BEING SUBJECTIVE OR OBJECTIVE?

In so far as the mind expresses meanings that do not accord with reality, then that meaning is subjective. The truer an account expressed by the mind, the more objectively independent of the subjective mind the meaning is. Understanding always has to start from each our subjective sphere of personal meanings. We are not, however, thereby trapped in the sphere of personal meanings. Understanding is the product of a continuous interplay between perceptions and conceptions, ideas working on experience and so on, so we do not so much create meaning by forming original ideas and projecting them onto things or events. Rather, understanding relies on objectively-formed meaning which represent real perceptions and true conceptions. This can be summarised by saying that the (subjective) mind provides the form of any meaningful expression, while something independent of the mind or 'outside it' provides the (objective) content.

We may speak of something becoming intelligible when it is found to correspond to (some sphere of) human experience and thus have some kind of use or purpose. As understanding progresses in the normal person, the forms developed in the mind grow more intricate and can become very extensive. It begins partly by projecting our subjective ideas - often in the form of expectations, questions or hypotheses - towards nature, society and the cosmos. Our understanding progresses by self-development, the perspectives it embraces increase and the mental horizon is pushed back, revealing more of the landscape of experienced reality. When we are at our most disinterested we may witness the meaning of something in a more universal or relatively objective way, even though we cannot get a completely neutral or objective understanding.

Heidegger was doubtless right in holding that things lack meaning for us as long as they cannot be related to our lives in some kind of purposive or supportive way, however disinterestedly we may seem to witness them. Things that remain inscrutable define the outer limit of our understanding of creation or the cosmos. However, to experience the beauty of forms, colours, textures and sounds or to be moved by the quality of human acts does not necessarily involve mundane meaning or call for heavy understanding. Wonder and awe often arise in the absence of understanding. Our encounters with these hidden and ultimate aspects of everything show up the finitude of the mind and human life and remind that there are always limits to our understanding. Nevertheless, as understanding rises towards higher overviews of the panorama of reality, all the diverse things and relationships are seen more wholly and as having a unitary configuration.

We lack unambiguous terms for all the different phases, modes and levels of human understanding. The word 'understanding' covers many human capacities, and is too often confused with reasoning abilities. So I distinguish here between reason and understanding. Reason is purely cognitive and is strictly analytical and deductive so that its rules (i.e. logic) only regulate particular thought relations. Reasoning is operative to the extent that consistency and unity of conception are present, usually related to some given, limited whole with well-defined parts. What has been called 'inductive' logic is nothing but the hypothetical scientific method. Understanding embraces a much greater sphere. Not only does it include logical and inductive thinking but also in identifying and relating all kinds of means and ends, actions and (likely or possible) consequences, comparing diverse ideas and systems of meaning, evaluating ethically and creatively reconciliating values.

The synthesis of facts, values and ideas in understanding requires many and various means, excluding neither causal explanation, logical reasoning, theoretical interpretation. In common usage, the word understanding is used very broadly and includes many circumstances, not only reasoning clearly on the basis of factual knowledge. Human qualities like sensitivity, respect, sympathetic identification and qualitative appreciation also go to make up human understanding. In short, genuine understanding never excludes such non-cognitive elements as personal identification, ethicality and respect for others. This is what is meant broadly by 'holistic' understanding.

So the diverse forms of mental activity - thought, memory, analogy, interpretation, reason, intuition and other unnamed operations and resources of the mind - enable us to discover connections and relationships between all the limitless number of elements that go to make up the possible objects of our concern. The psychic processes that produce understanding thus operate at the 'supra-factual' level. They judge, sort and put together the facts, like an intricate picture, sometimes making intuitive connections and lateral jumps which help develop a broader canvas, aspect by aspect.

