Experientialism

[David T]

I stick pretty close to carl rogers on the following.

Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.

Neither the Bible nor the prophets ~ neither Freud nor research - neither the revelations of God nor man - can take precedence over my own direct experience.

[....] My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction.

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (pages 23, 24)

It's facinating how we interpret experiences and what that means and implies. I see a whole lot of philosphy bs dressed up as "chrisitian" but what I don't see is much clarity in the BS. So how does experience form and shape our views and why has (and does) religion spin into itself so badly?

 

[jonathan180iq]

So how does experience form and shape our views and why has (and does) religion spin into itself so badly?

It does so for the very reasons you mentioned here.

If experience is really the greatest determiner of personal truth, then why reach into a bag of preconceived (and often times poorly explained) conclusions to fill in gaps? It's like building half of a house with brick and mortar, only to then build the rest of the house with dirt and imaginary glue... Those two materials do not mesh. For better or worse, they are mutually exclusive.

Religion is a great window in the shared psychology of a people, and it can serve as a wonderful window for looking back on History. Religion is a fascinating part of the human experience. But it's value beyond that is rather limited, by design.

 

[David T]

As a carpenter general contractor I appreciated your analogy very valid. Usually here I post a basic "what about gravit?" In my responses and people act like I am being vague or trolling. "Gravity? What the he'll your a troll mocking my fantasy". And that is across spectrum.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I stick pretty close to carl rogers on the following.

Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.

Neither the Bible nor the prophets ~ neither Freud nor research - neither the revelations of God nor man - can take precedence over my own direct experience.

[....] My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction.

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (pages 23, 24)

It's facinating how we interpret experiences and what that means and implies. I see a whole lot of philosphy bs dressed up as "chrisitian" but what I don't see is much clarity in the BS. So how does experience form and shape our views and why has (and does) religion spin into itself so badly?

I'd agree, our personal experience is the best evidence, and like many, it's my personal experience of God that I find the most compelling evidence.

 

[George-ananda]

I guess I am no fan of this 'Experientialism'. Left to my own experiences, I would know very little about the universe around us and spirituality. About all I know of value comes from those who I have judged to be more advanced than I spiritually. But then again there may be some truth to the fact that after understanding the spiritual adepts, I follow their advice and actually feel some 'experience' of their correctness. I am wise enough not to trash a school of thought that I am not sure I fully understand.

And the OP seems to set up the opponent of this school of thought as blind acceptance of things such as narrow religion (i.e. the Bible). I would choose neither of the above in that comparison.

 

[David T]

I'd agree, our personal experience is the best evidence, and like many, it's my personal experience of God that I find the most compelling evidence.

I understAnd that. Its interesting how that is interpreted. The same goes for nature we experience it in a Number of different ways and interpret it in many more different ways

 

[David T]

I guess I am no fan of this 'Experientialism'. Left to my own experiences, I would know very little about the universe around us and spirituality. About all I know of value comes from those who I have judged to be more advanced than I spiritually. But then again there may be some truth to the fact that after understanding the spiritual adepts, I follow their advice and actually feel some 'experience' of their correctness. I am wise enough not to trash a school of thought that I am not sure I fully understand.

And the OP seems to set up the opponent of this school of thought as blind acceptance of things such as narrow religion (i.e. the Bible). I would choose neither of the above in that comparison.

I think what I am trying to say probably isn't a natural fit in a philosophy forum actually.

 

[siti]

I stick pretty close to carl rogers on the following.

Experience is, for me, the highest authority. The touchstone of validity is my own experience. No other person's ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me.

Neither the Bible nor the prophets ~ neither Freud nor research - neither the revelations of God nor man - can take precedence over my own direct experience.

[....] My experience is not authoritative because it is infallible. It is the basis of authority because it can always be checked in new primary ways. In this way its frequent error or fallibility is always open to correction.

