Intermission: What is reality?
The project of this book is grounded on the conviction that the current reality-system, which I defined as Technic, is leading to the destruction of ‘reality’ as such – and that this disappearance bears dramatic consequences. For this reason, the next part of this book will be dedicated to exploring Magic, the alternative reality-system which I wish to propose as a possible path towards the reconstruction of reality. But what does this mean, exactly? And why would this destruction of reality, if at all occurring, be something we should try to avoid? Here, as a hinge between Technic and Magic, we shall consider in further detail what we can understand as ‘reality’, and how and why it carries such great significance.
At the beginning of the first chapter, I briefly stated that ‘reality’ is ‘the name that we assign to a state in which the dimensions of essence (what something is) and of existence (that something is) are inextricably bound to each other, without merging into one another’. Let us now be more specific about the meaning that we can attribute to terms such as reality, existence and essence. We could begin this exploration by exhaustively mapping the complex ramifications of the centuries-old philosophical diatribes around this semantic triad. However this would be an enormous undertaking – and one far outside the scope of this investigation. Instead, it might be more advisable instead to delve straight into the specific interpretation of these terms proposed by this volume, while referring only laterally to examples of their discussion throughout the history of philosophy.
We can understand ‘existence’ and ‘essence’ as two limit-concepts, that is, as the two opposite extremes of one same continuum. We can define this continuum in several different ways: for example, as the continuum between ineffability and language, or between direct apprehension and rational categorization, or again as the continuum between the unthinkable and the thinkable, or between the unmeasurable substratum and the measure of specific limits and so on. In each of these oppositions, we can position ‘existence’ as the limit-concept that tends towards the former pole, while ‘essence’ as the limit-concept that tends towards the latter pole. I refer to existence and essence as limit-concepts, since both absolute poles towards which they tend (for example, absolute ineffability or absolute language), exceed the possibility of precise conceptualization, subsisting instead as tendencies towards which concepts can only point. In other words, we can define existence as the limit-concept that points towards the tendency of pure ineffability, measureless-ness, ‘in itself-ness’ as absolute solidity (that which is, as it is in itself before its reduction to semantics) and towards all that can be approached only through direct apprehension. Conversely, we can define essence as the limit-concept pointing towards the tendency of pure language, measure, presence as contextually defined (what is, as defined by its difference from other existents – like words in a dictionary), and towards all that can be approached only through rational categorization. As it is immediately apparent, such definition of existence and essence carries an explicitly experiential bias, in that it is considered primarily from the perspective of an individual’s experience of the world. It is only on the basis of our lived experience that we can point to opposing notions of ineffability and language, direct apprehension and rational categorization and so on. Indeed, such bias should be considered as a constitutive part of the project of this book.
This becomes even more apparent if we add the third concept of the triad: reality. If we consider existence and essence as the limit-concepts pointing towards opposite directions of a continuum-line, then we can understand reality as the space stretching between these two limit-concepts. Reality is the space that opens up between existence and essence, that is, between ineffability and language, in itself-ness and contextual presence, solid measureless substratum and the flickering catalogue of measures and so on. To say it otherwise: we can consider the notions of existence and essence as the opposite boundaries of the fundamental frame through which the world (and ourselves as part of the world) emerges to our experience. What emerges between them – ‘the world’ as such, regardless of its specific and historically determined qualifications – is ‘reality’ in its most general and most fundamental sense. Reality is the space that is available to our existential experience of life in the world, oscillating between pure contemplation and pure activity, while never truly reaching either extreme pole.