To perceive the wholeness of anything we use various faculties, sometimes known as perceptual intuition of a gestalt. While perceptional wholes (eg. a heard symphony, a seen landscape) are intuited through the senses and immediately interpreted by the subconscious mind, holistic conceptions are arrived at by thinking both systematically and creatively about perceptions... organising them with the aid of images, symbols, ideas, theories and so forth. Conceived wholes are induced in the mind by transcending all partial concepts to synthesis a qualitatively different and unitary understanding. Knowledge of a whole cannot be 'deduced' from facts about the part. As Gregory Bateson has shown², "combining of information of different sorts or from different sources results in something more than addition. The aggregate is greater than the sum of the parts because the combining of the parts is not a simple adding but is of the nature of a multiplication, or the creation of a logical product." This also means that there is no guarantee of a clear deduction from whole to its parts either: there may or may not be such a logical relationship, but it will depend on each case in question. To conceive wholeness requires the use of reason, plus creative intuition. Reason helps us to relate in orderly and consistent fashion the many parts of any conceptual whole to one another.

Further than this, genuinely human understanding cannot be separated from such ideal human qualities as truthfulness, sympathy and empathy. That is because these are the very motivation for the quest for understanding. Any form of thought that denies the basic rightness of a common heritage and future goal for humanity removes itself from the deepest and most heartfelt meaning of 'understanding', which is purposive in its very essence and is oriented to the most universal of goals.

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

Scientific theories order sets of generalisations coherently and in accordance with what has been observed to be factual by independent observers. Thus, theories generalise the results of large amounts of experience, trial and error, experiment, making this available without our having to go through the whole process of discovery ourselves, which would be impossible. However, this storehouse of human knowledge is not at all the same thing as understanding proper, which is the individual person's achievement and is rooted in long personal experience and self-knowledge rather than only in facts and theories.

When one understands something, one may be guided by theory - which is to say by generalisations made from the experience of others. They must, however apply to the particular instance we are trying to understand, or else great confusion can set in. If we could not benefit thus from the accumulated fund of human knowledge, we would have to carry out the wasteful or impossible undertaking of regenerating single-handedly knowledge that may have taken humanity ages to obtain.

The gradual expansion of the known world map in the age of discovery is a useful image of the supposed 'continuous advance of science' or also of the accumulation of all those forms of knowledge which are the basis of human civilisation. There is not just one frontier, but many within each realm of understanding... practicality, the humanities, science, personal and social interaction, technology, art. literature, religion and more besides. As a fund of collective human knowledge, this involves no self-knowledge, as does a person's understanding.

The expanding map image is a fair representation of any person's acquisition of knowledge from childhood onwards. However, the more one discovers, the wider the horizons of the unknown that then become visible. The information available in today's world far exceeds what even the most expansive mind can access, let alone know and remember. However, neither information nor even knowledge systematised as theory need constitute any understanding. One may know a great n umber of facts and theories without having a very developed understanding, which is not at all a matter merely of memory, reason or mental facility. What is today referred to as information is mostly presented without order or coherence, being but raw material which the understanding must interpret, co-relate and organise according to its purpose.

Understanding is definitely not only - nor even primarily - a matter of getting the right solution to some mental riddle, or of becoming learned in some subject or science, for it unavoidable embraces quite other abilities such as practicality, conscience, insight, evaluation and identification. This fact is sadly still lost to many educators, scientists and others today. The many cultural varieties and experiential stages of understanding are not appreciated due to a blanket educational inculcation of belief in mental abstractions, theory, scientific knowledge and the narrow range of abilities tested by Binet's IQ test as the mark of intelligence. This First World intellectual mentality is mainly the result of developing logical, mathematical and scientific methods, usually in written forms for specific contexts, which represents but one kind of developed intelligence among a number of others, such as psychological research by Howard Gardner³ and associates into 'multiple intelligence' shows.

