Harder Thoughts

ecstatic reveries

Last week’s Provocations was a toe in the water. In that post I laid out one of the most important philosophical ideas that I have come across in my intellectual and spiritual journey. That was the idea of relational ontology. In laying it out, I decided just to write what was in my mind and see how you all responded.

I had such a good response to that article that I thought I’d try out the same approach this week.

So here’s another dose of Neilcore philosophy. It’s about another one of those ideas that has shaped everything for me. But it’s much more difficult to grasp than last week’s effort.

So let’s briefly recap the basics. The area that we are talking about, in academic philosophy, is called ‘ontology.’ Ontology is about existence: what can we say about the manner in which things exist?

It’s extremely obscure and difficult territory. Philosophers like Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre in Europe, and Abhinavagupta in India, all spent a great deal of time and effort plumbing the depths o…