Faith and Reason
Study Guide

Week 1 - Departure

Guiding Question: Who am I?  From whence have I come?  What do I seek?

    Before one begins a quest, there is a time of “initiation.”  This is a time of self-reflection determining the character of the initiate, his/her goals and the challenges of the task ahead.  Galahad is initiated by his father, Lancelot, into knighthood through the ritual of keeping vigil in a chapel in the presence of God.
    One is tempted, while reading The Quest of the Holy Grail, to identify with a particular character from the story.  The author of the Quest made his hero, Galahad, into such a perfect representation of the Christ of the "Second Coming" (somewhat bold for the time), that it may be difficult to identify with such a hero.  Galahad's faith in God (and himself) is so perfect that he overcomes every obstacle with the self-assurance that the challenge was made for him alone as a test by which he might prove the power of his faith.
    Most of us are more tentative, less self convinced, and therefore other principle characters may prove more accessible.  One might compare the various knights to different types of learners on a quest of their own.  Perceval, for example, might be the student who went from high school through his/her undergraduate program straight into graduate school.  S/he is young, emotional, in pursuit of educational goals with great passion and sincerity.  Everything blocking this student's progress seems insurmountable, yet s/he reaches the goal through sincerity and sage advice from elders. Bors, however, has more of the critical thinking skills of the returning student than does Perceval.  He is more autonomous and steers a relatively straight course toward the goal through a successful combination of faith and reason. Lancelot has all the qualities of a successful "quester," if he were not so easily distracted by his "significant other." Gawain, who was often portrayed as a popular hero in the Arthurian romances, is presented here, however, as an example of how NOT to be.  He has no faith at all.  He is the first to make a vow to seek the Grail, but regrets it later after being told by hermits that he has no chance of increasing his honor (which for him means “honor in the eyes of his peers”).  Thus Gawain is the student who seeks his goal without any thought toward his/her personal growth, or  greater service to others.  He will make many mistakes due mostly to insincerity (in contrast to Perceval) and a lack of spiritual insight.  Gawain can be thought of as one guided by reason without faith who will only learn the hard way that reason without faith is not necessarily wisdom.
    In order to parallel the initiation we are allowed to experience through Galahad, we will read a collection of notes from various ancient texts  which were as well concerned with initiations into matters of faith throughout different times and cultures. The Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece were based on initiation rituals, and, as one of the cults which formed the basis of religious faith of the Greeks, has remained one of the great mysteries of the ancient world.  I the Bhagavad Gita, which is a relatively short excerpt from the massive epic, Mahabharata  of Indian Hinduism, Arjuna, a Prince, is initiated by his childhood friend and charioteer, Krishna.  Krishna will prove to be in fact a manifestation of the Godhead in Hinduism, Vishnu.  Before the events described in the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna and his brothers were cheated out of their kingdom, and even their wife, whom they shared.  They were to return their thrones after 13 years of exile, but they were not allowed their rightful places when that time came. This resulted in a large-scale civil war.
    Arjuna has his charioteer and friend, Krishna, drive him between the lines of battle, and, when he recognizes many of his uncles and cousins on the side of the enemy, he refuses to continue the war, thinking it better to lose his kingdom than to fight his own family.  Krishna reveals himself as an incarnation of Visnu, and initiates Arjuna into the law of Karma, as well as love, in an effort to convince Arjuna of the impermanence of physical reality and the immortality of the soul.  Arjuna is persuaded to pursue his destiny and fight to reclaim his kingdom.
    The Bhagavad Gita is a very concise outline of a major part of the Hindu cosmology and describes the transmigration of souls and the soul’s relationship to the body.  This theme will be echoed in Plato’s Phaedrus, which will be studied during Week 3.  The Bhagavad Gita , like the Grail, also gives several examples of different spiritual paths which may be taken  respective to each individual’s nature.  Every path one chooses often is mixed with the qualities of another. In general, in the West, since the celebration in Eleusis of the mysteries of the Goddess Persephone and Demeter, there has been a Quest for reason, developing the path that the Hindus would call Jnana-Yoga: the path of spiritual realization through a speculative philosophical search for truth.
   This week's texts are an initiation that may help us re-evaluate our own values and explore the various means by which we attempt to achieve personal goals; for we too are engaged in active life, interacting with others, finding ourselves in often competitive situations.  Thus we too are warriors seeking wisdom in ancient texts which speak to our own struggles.

Required Reading:  "Week 1" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail (1225), pp. 31-53; Notes on the Eleusinian Mysteries; Bhagavad Gita (100-300 BC).

Homework:
1) Answer the following questions (common to practically every Arthurian tale): Who am I? From whence have I come? What do I seek?
Limit your combined answers to 1-3 pages and paste it in the conference area.
2) You are also required to make regular entries in the online journal which show your reflections on the reading and the ways the reading may apply to you personally.

Week 2 - Logos, The Shield of Faith, Sword of Reason (Foundations of Reason)

Guiding Question: How was reason born out of faith?