Systematic knowledge and exposition of many kinds may require abstraction, which involves isolating the essentials and the principles that underlie any process. But making theory the great ideal opens for an artificially narrow view of the nature of understanding as if it were something primarily abstract, 'detached' and observational as opposed to a participational and practical activity. It is surely mostly perilous to forget that theory is mostly only an aid to understanding and to storing and recalling it, like a kind of inner shorthand. Occasionally a theory may itself advance understanding, but only when related to action, in short - applied through individual understanding in some real context. While theory is general and 'essential' in nature, then, its fruit comes only in the particular actual results it helps to forward for each individual. Only the fruit of practice is comprehensive in actuality in that it consists in comprehension in the living, through having lived it. It ought not to be necessary to state that deep and experientially-based understanding is not an automatic development, for it requires reliable educational and other guidance, personal application, good character and experiential maturity. Fairly young adults can occasionally attain to understanding that older persons may not have done. Understanding is thus not merely a matter of cleverness, brilliance for abstract ideas or the various kinds of complex know-how. The proverbial 'evil genius' is obviously lacking in understanding of a very fundamental kind, whatever the other achievements. Most people would naturally regard the highest form of understanding to be shown by persons who lead exemplary lives, show great understanding of others and demonstrate the highest human values through all their activities.

The philosopher Wittgenstein held that theory was without value and gave him nothing... that "it would not be the exact thing I was looking for". This expresses the true spirit of empiricism, one which does not wish to approach anything as being in want of theoretical explanation. Theory is of course useful in helping to manipulate and control the physical environment. This is what science does, no more no less. In wishing to know the good, the true, the beautiful - to answer the deepest questions of our identity, our purpose and the meaning of being, life and death and all that lies beyond the theoretical mind, scientific theories and explanations are, at their very best, still a secondary matter.

When our idea of understanding is limited to ratiocination, it loses its essential human quality. A totally 'neutral', non-emotive form of thought is probably impossible because it cannot be separated entirely from all other normal human sensibilities, feelings and desires. Philosophy since the time of Descartes has bequeathed to intellectuals the fallacy that understanding occurs by 'pure reason' and the dominant philosophies of science today still have much the same blinkered view as to what constitutes understanding, despite its empiricism.

Though theoretical reason and mental abstraction may of course be employed in a good cause, nothing in it guarantees this... as impure uses of 'pure' science have shown all too clearly in the 20th century. The tendency of theorists is to over-generalise or absolutise vadidated generalities. If 'all ravens are black', this remains true only until an albino raven is observed or perhaps bred. Yet most scientists still tend in practice strongly to regard well-tested empirical hypotheses as if they were universally true, despite what logic demands: that in principle, no empirical generalisation can ever be taken as certainly true.

Intellectual openness is hard to maintain once a person's life has stabilised and taken form through time within a particular social environment, such as the professional or collegial systems which set their own limits that tend to crystallise as established opinion and acceptable reasoning. Intellectualism almost always solidifies into a conventional rationality that cloaks irrational or non-rational attitudes upheld by norms determined by arguments chosen only to fortify accepted opinion. The pressures towards reigning orthodoxy and other conformities or compromises, not least in the scientific community, are usually very considerable and resisting them ought to be one of the major responsibilities of intellectuals. The price of such independence of thought is, however, often high in terms of security of employment and recognition. Without a sufficient counterweight of self-examination and conscience, such intellectualism has become a burden both for the individual and for society, even though this is hard to credit for the intellectuals in question.

THE QUESTIONING MIND

Once we have begun to question the limitations, prejudices and inconsistencies of each our relatively limited social and cultural 'cradle', we are faced with a bewildering kaleidoscope of ideas, beliefs, theories, cultures and teachings. The main problem soon becomes which theory to practice, which supposed knowledge is true and which applies in the particular case. There is an abundance of teachings, worldly and spiritual, exhibiting all manner of combination between the entirely false and the true. The question of truth must therefore be further discussed later.

An active understanding is characterised by the ability to question, not just to have absorbed information passively from others or reached a knowledge of facts or generalisations overwhelmingly from secondary sources. Our faculty for understanding is a future-seeking, dynamic process that must be extended or regenerated by the individual for each new circumstance where it may be required. A society may perhaps be said to reach a general level of understanding in certain matters, yet even this is not maintained without successive regeneration, re-evaluation and periodic reinterpretation by individual persons everywhere in each generation or era.

