2 Philosophy and meditation: Clearing the conceptual field
The term âphilosophyâ is derived from two Greek words roughly meaning the love of wisdom, and was adopted in the West (Europe, the Middle East, and the Anglophone world) as the title of an academic discipline studying certain fundamental questions concerning the nature of knowledge, reality, and value. Many of these questions were addressed by thinkers in the East (Asia and Africa), some long before the rise of Western philosophy. For example, thinkers in the ancient Asian subcontinent weighed in on many of the very same questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics as Western philosophers. While the practice of meditation was central to many Buddhist and Hindu thinkersâ answers to many of these philosophical questions,1 meditation was largely relegated to the province of theologians, monastics, and religious mystics in the West, rather than philosophers, perhaps with some notable exceptions such as Maimonides and Aquinas.2
Beginning in the 17th century philosophy in the West went in two different directions becoming siloed between two traditions, the Anglo-American (analytic) tradition and the continental (phenomenological and existentialist) tradition. Despite having a common intellectual lineage, for a long period the works of analytic and continental philosophers were ignored by the other group. While this conflict was largely due to a fundamental difference in methodology, the lack of attention by Western philosophers to philosophical work in the East was largely due to a lack of exposure to these works. Moreover, much of the work on philosophical problems in the East was closely connected to what has been thought of in the West â perhaps not entirely accurately â as religious thought, rather than philosophical work.
Over the last half century or so, the analyticâcontinental and EastâWest barriers have lowered, opening up the study of Eastern thought. This was partly due to declining membership in Western religious institutions (e.g., churches and synagogues), resulting in people seeking meaning in their lives through the practice of Eastern religions, especially Buddhism and Hinduism, leading eventually to the contemporary popularity of yoga and meditation. Another contributing factor was the migration of peoples of various Eastern regions to the West. In addition, there has been a growing interest in Eastern martial arts such as judo, karate, ju jitsu, aikido, kung fu, tai chi, and tae kwon do, as well as other martial arts originating in Southeast Asia, all of which contributed to the growing interest in meditation.
Lastly, the medical profession has embraced yoga, meditation, and related practices as providing wholesome alternatives or adjuncts to wellness strategies, as have the mental health professions, and many other institutions of society, from the board room, to the classroom, law enforcement, and sports, among others. This explosive growth in the popularity of meditation in the broader culture and popular media has led finally to a growing interest in the examination of meditation by philosophers in the West. It is not likely that philosophers doubt that meditation has the sorts of benefits suggested by the many types of its practitioners implied by the just listed categories in which it has become popular, e.g., stress reduction, relaxation, wellness, etc. Rather, what is likely of greatest interest about meditation to philosophers are the many metaphysical, epistemic, and other philosophical claims that are often associated with expositions of meditation, e.g., as the main path to nirvana, philosophical and spiritual enlightenment, gnostic access to a more ultimate reality, and the like. Surely, questions about such matters are philosophical, just as the question whether there is a God is a philosophical question. But while engaging in philosophical analysis of any concept or claim counts as doing philosophy, doing so does not entail that the concept, claim, or activity itself is a form of philosophy. Thus, the question I focus on is whether the activity of meditation is itself a philosophical activity, a form of doing philosophy.
The question of whether meditation is philosophy, however, is not stated precisely enough to give a meaningful answer. The terms philosophy and meditation are in need of further clarification in order to provide a clear answer to the question. âPhilosophyâ, as I will be using it, refers to an academic discipline and the set of questions that are included in studying the discipline. This sense of âphilosophyâ should not be conflated with its sense in contexts like âphilosophy of lifeâ, where it refers to a set of life-guiding principles, practices, or beliefs. These principles, practices, or beliefs may be maintained with little rational justification. âPhilosophyâ on my use refers to the discipline of examining beliefs, including life-guiding principles. A member of a cult may subscribe to a âphilosophy of lifeâ, but that may be principles or beliefs that are unreflectively, unjustifiably held or believed by the person. In that way cult members may have âa philosophyâ of life, but never examine the beliefs on which they base their life decisions and actions. In such a case, following the Socratic dictum governing philosophy, that the unexamined life is not worth living, such cult members arguably do not even truly have any philosophy at all.
