The Quest for Wholeness

My philosophy

I have decided to write another book, tentatively titled The Quest for Wholeness. It is going to be the sum of all my thinking about improving human life and the incredible power of ideas. I have already written about half of it, and it will probably take me another three years to complete. But I will make it happen. I am only 63 years old and have great genes as far as longevity goes, so I will have time.

To some extent I build on the foundations that were laid by Ayn Rand, but I am not in 100% agreement with her. Interestingly, I think if Rand and I could engage in a long and open discussion, we might have been able to resolve many of our differences, some of which are perhaps more superficial than fundamental. In any case, I want my essays to be mine, not hers, despite the debt I owe her. My book will not be a mere development of her ideas, as so many books by Objectivists are.

Some of the essays are more or less written. Some are only sketched. Some are published on my old website, and some are not. Here is a preview:

The foundational essay is “One Person, Indivisible.” It concerns a theory I call personal holism, according to which a human being is in no sense a mind, soul, or brain + a body, but rather is a unitary conscious, corporeal person. What follows from this is the power of self-integration and connection to one’s physicality, emotions, intuitions, and sexuality, as well as a direct encounter with the objective world and the other people in it. This essay has been written, but not published on my website. If you are willing to read it and give me some feedback, I can send you a “secret link.”

Accompanying “One Person, Indivisible” will be essays about the nature of the human being. There will be one or two essays addressing what I regard as the false and pernicious claim that a person is really just their brain. I have written one of these essays already.

“One Person, Indivisible” is a hub that has several spokes. One very important spoke has to do with what I call robust reason. Reason, as it is typically thought of, comprises the senses, concepts, and verbal and mathematical logic, all manipulated dispassionately. Robust reason integrates "traditional" reason with and nurtures the use of our other faculties, such as intuition, the felt sense, the subconscious generally, empathy, and emotions, engaging in a dialogue between our various thoughts, feelings, and impressions on a topic. Using everything you’ve got can unleash enormous cognitive power as well as creating a tremendous feeling of wholeness that complements personal holism. The exercise of robust reason is a key part of human self-realization. There is a version of this essay on my website here.

Another spoke has to do with the experience of presence. Presence is the assertion of one’s existence that comes focusing on the experience of being a living physical entity with three dimensions and mass. The molecules of one’s partial awareness coalesce into a whole, self-aware, and centered person. The presence of one’s self is met and reaffirmed by the presence of the world, which resists change by mere wish. Presence can be focused or diffuse, determined or serene, but it always involves sensitivity to the world, one’s self, and one’s faculties (which brings us back to holism and robust reason). My essay can be found here.

Related to the concept of robust reason as a means of cognition are common sense and wisdom, which will be the subjects of a sketch of an essay. Common sense and wisdom involve practical, middle-level abstractions and ideas time-tested and preserved. They are an adjunct to philosophical reasoning, which can be too complex and time consuming to use in dealing with everyday situations. I will examine the psychological and epistemological aspects of these forms of knowing with a particular eye toward oral versus literate thinking. Here is my essay about common sense.

Next comes my version of ethics. I agree with Ayn Rand that man’s life should be the standard of value and that happiness is each individual’s proper purpose. She anchored this in a fundamental choice to live, i.e. to continue existing. This choice, as an end in itself, cannot be further justified. Unfortunately, this still leaves something of an is-ought gap. Some people are going to choose other ultimate values, for just one example, being macho, and there really isn’t anything we can say to them. Furthermore, Rand's analysis might make it sound like the choice to live is arbitrary so that life is meaningless or should be lived hedonistically, despite her arguments to the contrary.

I believe there is a solution. I would echo Rand’s dictum that “Existence is Identity” and say that the existence of life consists of life-sustaining activities as its identity. The choice to live is the choice to engage in these activities. Furthermore, these activities reflect “natural values,” that is, inborn and pre-reflective needs and desires for things like food, security, love, intellectual stimulation, mastery of skills, etc. In other words, there is no-ought gap because we are born valuing beings. These values are our human nature, our ultimate horizon, and cannot be meaningfully questioned, although these values develop as reason develops. Meta-ethical problems arise only, but not always, when we reach a conceptual level of cognition and become detached from our foundations or when we get off-track due to mistaken thinking or bad experiences. Reason can help here, but not just by arguing us into the right path from the outside. I would argue that the role of reason is not to justify natural valuing, but to straighten out mistaken thinking and integrate values, helping them find their proper ends, all from the inside. To some extent the use of reason in ethics is therapeutic, not argumentative. The choice to live is ultimately not a choice in the normal sense at all, but an affirmation of what was already there. Once again, there is a connection to personal holism and robust reason via the idea of natural values. I have published an essay on the subject titled "The Perfection of Desire.”

I’m not sure how much I want to write about politics and aesthetics. My view of politics is that there is such a thing as individual rights, but that they are not some kind of quasi-mystical aura surrounding people but rather more like rules in the society game. (I am not saying that Rand is engaging in quasi-mysticism, but some proponents of individual rights seem to). I would also consider the idea of who has a right to govern and set limits on things such as immigration. I don’t think Rand or the libertarians generally have addressed these problems because to them it would sound as if the ruling citizen class would be privileged to use force in an illegitimate way. I do not share this concern, but I grant that I do not have the matter all worked out. I would test version of rights against some hard cases.

My view of aesthetics is that Ayn Rand’s definition of art, while it points in the right direction, is a bit off the mark, and I might offer my own.

I think the final essay will be about the importance of what I call chosen wonder in human life. There is an essay on this topic on my old website here.

Obviously, I am not going to cover every issue in philosophy in a single book, but I believe that I can paint in broad strokes my views on many major topics as they affect human life. This will be the culmination of my life’s work, and I firmly believe it can have a positive impact on people’s lives. Working on this makes me happy.