick in appearance insignificant and yet indistinguishable from the whole. And it is sufficient also for the first ideal of the rational age that this common judgment should be effectively organized only for indispensable common ends of the society, while in all else men must be left free to govern their own life according to their reason and will to find freely its best natural adjustment with the lives of others In this way by practice of the free use of reason can men grow into rational beings and learn to live by common agreement .. (HC 184).

All intersubjectivity implies is how in a rationally ordered secular society men and women come to a common agreement and judgment. Therefore so in this context, in this day and age, I can find nothing to doubt about the utility of coming to such common agreements.

Now the reason that many of us maybe skeptical of these common agreements, including Sri Aurobindo especially in politics and secular democracies of our day and age, is that they do not really employ Habermas's methodology for achieving intersubjectivity. In short these "secular societies are most often "oligarchies" supported by the simulations and simulacra of mass media which have become effective tools of propaganda, and thus for the oligarchy to retain power. And it is true that Sri Aurobindo who in this context valued "social" democracies (at present Switzerland) over "individual" democracies ( at present USA) - goes on to say that such rational existence by common agreement will not hold long simply because the vitalistic demands of individuals and groups seeking their special interest would tear it apart. (Its amazing how he contextually provided a "post- modern" commentary on society more than 80 years ago)

But lets argue idealistically here, yet in so doing still consider some fundamental practical realities.

Alok writes:

In any case dualism and non-dualism is a mater of practicality. It is obvious that Truth has to be One whatever that may be. But for our purposes we live in dualism or may be multiplism and we need to take stock of that and move from one level to another even when we are intellectually aware of the essential oneness of things.

So my point is that ideally we move in such an intersubjective sphere or cube - along with groucho, harpo, chico and all the rest '" when we engage in broad cultural interaction. As such if we enter into dialog about the integral yoga we should be prepared to justify our validity claims accordingly. I should add that I think this intersubjective issue is quite a separate issue than our subjective practice of the yoga which is individual and can be solely validated psychologically within, as has previously been mentioned in prior post by Alok and Vikas.

Thus the point Rod makes when referring to quantum physics, the Gaia hypothesis et al in helping to validate the claim that consciousness is the fundamental reality of the universe are meaningful in the sense Ron give it when he writes :

I believe the work of highly credible scientists like McFadden, Penrose and Hameroff is potentially revolutionary, a significant effort to open a new paradigm which allows mutual respect, communication, and even possible collaboration between science and spirituality. My understanding is that was one of the purposes of AUM2005 and this forum.

And I hope it's obvious that the quantum physicists I'm quoting, Sir Roger Penrose in particular, are arguing for Consciousness being primary. They're of course using the language and methodologies of modern science — how else can one hope to communicate a "spiritual" view to materialist scientists who often reject the legitimacy of the conversation itself'

And I would extend that to the greater society as well. But why do this at all'

Why introduce Sri Aurobindo into a wider cultural context' In fact, there were two very good caveats which were mentioned at AUM concerning the potential for success in entering the public discourse, one made by Matthijs and one by Bindu. Matthijs spoke of the dangers of mistranslation of Sri Aurobindo's terminology which is endowed with a certain power of consciousness, and Bindu warned of the dangers of diluting Sri Aurobindo's message. (goodness knows we have all seen examples of this) (I also will add that although Matthijs has some caveats about the success of the project, that paradoxically I think he does manage to successfully find the appropriate language for engaging IY and science in his talks and writing)

Now these are very real dangers when one enters the intersubjective sphere of discourse. the problem of language looms especially large. And it was a hope of mine and I think of Debashish as well, that this forum may become an instrument of uncovering just such an appropriate language.

And here is the crux of the problem, and why I believe it is important to do so, Disregarding the fundamental issue that it may be in the best interest of the greater "planetary" culture to come into contact with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the other reason for engaging the IY in a wider context is quite simple; because if those who are attempting to sincerely practice the yoga do not find the appropriate language and engage in proper intersubjective public dialog, then others who are perhaps less sincere will do it anyway. And I would argue as Sri Aurobindo becomes even more relevant for the future evolution of mankind, he will be increasingly brought to public attention.

Simply stated if we don't do it, other will do it for us, and the results will be very mixed. People like Ken Wilber, Allan Combs, Andrew Cohen will in the absence of other more sincere voices become the popular spokespersons for interpreting Sri Aurobindo to the wider public. And although they may be well intentioned, I may add they will do so with the intent unconsciously or consciously of placing their own system on top of the heap.

I have personal experience recently of this unfortunate circumstance. In inviting Allan Combs to AUM after looking through his zillion references to Sri Aurobindo in his book the Radiance of Being I thought he had actually a firm grasp of the yoga, if even on an intellectual level, but although he turned out to be a nice guy, unfortunately this proved not to be the case. Oh well lesson learned!

This is why the attempts of Don, Michael, Savitra to engage the IY with either an academic or wider cultural audience is welcome indeed. (At some point if they could share their experience of the hurdles they encountered in engaging in their notable efforts it would be most helpful to the forum and the project at hand.)