The question of existence and essence has animated the philosophical and theological debate since time immemorial – arguably, though using a different vocabulary, since the composition of the Upanishads around the eighth century BCE, all the way to the latest developments in Anglo-American analytic philosophy. For the greatest part, the Western approach to this issue has orbited around purely metaphysical concerns, that is, around the attempt to discover the ‘truth’ about the matter – however one is to understand the notion of ‘truth’ as such. Even when it entered an eminently theological realm (as for example in the medieval dispute between the positions of Thomas Aquinas and of Duns Scotus), the Western line of enquiry sought a notion of ‘objectivity’ that wished to purify as much as possible philosophical enquiry from the distortions produced by an all-too-human, existential framework. This focus persisted even after Kant, since the new centrality attributed to the specific human experience of truth, remained nonetheless based on an underlying claim to (transcendental) objectivity.1 Conversely, the Indian tradition of philosophy, both in its Hindu and Buddhist declinations, has typically submitted logical and metaphysical enquiry to the ethical primacy of the subjective and existential concern of liberation from suffering.2 Even ignorance (avidya), as it is understood in most Indian philosophical traditions, ultimately owes not only its negative connotations, but also its metaphysical status to the experience of suffering that it inflicts on the individual. To generalize, we could characterize the Western analysis of essence, existence and reality, as broadly geared towards a notion of ‘objective’ truth that supposedly underlies and founds the existential experience of the individual, also in reference to its ethical dimension – whose fundamental legitimacy and direction is expected to be rooted in the ‘facts’. Conversely, and again generally, we could characterize the Indian philosophical debate around these notions as originating primarily from the existential experience of the individual person, particularly the experience of suffering. On the basis of this, so to say ‘subjective’ basis, the Indian tradition moved towards metaphysical analysis, which found its fundamental raison d’être and propellant force in the existential experience of the individual – while striving to move beyond it in the interest of liberation.
In between these two seemingly opposite approaches, we could locate a particular strand of Islamic philosophy, as it is exemplified by both Shia and Sufi ‘theosophies’ (to use Henry Corbin’s definition, and his linking of these two distinct traditions). In the work of thinkers such as the twelfth–thirteenth-century Andalusia-born Sufi master Ibn Arabi, the twelfth-century Iranian ‘Illuminationist’ Suhrawardi, the thirteenth-century Turkish philosophical mystic Al-Qunawi3 or the seventeenth-century Iranian philosopher and theologian Mulla Sadra, we find a peculiar and fertile mix of Greek and Indian attitudes towards philosophical enquiry. While resting on a solid basis of Islamic theology – thus attributing ‘objective’ truth to the existence of God and to the words of the Quran – such thinkers developed their own investigation through a complex balancing exercise between objective and subjective tendencies, metaphysics and soteriology. In their work, as in that of many other Shia and Sufi thinkers, the existential concern and the quest for objective truth seem to go hand in hand, alternatively borrowing from the tradition of strict philosophical logic, as developed in the schools of Kalam,4 or from their own direct mystical experience as well as from mystical traditions well beyond the borders of the Islamic world. An early example of this particular attitude – though by a figure who was neither Shia nor a Sufi – is eleventh-century Iranian philosopher Ibn Sina’s ‘floating man argument’, especially if contrasted with its later Western equivalent, Decartes’s cogito. According to Ibn Sina’s argument, if we were to remove all sensorial perceptions or transmitted knowledge from a person, s/he would still be able to have a direct apprehension of his/her own very existence. Existence as such, in its pure form, is thus the primary object of our knowledge, while at the same time exceeding the boundaries of both empirical and conceptual knowledge. As the original object of knowledge, existence is also, importantly, the authentic subject of knowledge: sum, ergo cogito. The floating man’s direct and ineffable experience of his own existence (a fact beyond factuality, so to say), doesn’t go to deny the possibility of a rational understanding: on the contrary, it is meant to underpin and complement it. There is direct apprehension and there is empirical and rational knowledge, in the same way that there is the binomial of existence and essence. After all, it was precisely Ibn Sina who first clearly theorized the distinction between these two concepts.
