The subjective-objective dichotomy

ray harris Says: August 12th, 2006 at 8:24 pm Hi Alan, Ah, but you don’t get away with it that easy. I can call it subjective because no-one else had the same experience. Defining subjective also requires defining objective. Something is only objective when everyone agrees they have experienced it. I’m very familiar with nondual philosophy, particularly Kashmir Shaivism. The terms subjective vs objective are not adequate to describe the Absolute, which both and neither objective/subjective.

alan kazlev Says: August 12th, 2006 at 8:39 pm Ray said:Something is only objective when everyone agrees they have experienced it. But are their experiences the same, even when they agree? Their psychological biases, their subconscious preconceptions, their physiological state, all these things would alter the experience. And are their experiences of something different when they disagree? What if the experience itself is reacts to the experiencer e.g. the astral plane is said (by Theosophists and Hermeticists) to be ideoplastic (susceptible to and shaped by thought). The whole subjective-objective dichotomy is deeply problematic. Have you read Jorge Ferrer’s Revisioning Transpersonal Psychology? He nicely critiques the various cartesian and empiricist assumptions that are still central to both Transpersonal Psychology and Wilberian integral theory.