It appears that both growing up and waking up could converge, like an arch returning to ground, on a “nondual,” “unitary,” or “unitive” perspective.¹ Relevant to both routes is language, with its dualities and polarities. This blog post considers language dualities from the perspective of growing up and waking up.

Growing Up

Growing up in ways of knowing involves motion:

• from dualism (in which the world is seen in polar terms²),
• to multiplicity,
• to systems thinking,
• to relativism,
• to dialectical thinking,
• and beyond.

Note that empirical research suggests this process is not strictly linear.²

Dialectical Thinking

In this process, the language clues³ show progressively finer distinctions and differentiations.⁴ At the same time, these differentiations become more inclusive.² In dialectical thinking, the thesis-antithesis-synthesis movement in thought⁵ means transformation by moving from one differentiation (A) through its polar opposite (~A) into a new integration (A’).⁶ An example is the following motion in strict dualism:

A: Authority is right.
~A: Authority is wrong (or challenged).
A': Authority derives rightness from Absolutes.

This motion parallels the movement from Conformer to Expert:

A: Seek membership in a group;
	conform to its rules and standards for right;
	others are wrong.
~A: Another group conforms to different rules and standards.
A': Critique both groups based on 'objective' merit.

Another example is the following motion in dualism:

A: There is a certainty that Right and Wrong exist for everything.
~A: It is not clear who is “wrong,” or what is “right”.
A': Some knowledge domains are “fuzzy.”

Or there’s this motion in logical-analytical thinking:

A: All is knowable.
~A: Sufficiently powerful formal axiomatic systems
	are necessarily incomplete.
A': There is No Certainty, except in a few specialized areas.

Or consider this motion in relativism:

A: All knowledge is relative.
~A: Practical action requires knowledge.
A': Accept that commitments originate in self’s choices.

This dialectic motion can enable moving beyond the limits of logical-analytical thinking–perhaps into mystery and paradox.

Reification

However, the limits of language remain. The process of naming creates a boundary between three objects:⁷

• A: that which is named as foreground;
• A’: the negation, polar opposite, or shadow of that which is named; and
• U: the background.

“There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.”⁸ The naming process is consequently a process of objectification (making into objects), hypostatization, and reification (making into things).⁹ Gestalt psychology illustrates reification by demonstrating how perceptions can include objects–triangles (A), complete shapes (B and D), and dimensions (C)–that aren’t accurate depictions of reality.

Mrmw, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

In social science, reification is perceiving human-constructed phenomena as something else: facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, manifestations of divine will “up above” or just the way it is “here below”. Reification completes objectivation, the turning of human institutions and social relationships (e.g., marriage) into the “nature of things.” Similarly reification is identifying with roles definitions so that “I have no choice in the matter, I have to act this way because of my position.” Reversing reification comes late in development¹⁰ (e.g., Synergist or construct-aware).¹¹

In cognitive science, reification is the experience of thoughts, emotions, and perceptions as being accurate depictions of reality.¹² Nondualistic traditions (Advaita Vedānta, Taoism, and Mahāyāna Buddhism–including 禅 / Chán, Tibetan, and Zen) contain similar concepts like prapañca and māyā, where things are not what they seem.¹³The idea of maya exemplifies avoidance or exposure of objectification, hypostatization, and reification.¹⁴ It thus provides a route to the unitary concepts that Koplowitz has projected:⁷

• causation pervades space-time,
• relations among variables form a unity, and
• not only the boundaries but the permanent objects themselves are human constructs.

Waking Up

When people view something as ‘objective’ they are selectively attending to it, rather than to something else, and thus are actively involved in isolating that which they view as objective.² Consequently reification can be targeted by a different way of attending, e.g., deconstructive practices.¹²

Deconstructive practices in particular target the implicit belief that the self and objects of consciousness are inherently enduring, unitary, and independent of their surrounding conditions and circumstances.¹² That is, they target the experience of the isolation, reality, and unity of the ego as representation. The various subgroups of deconstructive practices (object-oriented insight, subject-oriented insight, and non-dual-oriented practices) investigate and inquire into the subject/object duality, and consequently into mind and self:

Mead finds the distinguishing trait of selfhood to reside in the capacity of the minded organism to be an object to itself. The mechanism by which this is possible on a behavioristic approach is found in the rôle-taking which is involved in the language symbol. In so far as one can take the rôle of the other, he can, as it were, look back at himself from (respond to himself from) that perspective, and so become an object to himself. Thus again, it is only in a social process that selves, as distinct from biological organisms, can arise—selves as beings that have become conscious of themselves.¹⁵

Next Steps

This commonality–different ways of addressing the dualities in language–enables additional comparisons of spiritual paths, beyond their phenomenological similarities. What follows is a comparison of ontological claims.

Notes