Some thoughts while riding on the subway into the city to dialogue with Rupert Sheldrake:
Anyone who is versed in Hegelian philosophy or who has a deeper than normal appreciation for Plato’s chosen dialogical medium of philosophizing–really anyone who understands the dialectical basis of reason and rational discourse–will agree that materialism and idealism as polemical positions are themselves misunderstandings of or partial perspectives on a more complex truth. Truth cannot be limited to this or that perspective. Truth is not a perspective. Truth is aperspectival. Any time we find ourselves locked in polemical disputations, we can be sure both of us are missing something important.
A few speculations on the dialectical entanglement of matter and the Idea:
Materialism is limited because it puts deterministic objects first.
Idealism is limited because it puts free subjects first.
The true Prius, the truly Absolute and unlimited is not simply subject or object, free or determined.
The a priori or transcendental ground of all subjective and objective things is not a ground at all, but an unprethinkable abyss, an unfathomable darkness. From out of this dark abyss, subject and object are eternally emerging to meet one another in apparent opposition. “Before” they emerge into phenomenal time and space, this eternal and absolute origin is groundless, abyssal. Only after subject and object have appeared does this abyss become a divine ground making possible the physical and psychological consequences of the subject-object polarity. In theological terms, it is only after the birth of the Son that the Father becomes the Godhead and the Mother becomes the Spirit. Before the Child there are no Parents, there is only a chaotic abyss of creative potential.
Given this line of speculation, some further questions arise:
What is the character of Intelligence/Nous? Is it some kind of rational mind, that is, a rule following logician? Are its operations clear and distinct, perfect in their plan and execution? Is the Intellect pure light? Does it lack all ambiguity and obscurity? Or is there a certain madness at the core of the Intellect, something unruly, chaotic, creative (in the sense that it is constantly engaged in the construction of new rules)? Does Nous precede materiality (ie, does order precede chaos)? Or is matter/Chora the ocean from out of which all things are born and into which all things die?
Footnotes2Plato 