12

Arguments concerning

nonmonotheistic conceptions (1)

Appeals to argument and appeals to experience

T

hree views are relevant here: Advaita Vedanta’s claim that (i)
only Brahman without qualities exists, Jainism’s contention that
(ii) persons are inherently immortal and independently existing
beings, and the typical Buddhist view that (iii) persons are composite
entities, made up of other things that are not persons and that comprise
the basic constituents of the universe. These are obviously logically
incompatible claims; all could be false, but not more than one could be
true. If only qualityless Brahman exists, persons and nonperson
constituents of persons, which have qualities if they exist, do not exist –
if (i) is true, (ii) and (iii) are false. If persons are not composed of
nonperson constituents, then they have properties, and so are not
identical to Brahman – if (ii) is true, then (i) and (iii) are false. If
persons are made up of nonperson constituents, then these constituents
have properties and persons are composite and so dependent – if (iii) is
true, then (i) and (ii) are false.
These claims are defended and attacked by appeal to argument and
appeal to experience. By appeal to argument is meant use of arguments
whose premises do not contain reports of nonconceptual experiences
people have or are alleged to have had; by appeal to experience is meant
use of arguments that do contain reports of nonconceptual experiences
people have, or are alleged to have had, or simple appeal to those
reports. A conceptual experience is one in which, without appeal to
sensory or introspective experience, one comes to see the meaning, and
perhaps the truth value, of some proposition; seeing that nothing can
have incompatible properties, noticing that it cannot be known that no
one knows anything, seeing if there are tables then there are physical
objects, are examples of conceptual experiences. Highly undervalued,
and often ignored, such experiences are experiences without whose
possession ordinary life, let alone philosophy, would be impossible. Yet