Vinaire's Blog

This is another take on Ouspensky’s book.

Ouspensky: “The most difficult thing is to know what we do know and what we do not know.”

We know things that we become aware of through direct perception. Then, based on such things, we assume things that we do not quite know. It then becomes difficult to see the difference between these two categories of things.

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Ouspensky: “Therefore, if we wish to know something, we must first of all establish what we accept as data, and what we consider requires definition and proof, that is, we must determine what we know already, and what we wish to know.”

When we wish to know something, we must first establish what we know through direct perception, and which cannot be questioned. And then we establish the consistency with it of what we wish to consider.

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Ouspensky: “In relation to our cognition of the world and of ourselves the conditions would be ideal if it were possible to accept nothing as data and regard everything as requiring definition and proof. In other words, it would be best to assume that we know nothing, and take this as our starting point.”

To understand the world and ourselves, it would be best to start with least bit of assumptions, and show all our considerations as arising from, and consistent with, direct perceptions.

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Ouspensky: “Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to create such conditions. Something has to be laid down as a foundation, something must be accepted as known; otherwise we shall be constantly forced to define one unknown by means of another.”

We, therefore, start with direct perceptions (seeing things as they are) as the foundation for what we know. And then we establish its consistency with all that we consider.

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Ouspensky: “On the other hand, we must be chary of accepting as known – as data ­ things that, actually, are completely unknown and merely presupposed – the sought for. We have to be careful not to find ourselves in the position occupied by positivist philosophy in the nineteenth century. For a long time the basis of this philosophy was the recognition of the existence of matter (materialism); and later, of energy, i.e. force or motion (energetics), although in actual fact matter and motion always remained the unknown quantities, x and y, and were always denned by means of one another.

We must be careful not to accept the presuppositions as something that is directly perceived. Such confusion has been the case with positivist philosophy of materialism that presupposes as its basis the existence of matter.

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Ouspensky: “It is perfectly clear that it is impossible to accept the thing sought for as the thing known; and that we cannot define one unknown by means of another unknown. The result is nothing but the identity of two unknowns: x = y, y = x.”

We cannot accept as known what has only been presupposed. So we cannot define a presupposition in terms of another presupposition.

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Ouspensky: “It is precisely this identity of unknown quantities which represents the ultimate conclusion arrived at by positivist philosophy. Matter is that in which the changes called motion take place: and motion is those changes which take place in matter.”

In Positivist philosophy, matter is that in which the changes called motion take place: and motion is those changes which take place in matter. Matter and motion are presuppositions defined in terms of each other. So, they still remain unknown.

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Ouspensky: “What then do we know? We know that, from the very first step towards cognition, a man is struck by two obvious facts: The existence of the world in which he lives, and the existence of consciousness in himself. Neither the one nor the other can he prove or disprove, but both of them are facts for him, they are reality.

Direct perception tells us that there is a world that we are conscious of. This is the foundation of reality that we can start from.

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Note added April 24, 2015:

I have revised all my comments to more closely reflect my understanding of Ouspensky. I have no disagreement with what he has outlined.

Though Ouspensky does not state it, he seems to be starting with direct perception as his foundation. This is the foundation that Buddha recommends. So I have explicitly laid down ‘direct perception’ as the foundation. 

There is the possibility that a presupposition may be confused with direct perception. That may not be obvious at first, but it will ultimately lead to some inconsistency. That would be a red flag demanding a closer look at what we may have mistakenly taken as direct perception.

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