Meditation is similarly vague. One type of meditation is reflected in RenĂ© Descartesâs thinking about what is going on in his thoughts as he related in his classic, Meditations on First Philosophy. His meditations were clearly philosophical, reflecting on his beliefs and their justification. Other types of activities also fall under the rubric âmeditationâ, including the following. The Old Testament prophets reported on their being confronted with Godâs message about what will happen in the future and/or Godâs appraisal of peopleâs actions resulting from trance-like states; on certain interpretations, these experiences involved altered states, conceivably meditative (e.g., Persico, this Handbook). Religious mystics reciting prayers with great focus or concentration on the words report experiences of God (e.g., Terry, this Handbook). Buddhists sitting in meditation poses concentrate on attenuating their thoughts, volitions, and related mental activities to attain a state of enlightenment or to directly encounter reality (e.g., Coseru, Fasching, Spackman, and others, this Handbook). Martial artists practice meditation to improve their ability to either enter flow states (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) or, as is well known, to concentrate on moving their limbs fast and forcefully through a stack of boards or bricks and breaking them with their hands or feet. Suppose, arguendo, that â as I have heard â some blindfolded archers concentrate on holding their bow and arrow with their bodies under perfectly concentrated equipoise before they release their arrows precisely to direct the arrows into a targetâs bullseye, or some artists, musicians, and other creatives meditate in order to tap into their muses. There may be other types, but these suffice to show that there are many different types of meditation.3
All of the following may be cataloged as examples of meditation, meditative practices, or the results of meditative practices:
- RenĂ© Descartesâs thinking carefully about what is going on in his belief system.
- A phenomenologist focusing on her stream of consciousness, bracketing metaphysical conceptions, attempting to discover truths about the nature of experience and reality.
- Martial artists concentrating on breaking boards.
- Practitioners of tai chi, yoga, and the like, entering somatic flow states.
- Whirling dervishes, tribal dance, and other forms of dance triggering flow states.
- Blindfolded archers concentrating on their targetsâ bullseye.
- Creatives entering flow states.
- Old Testament prophets in altered states experiencing prophecies.
- Religious mystics reciting prayers with great focus, or concentration on mantras or other religious phrases, intending to develop a personal relationship with divinity.
- Buddhist monks in sitting meditation poses to attain enlightenment or direct acquaintance with reality.
- Students in a meditation session, seated, focusing on attenuating cognitive activity, triggering a state of non-doing, just being, and taking note of their sensations.
Descartesâs meditations are philosophy in that he is reflecting on which of his beliefs are immune from doubt. While Descartesâs meditations are clearly philosophy, and there is a family resemblance between what he is doing and the other items on the list, it is not at all clear whether there is a common set of characteristics shared by all and only forms of meditation and meditative practices. They all arguably involve focusing or concentrating the powers of the mind. However, they involve different ways of focusing the mind and of doing so for different purposes. A closer examination of these cases will help to clarify what constitutes what we mean by meditation, about which we are asking whether it is philosophy. While there are important differences and nuances within the various versions of each type of example, it will be necessary to set them aside and simplify them for purposes of showing the differences between the different types of meditation.
Descartesâs meditations are a paradigm example of philosophy in my sense, studies in metaphysics and epistemology. His meditations are a process of identifying and conceptually purging all false beliefs in order to secure a foundation for scientific knowledge, a foundation which is immune from skeptical doubts, any problems with his methods or their outcomes notwithstanding. There is a stark contrast between the meditation of Descartes and that of the martial artist and the archer. Descartesâs meditations have a cognitive goal and content. Meditation is a tool or method used by the martial artist and archer to accomplish the physical tasks of breaking boards and hitting a bullseye. There is no cognitive content to the meditative practices of the martial artist and the archer.
The mode of meditation engaged by the Buddhist monk, Old Testament prophet, and religious mystic are different from these. The Buddhist practice involves concentrating in order to calm all mental activity to achieve enlightenment or acquaintance with ultimate reality. The Old Testament prophet does not necessarily initiate his meditative (prophetic) state, but typically finds himself in the meditative state, while a certain type of religious mystic focuses on religious words uttered in prayer to meditate. While the means of meditation are different in each of these types of cases, the concentration they produce involves cognitive content. For the Buddhist, the cognitive content is about ultim...