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (pages 23, 24)

It's facinating how we interpret experiences and what that means and implies. I see a whole lot of philosphy bs dressed up as "chrisitian" but what I don't see is much clarity in the BS. So how does experience form and shape our views and why has (and does) religion spin into itself so badly?

I don't think of experience as an arbiter of 'truth' per se - but it may be the highest authority in determining 'authenticity' - of being to true to oneself.

But for me, in my mostly pointless and strictly amateur philosophical musings, it is not the content but the fact of my experience that has the highest value. By this I mean the fact that I am experiencing the world regardless of what that experience contains. I don't think there is any other fact that I can be 100% certain of. The entire content of my experience may be completely illusory, but even if it is I am still experiencing the illusion and this is the only fact that assures me of my existence - even if my existence is an illusion. Its a bit like a modified version of Descarte's cogito except I don't have to think, just experience (which should be comforting to a few around here ). That's my starting point - then I ask where did that (fact of my experience) come from...and take it from there.

 

[David T]

I don't think of experience as an arbiter of 'truth' per se - but it may be the highest authority in determining 'authenticity' - of being to true to oneself.

But for me, in my mostly pointless and strictly amateur philosophical musings, it is not the content but the fact of my experience that has the highest value. By this I mean the fact that I am experiencing the world regardless of what that experience contains. I don't think there is any other fact that I can be 100% certain of. The entire content of my experience may be completely illusory, but even if it is I am still experiencing the illusion and this is the only fact that assures me of my existence - even if my existence is an illusion. Its a bit like a modified version of Descarte's cogito except I don't have to think, just experience (which should be comforting to a few around here ). That's my starting point - then I ask where did that (fact of my experience) come from...and take it from there.

That's how I read rogers piece. If I taste an orange that experience is true regardless. I can create narrative I can interpret I can do a lot of varieties of conceptual structures in context to that experience but it is not the experience but an experience of that wxperience. If i meet someone and they believe that the orange has taste i wonder what the he'll are they talking about. If i meet someone who says there is no emperical proof of the orange having any taste i wonder what the hell, if I meet another person agnostic on the taste of orange I wonder. Its interesting how we interpret our experiences to say the least. Experience has taught me that sometimes we forget about gravity breathing air etc and fall prey to ideas as being primary.

 

[siti]

Yes - I think that's right. But then there's this "shared experience" thing where we all taste oranges and find correlations among our individual experiences and look for commonalities in the structures of the cause-effect process-relational 'occasions'. Science and religion both do this in different ways and at different levels - the problems arise when we try to force the commonalities onto the experiences - but we all do that - not just for others but most significantly for ourselves - we project our "common understandings" of the world onto our momentary experience and attempt to rationalize it in one way or another. So we always have this tension going on between experiencing and explicating experience. I guess that is what meditation is about - being in the experience rather than looking in on it? I am hopelessly bad at meditation - I have to think about everything.

 

[David T]

Yes - I think that's right. But then there's this "shared experience" thing where we all taste oranges and find correlations among our individual experiences and look for commonalities in the structures of the cause-effect process-relational 'occasions'. Science and religion both do this in different ways and at different levels - the problems arise when we try to force the commonalities onto the experiences - but we all do that - not just for others but most significantly for ourselves - we project our "common understandings" of the world onto our momentary experience and attempt to rationalize it in one way or another. So we always have this tension going on between experiencing and explicating experience. I guess that is what meditation is about - being in the experience rather than looking in on it? I am hopelessly bad at meditation - I have to think about everything.

Siti my daughter is extremely limited she can't walk or talk at 11. What has been amazing is learning to see the world through her eyes. She sees the world around us nature, as very alive, and as a deep mystery, she doesn't live in linguistics like most of us. Its as if she literally experiences all the time what religious sages talk about. This all is extremely difficult stuff for us smaaaaaart folk, like being intelligent has some extremely limiting qualities about itself that it isn't aware of because of itself. I am being a bit faux objective and anthropomorpic on that but that's easier to express. Art is way easier.