Experientialism

 EXPERIENTIALSM

Psychology / Philosophy

I first began to use the term Experimentalism in the late 1980s early 1990s to explain the same use of the term as this blog explains. 

In the late 1990s I attended philosophy lectures at Cheltenham University with Alan Ford. I spoke with him about the phrase which he did not primarily recognise and directed me to the nearest equivalent. There was nothing published on the topic at that time. 

In the decades since then the phrase has been used to describe and regurgitate either the same basic or a different, vague theory of psychology and philosophy which is not the same as the one I present here. The evidence sourced and cited for it is flimsy. There remains scant little which I have been able to find to expand upon it. 

What I mean by Experientialism is as follows. 

The philosophy of basing everything you know exclusively on what you have first-hand direct experience of to the exclusion of what you do not. 

There are three forms of experientialism. 

The primary form is the simple thesis. Projecting probability based on what the individual knows from experience, to ascertain whether there is any truth in what is not known from experience but can rely on as a working thesis. 

Technically this includes the sum total of all human knowledge including polarised extremes of hard science to delusion. 

Some proclaim Experientialism to be cynical while others understand it as obvious. 

Certainly it posits the individual at the centre of the universe. This position is contrasted against any acknowledgement of collective consciousness as being superior to the individual. Thus, experimentalism is isolationism. 

The second form of Existentialism is to deny any plausibility to anything outside of the individuals own unique experience of reality and method of interpreting reality. It is to say Reality is subjective exclusive to the individuals own dogma. This opens into Lacan. In medical-psychological terms this is currently described as disbelief syndrome. 

The third form is when first-hand lived experience takes an individual outside of the commonly accepted normal reality, for illustrative example; experiences of the supernatural, which then become foundational in the individuals comprehension of macro cosmic reality even where it puts them at odds with the mainstream collective. The judgement call is that simply because you have never seen fairies yourself does not mean they do not exist and therefore it is possible others might see them. The argument of probability here is plausible and persuasive on the basis that simply because you have never been to Antarctica yourself does not mean it does exist. More people claim to have seen fairies than claim to have been to Antarctica so the numbers game is a win for supernature. Scientific validation has nothing to do with this simply because by its very character supernature takes us outside of the realms of clinically provable science. 

What differentiates second and third forms is objectively differentiating between delusion and potential. 

Experimentalism logically progresses toward Experimentalism. 

Lacan / Lycan

Lacan

I studied Philosophy under Alan Ford at Cheltenham University for four years, including going back to do an extra module to my degree the following year to achieve a field trip I would otherwise have missed out on. 

Although not perhaps ‘my favourite philosopher’, Lacan is critical and thus an important part of that education regarding the transition from Modernism to PostModernism and beyond. 

I discovered how Lacan resonates with my extra-curricular studies of The Philosophy of Magic especially involving late 20th century development of Chaos Magic (Osman O Spare influence of Michael Moorecock, Ken St Andre, Peter Caroll) which is excruciatingly post-modern in its approach to cause-and-effect. 

This week a new book arrived. 

What I love most already about it is the 21st century Israeli psychologists from Tel Aviv are writing about 20th century French European philosophy, evidently having recognised its ongoing validity. 

Integration of East and West is a good thing. Multiculturalism is a good thing. In this day and age of segregation, the integration and recognition of universal affinities is a good thing. 

I’m going on a probability that these scholars have nothing to do with their governments regime, genocide of Palestinians nor the seizing of their lands. 

People are People regardless of colour, creed, gender, age, experience, language, etc. 

This humanitarian attitude is one thing which the majority of respected psychologists and philosophers do apparently accept and usually promote, with some exceptions. 

World Wars have been fought against the exceptions. 

The importance of recognising humanitarianism even against your own governments abject lack of it is something to be proud of. 

While I wave the Palestinian flag but detest Hamas as much as the Israeli regime, the innocent and educated People of Planet Earth are on the We The People side of ‘the line’. 

That’s my philosophy. 

Let’s see what Lacan had to say. 

Lacanian Psychoanalysis, 

A Contemporary Introduction 

By Shlomit Yadun-Gadot and Uri Hadar

Published by Routledge

Preface (extract) 

“Lacan is not the first psychoanalyst to create inextricable ties between subjectivity and otherness.”

“Klein, Bion, Kohut and Winnicott had already deeply integrated contextuality into the subject’s makeup. Yet, their thought is embedded in a realistic epistemological framework that distinguishes fantasy from reality. Lacan was a unique and innovative contributor to postmodernism and may be marked as the first to recast psychoanalysis in an inter subjective epistemology. Accordingly, he predicated the constitution of self * upon otherness in fateful ways that our book describes.”

*”Lacan did not use the term ‘self’. We use it here as a reference to the concept of the first-person, as in colloquial speech.” 

Let’s look up that elitist word for a moment as the authors used it twice in the same paragraph it must be somewhat important to them. 

“Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It is concerned with the mind's relation to reality.”

-University of Sheffield 

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/philosophy/research/themes/epistemology#

epistemology

/ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒlədʒi/

noun PHILOSOPHY

1. the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope, and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.

mid 19th century: from Greek epistēmē ‘knowledge’, from epistasthai ‘know, know how to do’.

-Oxford Dictionary 

If I recall correctly, Lacan is about how we associate and construct mental maps built on concepts, illusions, delusions, rather than the hard existential reality we experience around us. 

That painting of an alien on an alien world is an idea. Technically it is a coloured dried pigment on woven fibers. Recognition of the abstract to make more sense to us than the practicality of the realism is what Lacan, to an extent Modernism and definitely PostModernism, are all about. 

If my memory serves correct. 

Let’s keep reading. 

[TBC]