We do not live in an unchanging vacuum where facts remain the same for ever, but in a shifting world environment where personal, social and other conditions alter through time, often in highly unpredictable ways. The meaning of words change and the full contexts and living environment in which they made sense and conveyed general or abstract insights is lost to view soon enough. Along with all this goes the correct understanding of their meaning. Sciences, philosophies, historical texts and scriptures that can reasonably be said to have a perennially-true import can soon be misinterpreted and their original meaning lost along with unknown and inconceivable past circumstances and conditions.

The nature of being itself both precedes and exceeds everything that can be known about it. In other words, one exists before one can think about or describe the fact, let alone convey all the things that existing involves and means. Thinking is secondary to being, which is the basis of thought and which always exceeds it. Thoughts are finite while reality is not, and language sets certain boundaries to what can be said. For this reason, among others, no one can know everything fully and wholly once and for all. Also, the expression of understanding through language in any systematic or structured manner is always limited by numerous restraints. All explanations must end somewhere, if only on practical grounds, besides which there are dimensions of awareness and being which exceed the expressions of all language. Human vision at its best is characterised by freedom from any sort of Procrustean bed of dogma or orthodoxy. This has always been essential for the creative transcendence of past or prevailing conditions and further realisation about the nature of humanity and the cosmos.

THE EXPANDING CIRCLE OF UNDERSTANDING

Human understanding has rather the nature of an expanding circle or a many-dimensional continuum than any distinct step-by-step progression such as one may meet in primary education or in following a systematic mathematical proof. Understanding develops by relating to other persons through identification and sympathy and proceeds towards increasing realisation of the inter-relatedness of everyone and everything and of one's own nature. It is not merely a matter of ideas and their mental manipulation, for it advances more radically via the challenges of life than by formal education. In the process it reaches out toward the cosmos and, sooner or later, to the greatest or highest reality. The faculty of understanding develops as an extension and deepening of awareness so as to open to all manner of connections within and between the outer world and our inner consciousness, not excluding the sympathetic connection that necessarily enters in with authentic understanding of other persons. The quality and depth of a person's understanding, rather than the extent of factual knowledge, is one of the chief characteristics of any person.

Understanding is not a static condition, such as is reached when one understands a mathematical sum. There is probably no kind of understanding that cannot be improved in scope and depth. The development of each our understanding hardly moves along well-defined lines, but is more like water spreading across an uneven surface. The mind's encounters with the facts of its environment, the society and all the ideas and ideals that arise is irregular and probably very seldom, if ever, conforms to any steady patterns or systematic extension. This is partly because we approach and so interpret the world from each our nexus of different positions, viewpoints, expectations and desires. Gradual accumulation may occur in phases, then be set back or suddenly pushed forward by some major shift of focus or new insight. This disorderly and unpredictable progress is reflected in the growth and changes of scientific knowledge and opinion.

The author H.G. Wells, illustrated this remarkably long ago: "The human mind has a much more complex and fluctuating process than most of those explanatory people who write about psychology would have us believe. Instead of that simple, direct movement, like the movement of a point, forward from here to there, one's thoughts advance like an army, sometimes extended over an enormous front, sometimes in echelon, sometimes bunched in a column throwing out skirmishing clouds of emotion, some flying and soaring, some crawling, some stopping and dying..."⁴

Different viewpoints and their peculiar 'horizons of understanding' are relative to the individual and whatever circumstances are under consideration, without necessarily being only subjective opinions. Each individual's understanding is an on-going process of integration of many elements into the mind's multi-dimensional network. It is the personal act of understanding that interrelates all forms of information, knowledge, insight and intuition as one whole, allowing us to apply knowledge relevantly in various life applications. Though the information and knowledge of the sciences and humanities etc. are recorded and so exist independently of the individual, one cannot really say that there is any knowledge without there being someone's 'subjective' understanding involved in beholding it or using it. Knowledge is something potentially useful and purposive, and the subjective element arises because it must be appreciated by someone. Understanding is the faculty that enables us to comprehend and evaluate any element in respect of a whole network of interrelated parts. Through understanding, knowledge becomes vital, a living truth, and not just some abstract proposition.

