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Preface
to the Philosophy of St. John of the Cross
The
Search for Coherence
If
there is one unifying feature that appears to bind the great diversity of
philosophic thought as it has occurred throughout history, it may well be found
in the search for coherence. While the passionate and resolute pursuit of
truth is certainly more exalted, it has for some time suffered rather badly, and
for good reason has been denigrated as the pure impulse behind every
philosophical system. The dispassionate search for coherence, on the other hand,
has been, and is likely to remain, fundamental to all good philosophy. It is no
less the driving force behind the great Platonic Dialogues, or
Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, than Kant’s abstruse Critique of
Pure Reason or Hegel’s involuted Logic. On every philosophical
frontier we essentially encounter problematics that demand explanation because
they confront us as facts. What is more, these intractable, often vexing
elements of experience do not always readily lend themselves to understanding,
or if they do, it is sometimes upon terms not entirely of our own making. Such
occurrences invite inquiry, challenge us to coherently respond to them, and even
in the face of indifference resolutely refuse to be turned aside. They
defy us, and therefore challenge us. By their persistent recurrence, they
effectively demand of us accountability; demand, in fact, to be coherently
incorporated into that philosophic purview toward which all inquiry inexorably
moves as toward a universal comprehending every fact.
However elusive this pursuit may be, the impulse
which motivates us to exact from experience the epistemological tribute
which coherence demands, remains the same always and everywhere: the pursuit of
understanding. To leave unexplained – or worse yet – to ignore
any recurrent element in experience simply because it proves either inconvenient
or recalcitrant, is not merely bad philosophy; it is contradictory to the
philosophic impulse itself, an impulse which not merely derives from, but
thrives within, the fertile matrix of inquiry.
If this indeed is so, it is
particularly apropos of a study of arguably the single greatest – certainly
the most voluble and articulate – figure in the Western tradition of
mysticism, St. John of the Cross (1542-1591). Mystical experience, despite its
many cultural and often conflicting interpretations, remains undeniably a fact of
experience. This alone is sufficient warrant for examination. Its credentials
lie in the repeated, which is to say, the historical experiences of men
and women, and philosophy essentially demands no more of the subject of its
review.
It is, however, equally
clear that such an investigation suffers a regrettably persistent, if popular
handicap: the general consensus seems to be, prior to any real critical
reflection on the matter, that in and of itself mysticism is something entirely
and irredeemably irrational, and inasmuch as it is beyond reason it is
beyond the legitimate scope of rational inquiry altogether. Indeed, apart from
the possibility of what appear to be otherwise solipsistic utterances meaningful
only among the mystics themselves, it really has nothing to recommend itself to
the type of inquiry to which other and decidedly less refractory experiences
legitimately lend themselves. This is to be much mistaken. It is precisely this
fundamental and pervasive misconception about mysticism that remains, I
think, the chief obstacle to a study of mystical philosophy in its own right,
the credibility of which, as a consequence, has suffered unnecessarily.
But there is more to the
problem we confront at the outset than simply this. Semantics has played no
small part in contributing to the confusion that surrounds the very term itself.
As William James astutely observed:
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“The words “mysticism” and
“mystical” are often used as terms of mere reproach,
to throw at any opinion
which we regard as vague and vast and sentimental, and
without a base in either facts or logic. For some writers a “mystic” is any person
who believes in
thought-transference, or spirit return. Employed in this way the
word has little
value.” 1
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As a consequence, the term
“mysticism” has come to acquire a kind of pseudo-metaphysical connotation,
or perhaps better yet, an esoteric pathos of the most reprehensible sort
– evoking, as it does, a type of vague intellectual empathy to which nothing
in any sense coherent and meaningful corresponds. This essential
misunderstanding of mysticism, however, is quickly dispelled upon a close
examination of the works of St. John of the Cross: immediately we confront
facticity and discern logic; facticity and logic so compelling, in fact, that a philosophy
of mysticism may well offer a unique contribution to epistemology itself. To
wit, In Part II of our commentary we shall examine, among other things,
the possibility of a type of experience in which the redoubtable Problem of
Induction – first introduced by the 18th century Scottish
philosopher David Hume – and a thorn in the side of philosophy ever since –
fails to obtain. This of itself would be no small recompense for our efforts
given the magnitude of this problem to which philosophy, in one form or another,
has attempted to respond since the publication of Hume’s Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding in 1740. In
short, we find reason in the mystical philosophy of St. John of the Cross,
coherence and logic. Indeed, we find that, externally considered, the mystical
experience is a profoundly rational experience – and it is this
discovery, sweeping aside many long-borne misconceptions about mysticism which,
if justification at all is required, suffices to justify an epistemology of
mysticism.
To be sure, there are
central elements in the mystical experience essentially inaccessible to reason.
St. Thomas Aquinas perhaps summed it up best in the terse statement, “In
finem nostrae cognitionis Deum tamquam ignotum cognoscimus.”
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It
is this unknowing, this first and most fundamental principle of the
metaphysics of mysticism which, in our examination, we shall find to assume
profoundly rational dimensions in the mystical philosophy of St. John of the
Cross.
Geoffrey K. Mondello
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1
Varieties of Religious Experience, Lect. 16
2
We know God as unknown
Foreword
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