The strand of Islamic philosophy mentioned above, has been broadly characterized as the ‘esoteric’ branch of Islamic thought. Being defined as ‘esoteric’, a certain philosophical perspective is invested not only with certain general qualities, but also with an implicit belonging to a broader ‘esoteric tradition’. Indeed, this combination between an objective method and a subjective framework resounds with equal strength in other philosophical schools, belonging to different geographical areas. As well as in esoteric Islam, we find it playing a central role also within the Hermetic end of the Alchemical tradition. In his studies on alchemy, Carl Gustav Jung came to theorize the peculiarity of the Hermetic/alchemical approach, as opposed to the typical Western striving for pure objectivity. Of course, he did so within his own parameters, that assigned a quintessentially psychic nature to that field of ineffability which we previously described as the limit-concept of existence. But despite a central dissimilarity between the metaphysical approach developed in this volume, and that of Jung – where we call existence/ineffable, what he sees instead as a function of the deepest psychic realm – his characterization is nonetheless revealing of the peculiarities of the esoteric approach.
Whereas the scientific attitude seeks, on the basis of careful empiricism, to explain nature in her own terms, Hermetic philosophy had for its goal an explanation that included the psyche in a total description of nature. The empiricist tries, more or less successfully, to forget his archetypal explanatory principles, that is, the psychic premises that are a sine qua non of the cognitive process, or to repress them in the interest of ‘scientific objectivity.’ The Hermetic philosopher regarded these psychic premises, the archetypes, as inalienable components of the empirical world-picture. He was not yet so dominated by the object that he could ignore the palpable presence of psychic premises in the form of eternal ideas which he felt to be real. The empirical nominalist, on the other hand, already had the modern attitude towards the psyche, namely, that it had to be eliminated as something ‘subjective’, and that its contents were nothing but ideas formulated a posteriori, mere flatus vocis. His hope was to be able to produce a picture of the world that was entirely independent of the observer. This hope has been fulfilled only in part, as the findings of modern physics show: the observer cannot be finally eliminated, which means that the psychic premises remain operative.5
In the second part of this book, and consistently with our definition of ‘reality’, we shall borrow a number of methodological elements from the esoteric tradition, particularly as it takes place within Islamic philosophy. This is indeed due to its ability to hold together the fundamental tendencies of both Western and Indian philosophy, while also creating a unique and original position of its own.6 Our propensity towards the Shia and Sufi philosophical attitude can also be explained metaphorically, employing once again the notions of existence, essence and reality. At the risk of pushing too far our generalizations, but in the interest of offering an evocative simplification of the approaches discussed in this book, we could characterize the general Western attitude as eminently geared towards ‘essence’ (although, of course, with a number of exceptions, characteristically singled out under the label of ‘existentialism’), while the general Indian attitude can be broadly characterized as eminently geared towards ‘existence’ (again, with notable exceptions). In between them, Shia and Sufi traditions broadly appear to move towards that synthesis which we defined before as ‘reality’.7 It is with this in mind, that we shall borrow from that tradition – as well as from that of Hermetic Alchemy – in our quest to define a possible path towards the reconstruction of reality.
The crucial connection between the possibility of reality, on the one hand, and the coexistence of limit-concepts of existence (towards ineffability) and of essence (towards absolute language) on the other, should be clear by now. What is still unclear, however, is why one should desire to reconstruct reality. What is reality for, anyway? What are the consequences of losing it? And how can reality be lost in the first place?
Let’s start again from our early notes on this issue, from the first chapter of this book. There, we find:
As different forms of essence and of existence alternate, and as their relationship varies overtime, we witness the passage between successive forms of reality. But whenever one of the two overtakes the other, or denies its legitimacy, or severs the ties that connect them, or, even worse, when both of them vanish, then reality as such also effectively vanishes. Reality is a weave made of essence and existence, like warp and weft, and the event of its undoing requires a weaver (for de Martino, a ‘magician’) that is capable of interlacing the two back together, regardless of the specific forms and colours that each of them can take.