Understanding is that which unifies a diversity of circumstances - past and present, and whether objectively-given or subjectively-interpreted - into a differentiated continuum of whole conceptions. Comprehension is the mind's embrace of a whole bringing various elements together into a unit (com-prehend meaning 'drawing together'). Our understanding is comprehensive to the extent we relates the component parts together into a unitary conception which is less of an abstract generalisation than a concrete structured matrix.

What appears as comprehension within one perspective may appear as specialised knowledge within another. We may have wholes within wholes, like a series of concentric circles where each subordinate whole includes a narrower range of elements than those which subsume it. Or it may be a case of a whole intersected by others, such as when a qualitatively new perspective on a subject is opened up. The higher our understanding rises towards generality - that is, towards truth and universal values, the less the details of factual knowledge count.

The image of an expanding circle of understanding replaces that of 'linear' and discursive thought. But there is nothing of the vicious circle of fallacious 'circular reasoning' or question-begging about holistic understanding. Holistic thought is only 'circular' in the sense that it constantly refers back to itself, examining its assumptions and returning to review the overall progress and fruitfulness of its on-going integration from parts to whole.

THE WHOLE AND ITS PARTS

The whole is said to be 'greater than the sum of its parts'. The concerted effort of many units (synergy) can certainly achieve what no unit can, and also often more in sum than the same number of units operating independently. In respect of understanding, there is invariably a qualitative difference between a collection of parts in disunity and a complete and integrated whole. This is somehow comparable to the difference between a tree and its many leaves or between a finished canvas and a rough sketch. It has been pointed out that the analysis of anything presupposes having a prior, preliminary grasp or 'pre-synthetic whole', that is, some prior acquaintance with the matter to be studied and preconceptions about what is to be discovered. For example, to looking up something in a library presumes one knows at least something about libraries, how books are found there and what subjects there are. This conception is a preliminary 'whole' in relation to the books that are 'part' of that whole. Then the reading of the book's various parts, chapter by chapter, while relating these to one's increasing grasp of the whole, gradually fills out the synthesis. After a first reading it is probable that one's original overall conception of the subject will have been modified... the 'whole' will have been re-configured according to the elements (eg. the meaningful content of chapters, sentences etc.) that have been studied. It may then become apparent from one's overall conception that re-reading and deeper analysis of certain sections are needed for a proper understanding.

Reality seldom presents itself to us in the shape of neat and distinct 'wholes'. For the understanding to distinguish wholes and parts, it must isolate clear and meaningful relations between the parts or elements before identifying and delineating the conceptual whole. Except in their simplest forms, wholes do not simply arise from perception, for they are mentations which organise masses of disparate perceptions according to values, conceptions and judgements. These mental frameworks remain a priori in each new perception or observation, even though they will invariably have been developed through on the basis of much empirical observation [i.e. a posteriori]. A simple example: even a reasonably developed understanding of the earth as an interconnected climate system influenced by many variables of land and water, sunspot activity and moon pull etc., surpasses any local observations. So-called 'raw' data must always be refined by critical, reflective perception and by analysis and integration within a greater whole. Any such greater whole itself is primarily a creative projection of the questioning mind, one which is to be tested against experience and often also against other more or less holistic conceptions.

Science regards reality as physical entity, dividing it up into fields and sub-fields as 'sciences' on the basis of observation, definition, categorisation and so forth, also according to practical limitations and administrative requirements. The resultant structure of sciences as they have grown without any central or overall plan involves all kinds of boundary between disciplines which in effect delineate conceptional 'wholes'. The history of science shows beyond question that each branch, with its established observations and theories, exerts an inertia against basic changes of conception for many reasons, both mental and social. In relating whole to parts, parts to whole and wholes to wholes, we understand the practical significances of acquired knowledge within living situations. This makes them what we call 'intelligible'. Besides, factual knowledge is a prerequisite of any articulated comprehension, and so no theory that does not hold up rationally and as a whole when confronted with facts, from wherever they arise, can stand unaltered.

