Walach Harald
Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poznań, Poland.
Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2020 Apr 23;11:640. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00640. eCollection 2020.
Ontology, the ideas we have about the nature of reality, and epistemology, our concepts about how to gain knowledge about the world, are interdependent. Currently, the dominant ontology in science is a materialist model, and associated with it an empiricist epistemology. Historically speaking, there was a more comprehensive notion at the cradle of modern science in the middle ages. Then "experience" meant both inner, or first person, and outer, or third person, experience. With the historical development, experience has come to mean only sense experience of outer reality. This has become associated with the ontology that matter is the most important substance in the universe, everything else-consciousness, mind, values, etc., -being derived thereof or reducible to it. This ontology is insufficient to explain the phenomena we are living with-consciousness, as a precondition of this idea, or anomalous cognitions. These have a robust empirical grounding, although we do not understand them sufficiently. The phenomenology, though, demands some sort of non-local model of the world and one in which consciousness is not derivative of, but coprimary with matter. I propose such a complementarist dual aspect model of consciousness and brain, or mind and matter. This then also entails a different epistemology. For if consciousness is coprimary with matter, then we can also use a deeper exploration of consciousness as happens in contemplative practice to reach an understanding of the deep structure of the world, for instance in mathematical or theoretical intuition, and perhaps also in other areas such as in ethics. This would entail a kind of contemplative science that would also complement our current experiential mode that is exclusively directed to the outside aspect of our world. Such an epistemology might help us with various issues, such as good theoretical and other intuitions.
本体论，即我们对现实本质的看法，以及认识论，即我们关于如何获取有关世界知识的概念，是相互依存的。当前，科学中占主导地位的本体论是唯物主义模型，与之相关联的是经验主义认识论。从历史角度看，在中世纪现代科学的摇篮时期，曾有一个更全面的概念。那时，“经验”既包括内在的或第一人称的经验，也包括外在的或第三人称的经验。随着历史的发展，经验逐渐仅指对外在现实的感官经验。这与一种本体论相关联，即物质是宇宙中最重要的实体，其他一切——意识、心灵、价值观等——都由此派生或可还原为物质。这种本体论不足以解释我们所经历的现象——意识作为这个概念的前提，或异常认知。尽管我们对它们了解得还不够充分，但这些现象有坚实的实证基础。然而，现象学要求某种非局部的世界模型，且在这个模型中，意识不是物质的衍生物，而是与物质共同构成原初的存在。我提出这样一种意识与大脑、或心灵与物质的互补二元方面模型。这进而也需要一种不同的认识论。因为如果意识与物质共同构成原初的存在，那么我们也可以像在沉思实践中那样，通过对意识进行更深入的探索，来理解世界的深层结构，比如在数学或理论直觉中，或许在伦理学等其他领域也是如此。这将需要一种沉思科学，它也将补充我们当前仅指向世界外在方面的经验模式。这样一种认识论可能会帮助我们解决各种问题，比如良好的理论直觉和其他直觉。