We can understand the disappearance of reality, on the basis of our definition of reality as the space which is opened and framed by the opposing limit-concepts of existence and essence. As we observed in the previous section on Technic, the present reality-system and its cosmological structure move towards a disintegration of reality, through the annihilation of existence (by denying the very principle of existence in itself, as it stands ineffably beyond linguistic categorization) and the hypertrophy of essence (pushed to its limit, to coincide as much as possible with the very principle of absolute language). What used to be the segment stretching between the fuzzy boundaries of existence and essence – that is, reality as such – is now reduced to a mere point, at once entirely coincident with pure essence and devoid of any existence. The frame collapses, and reality vanishes with it.
Again, from an eminently human, existential position, this disintegration of reality bears significant and dramatic consequences. As we have seen, the cosmology of Technic brings human action and imagination to a state of paralysis: a condition of constant and severe existential anxiety that forces every existent to consider themselves illegitimate impostors inasmuch as they exist. The annihilation of existence and the compression of the space of reality to the non-spatial point of nigh-pure essence (according to the cosmogonic wishes of absolute language), entails a dramatic mutilation of the world and of our existential experience of/within it. Yet, such mutilation is a curse that runs through generations, and what is existentially and metaphysically mutilated is expected, due to its very nature, to re-enact the same mutilation on its surroundings. We observed this spiral-chain of violent reduction and exploitation in our discussion of the cosmology of Technic, where the abstract general entity, as a processor, was bound to perpetuate on its surroundings the very mutilation from which it itself had originated in the first place.
Conversely, reinstating the limit-concept of existence (as geared towards the pole of ineffability) alongside that of essence (as pointing towards the pole of language) constitutes the first and necessary step to reopen the space of reality, as a space for existential flourishing within and together with the world. The next two chapters will be dedicated to outlining a possible movement towards this aim, which we shall define as the cosmological architecture of the reality-system of Magic.
Notes
1 For an interesting overview of the history of the notion of objectivity since the nineteenth century, see L. Daston and P. Galison, Objectivity, New York: Zone Books, 2007.
2 This particular reading is broadly based on Giuseppe Tucci’s interpretation of the general trends in Indian philosophy. For a comparative analysis of the various schools of Indian philosophy, see his G. Tucci, La Filosofia Indiana, Roma and Bari: Laterza, 2005.
3 Unlike the other thinkers just mentioned, Al-Qunawi’s thought won’t be investigated in the following pages. Unfortunately, there is a lack of literature on him available in English, and most of his writing is also not easily available in English. For an introduction to his thought, see R. Todd, The Sufi Doctrine of Man: Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi’s Metaphysical Anthropology, Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2014.
4 Ilm al-Kalam, ‘the science of discourse’, usually indicates an approach to the study of Islamic theology that has a certain ‘scholastic’ attitude: Mutakallimun who engage in kalam defend the tenets of Islam through the use of mostly dialectical means. Over the centuries, several schools of Kalam have evolved, particularly the ‘extreme rationalist’ Mu’tazilah and the more moderately ‘rationalist’ Ash’ariyah.
5 C. G. Jung, The Philosophical Tree, in The Collected Works, vol. XIII, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983, pp. 288–9.
6 Much has been written on the influence of Greek philosophy on Islamic philosophy. On possible Indian influences on Islamic esotericism, see in particular R. C. Zaehner, Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, London: Oneworld, 1995.
7 The idea of a philosophical/theological synthesis between Western and Eastern attitudes is a recurring tension in so-called Perennial Philosophy – see for example A. Coomaraswamy, Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art, New York, NY: Dover, 2011. A particularly poignant case for esoteric Islam to act as a catalyst in this direction can be found in A. Ventura, L’Esoterismo Islamico, Milano: Adelphi, 2017 – in which the reader can also find a summary of René Guénon’s understanding of the role of Islam in terms of a universal gnosis. Another ‘perennialist’ attempt in this direction can be found in F. Schuon, Understanding Islam, Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2011.