If not fettered by traditional and professional interests, understanding thrusts towards expansive rethinking and re-definition of conceptional 'wholes' requisite to developing problems and needs. The holistic aim of comprehensivity propels towards increased reobservation and restructuring of ideas within ever wider horizons. Through holistic understanding, the personal, social and political effects and possible future consequences of any system of knowledge naturally tend to be embraced within that system. The flexibility of human understanding, when not closetted by convention or other largely irrelevant forces, itself would ensure that our knowledge and its overall structures would conform more to the needs it encounters and the given configurations of what it discovers. Today, the impetus is often for reorientation of perspectives towards more and more global concerns.

Understanding of perspectives that supersede the separate sciences, also known as meta-science, employs both analysis and synthesis. Analysis aims at more and more elementary facts. Elementary facts have to be understood in relation to their context, both physical situations or circumstances of life and also the verbal or other symbolic contexts in which they are recorded. The position assigned to them in the conceived whole must be rational and concur symbolically where possible with their place as perceived in situ. For example, it must be possible to test any generalisations by observation or testimony etc. and to evaluate their significance according to the various standards of clear thinking.

Analysis - or the breaking down of a problem into smaller and smaller parts - is continuously superseded by intelligible syntheses of a number of analyses - or the integration of parts in a whole as well as the modification of the whole in accordance with the parts. This complementarity leads to an on-going development whereby an expanding picture comes gradually more into focus so that detail is evident as well as the whole vision within which it finds its relevant place. The bias in the special sciences towards analysis of 'knowing more and more about less and less' is avoided in favour of re-configuring expansive circle, unifying more and more aspects of life towards realisation of the greater reality. There need be no contradiction between analysis and synthesis, for the two directions of investigation should supplement one another, somewhat as the otherwise-unintelligible pieces of a jig-saw go to make up the whole picture.

The word 'holistic' - related to the concept of an integral whole - refers mainly to the synthesising phases of thought and its products, less so to the complementary analytic phases. Analytic thought dissects and so narrows the scope of vision, dividing subject matter into more and more manageable, yet tinier and less-inclusive, elements in order to provide some of the elements of overall understanding. When a research or a branch of science relies so overwhelmingly on analytic method as has, for example, empirical psychology, it fails to regard the human being as a whole and does an injustice to human self-understanding proper. It must then subject itself to a critique that will put it in its proper place, showing its relative position in relation to the whole of life, not forgetting requirements of human understanding and action. The wood must not be overlooked for the sake of the trees, just as the nature of the wood cannot be known without observing in detail its component trees. However, the same applies in reverse, as it were: holistic thought must avoid the temptation to adopt high-flown synthesising theories of all and everything that leap to overall conclusions before any adequate analysis of observational or logical detail has been carried through. Such great theories were embraced - as in the case of earlier European metaphysical thought systems, now dethroned - for their abstract rational appeal, without checking their validity by referring to the facts or their ethical and social consequences.

Reason insists that, to conceive of existence or reality as a whole, it must include both the 'objective' world as known via the senses and the 'subjective' world as known to consciousness. The concept of wholeness itself implies a unity, an integral one. It may seem peculiar, therefore, that we can talk of different 'wholes', but we can and do. At the same time, we cannot but admit that there will always be one 'final' or absolute whole which is the ultimate of which none are greater. We cannot presumably get a perfect and full conception of the ultimate Whole, nor can we free ourselves of the conception itself, for it is at the very root of our rational human faculty. That idea is sometimes expressed as 'reality', 'being' or as the universe, the cosmos, God and so on. How one identifies and names the ultimate whole, or how one further gives it formulation and articulates expressions of its essential nature, all depends upon many earthly circumstances of culture, religious tradition, intellectual breadth, personal experience and self-knowledge.

Every normal individual's understanding proceeds in several directions at once, which may or may not tend towards overall integration. A person who 'integrates' thoughts too early - before experience and learning have had a major effect - is likely to become a dogmatist or worse. To bring all the regions of the well-informed and experienced mind into co-existence and general harmony within one integral sphere is probably not achievable before late middle age, and is probably seldom achieved even then. The process of articulating our understanding is itself directed and organised by our 'internal' awareness of the potential purposes of the enterprise and reflection over its various meanings and possible consequences. In general terms, the end-product of combining objective research and subjective self-investigation should be greater holistic understanding.