At any rate I would end my rant by saying that I guess that if one even doubts the project of intersubjectivity from a spiritual perspective, its practical utility in the real world should not be lost on those who have undertaken a spiritual discipline. And I will go a bit further to say that communities founded on spiritual or integral ideals (including Auroville which has had its share of intersubjective problems) ignore intersubjective methodologies only at their peril. Because in the current era circa 2005 if everyone in the community does not make the leap from the rational to the integral mode of consciousness, the community all too easily slides back into a mythic mode, where in the absence of a Maha-Guru, a hierarchy begins to dominate, as the "chosen ones" who will interpret the "metaphysical validity claims" which underlie the community. When that happens one finds oneself stuck between a mythic rock and an integral hard place. And this happens all too often.

rc
___________

For those interested more on Habermasian intersubjectivity follows:

I. Background

Habermas uses intersubjectivity as a central term in two intellectual projects: the critique of positivism and scientism, and the reappropriation of the hermeneutic tradition. The Frankfurt School attacked the widely held notion that valid human knowledge is restricted to empirically testable propositions arrived at through disinterested, value-free inquiry'" the notion that shapes both positivism and objectivist rhetoric. Briefly, the Frankfurt School argued that positivism rules out of bounds the rational discussion of meaning, values, and experience, leaving those areas open to the kind of irrationality that the Nazi movement exploited. At the same time, positivism misunderstands the role of psychological and social structures in constrain ing our modes of thought, and often sees "disinterest" where a more acute analysis, one informed by Marx or Freud, would reveal the force of the unconscious or the domination of ideology. For the Frankfurt School'"to simplify radically'"human society was a web of intersubjectivity, created through the actions and interactions of subjects who could become the conscious creators of values. Intersubjective also invokes the German hermeneutic tradition4 which Habermas sees not only as a body of philological rules for interpreting difficult texts (its historical origin), but also as an alterna tive to scientistic procedures for understanding human behavior and society. Hermeneutics allows us to understand the motives, values, emotions, and thoughts of others'"subjectively, sympathetically, from the inside, as it were. In effect, we are to "read" society as a nineteenth-century German scholar read Shakespeare'" with active, sympathetic imagination, and an openness to the strangeness of the text. We train ourselves to put aside our preunderstandings if they conflict with a full grasp of what we read. We work in the hermeneutic circle, in a dialectical movement from the text to our interpretation, checking against the text, then modifying the interpretation, in a silent dialogue of one subjectivity with the written projection of another. For Habermas, a theory of intersubjectivity contrasts with theories which base truth and meaning on individual consciousness. While an individual may arrive at knowledge through a sudden flash of insight, Habermas insists that such knowledge enters the intersubjective sphere only by being translated into rational, accessible dis course. The sphere of intersubjectivity is not the creation of a single individual psyche, but is a medium of communicable knowledge, created and maintained through the interaction of many subjectivities. As such, the intersubjective sphere has an autonomous existence, beyond any one individual, and must be entered through socialization, especially language acquisition. Of course, to learn the language of intersubjectivity is to create it again, since the language is constantly changing.

II. Communicative Competence

Habermas elaborates these ideas most fully in his theory of communicative competence, which holds that in a successful act of communication, the hearer agrees to five implicit claims: that the utterance is true, that the speaker is sincere or truthful, that the utterance responds to the appropriate values, that it is fitting to the relation between speaker and listener, and that it is comprehensible. From these claims, Habermas develops a notion of communication competency analogous to Chomsky's syntactic competency, but treating the utterances of speakers rather than isolated sentences.5 The five claims also suggest a political project that, if achieved, would extend and deepen democracy in a striking way, since they imply a speech situation undistorted by domination, violence, coercion, or ignorance. Rhetorically, these claims would generate a theory that is socially situated, open to reflection, and that refuses to value one form of discourse'"scientific, persuasive, or expressive'"at the expense of others. Thus, Habermas' communications theory realizes his early aspirations for philosophy that supports a public sphere of discussion; it may be of help to rhetoricians in our attempt to support the varieties of rhetorical practice and analysis in which we engage.

Habermas recognizes that more is involved in communication than the grammatical comprehensibility of a sentence. The separation of langue and parole, necessary on one level to grasp the syntactic structure of the language, must be overcome on another level to grasp the social structure of speech. Habermas' five claims are not necessarily the normal characteristics of our daily speech acts, which often fail to achieve full validity through misunderstanding, concealed motives, or reserved judgements. But they are, he claims, logically necessary qualities of speech directed at understanding. Of course Habermas recognizes that people may reach a consensus satisfying to themselves, but that others would judge non-valid. (Let us imagine ourselves, say, listening in at a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.) A further distinction is necessary; rational consensus vs. false consensus. In order for any consensus to be rational, each of the implicit validity claims must be redeemable'"supportable by rational argumentation, open to questioning of assumptions, addressed by speakers free from inequality, coercion, and domination. Rational agreement is to Habermas, then, what language competence is to Chomsky: a formal, abstract, but not idealized reconstruction of assumptions implicit in ordinary communications. Similarly, any empirical speech situation is likely to include rational performance errors, but these need not invalidate our concept of rationality. The notion of rational agreement has critical force; the outcome of a discussion can be challenged as irrational if it is shown to be influenced by deceptive force, or the like. These ideas have important implications for rhetorical theory. An intersubjective rhetoric based on the notion of communicative competence would recognize that writing is undertaken within a social situation. The relation between writer and reader is not an external context to the act of writing, not an isolable element in planning, but a precondition of anything having been written at all. The most relevant model for a writer's development, then, is not the cognitive model adapted from Piaget, in which young adults who have trouble writing are suffering in the last (it is to be hoped) throes of infant egocentrism. What is at stake for the writer is not learning to vary sentence structure, but earning entrance into a speech commu nity as a responsible, autonomous speaker. For the student writer this means learning to participate in the norms, customs, and discourse formulas of a speech community'"the community of college educated writers. And entrance into such a speech community is not merely a matter of learning certain conventions'"say, a specific style of documentation. Questions of truth and value, of social roles and sincerity, are implicit in all discourse oriented toward understanding. An intersubjective rhetoric would make these questions explicit, so that students could recognize the larger claims of discourse forms, claims that they can choose to meet or to challenge, but which they cannot …"

For more see:

http://jac.gsu.edu/jac/6/Articles/3.htm