    Galahad further proves his role as the "chosen one" by coming to no harm when taking the sword "held fast in its red marble" and the Shield of Josephus. We may see the sword as a metaphor for reason, which cuts through falsehood, while faith protects us like a shield.
    Faith, in the Hebraic sense, translates as "trust" and is usually applied to belief systems that require trust as the final proof of their reality. Reason, on the other hand, is seated in "proofs" through observation, experimentation, or abstract reasoning as the foundation for the validity of its conclusions. Of the two methods, faith is older than reason—and although there are distinctive reasoning patterns in the development of tribal cultures around the world—reason makes its strongest appearance in the ancient cultures of India, Egypt, Sumeria, Mesopotamia and the Mayan; particularly concerning celestial observation, mathematics, engineering and dating. In many ways the concept that faith and reason are antithetical in their approach to knowledge is a modern one—dating most discernibly from the late Renaissance and the Enlightenment in Europe, and this distinction, as we shall investigate later, is not at all as clear in Oriental traditions. The concept that faith and reason complemented one another, or that faith took over where reason left off and vise versa, is far older notion remaining at the foundation of many civilizations.
    Much of the tradition of reason as we know it in contemporary science grew out of early Greek philosophy, however; and for the Ancient Greeks faith and reason were anything but antithetical. It is more correct to say that the Ancient Greeks had faith in reason; or that they trusted reason as a means by which humanity might interpret the patterns of the phenomenal universe. The word "philosophy" itself reveals this relationship as it translates as "love of knowledge," or "love of wisdom," using the Greek Philos to express a unique form of love based on spiritual kinship. What is important is that one must love reason to be a true "philosopher." Those who sought wisdom or knowledge without such love were referred to by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as "Sophists," who were not true philosophers, and therefore incapable of actually discerning or even understanding "truth." Perhaps Gawain in the Quest may be seen as an example of Plato's Sophist. His insincere attempt to utilize the sword/reason was inappropriate and called down a curse upon him. In Philosophy, the act of love as trust was vital to the integrity of reason itself. Reason, expressed in Greek as logos, was revealed by attending to the patterns, symmetries, and even in the beauty, of nature. It is because the natural world showed itself in discernible patterns and symmetries that its essence was considered to be "rational."
    In fact, in Ancient Greece, mythically, all began as chaos, out of which logos, or divine reason, concerted the elements into cosmos, or an intelligible whole. This logos, which had concerted chaos, was also an integral aspect of being human, and humanity could use this capacity to interpret and integrate with the whole, and thus access the mysterious order of the cosmos. Heraclitus, one of those who first uses the term logos, speaks of its mystery in a fashion reminiscent of the manner in which Oriental Philosophy speaks of the Tao, or the way. The logos, like the Tao, is not tangible and cannot be touched or physically grasped. Yet it sets the natural world, and all its elements, on course. The primal element, fire, for Heraclitus, was metaphorical for all the elements in turmoil, and Heraclitus uses the word "war" to describe these contending forces. Yet the greater logos unites apparent opposition into a discernible whole which prevents conflict from resulting in chaos. Conflict becomes itself a pattern of turbulence in an unending flow of ever-changing events, and Heraclitus likens the logos to a river. Due to the intangibility of a river's current, it is impossible to step into the same stream twice. It seems as if the water, embankment, current and turbulence are in conflict—although all these elements make the river flow. The river itself cannot be broken down to its elements alone, for it is the whole of the water, the intangible current, the flow, the embankment and force driving them which makes up the river—although the river itself is more than the sum of these elements. The river, as a phenomenon, follows its reason; its way, its logos. Thus for the Greeks, reason was in fact to a degree mystical—and human reason was an amazing capacity of the human mind to access the rationale of the universe. The fact that the universe was rational, that it followed formal patterns that could be discerned, was amazing, and later for Aristotle, was due cause for all of humanity to be filled with "wonder."
    Thus logos revealed itself by observing the phenomenal world, and by calling upon our own capacity for reason, we could read the logos and understand the cosmos. Yet for the Greeks, trying to understand this mysterious logic by examining the human mind alone would have been like trying to find music by taking apart a radio. The mind, through reason, could receive the logos, but it was not the origin of it. In fact, as in certain Yoga disciplines, logos was thought to be drawn in through breathing. The mind, properly disciplined, learns to "listen" to the logos, to attend to it almost intuitively, and as a consequence could follow the same phenomenal symmetries as did the cosmos itself.
    This logos, of course, later becomes logic, and the power of logos as a rational patterns that reside in the natural world echoes in our world every time we place the suffix "ology" after a word; which literally means the reasoning patterns behind a particular phenomenon. Thus the Greek word bios (meaning life, or that which pertains to living things) and logos (meaning the reason underlying phenomena) equals biology, etc..
    Perhaps the "ology" which best portrays the early Greek conception of reason as it relates to mythic elements is revealed in the myth of the Goddess Psyche. Psyche was to be punished by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, because of Aphrodite’s jealousy. Eros, the God of Physical Love and Aphrodite’s son, was to be the agent who visited this punishment on Psyche, who is likened to a spiritual entity. Eros, however, became enamored with Psyche, and Psyche returned this love. Psyche, however, was forbidden to ever see the face of her lover. Defying this taboo, Psyche lit a lamp and saw Eros’ face, and from that time onward was abandoned by the gods and by destiny. She eternally roamed the world seeking reunification. Eventually she is reunited with Eros, and the myth ends happily as this unification between body and spirit transforms her name "Psyche" into a synonym for the "soul." The myth is filled with passion, love, trust, revenge and betrayal: the very longings and turmoils of the soul itself. It was Aristotle who wed Psyche’s name to logos, however, to produce "Psychology," or the logic of the irrational longings of the soul in often tumultuous relationship with the body. In turn, this attempt to reconcile mind and body becomes one of the great themes of Occidental knowledge. It is interesting, however, that the Greeks had such faith in reason that to an extent the very word "psychology" means the reasons behind the irrational. Even the irrational, as well as the world of emotions, passion and longing, could be understood through its logic, its reason, its logos.
    Thus one could construct the argument that faith and reason co-inhabited a similar space in the early Greek intellectual world. It was the patterns of the phenomenal world which revealed a concerted cosmos, and it was the revelation of these patterns which inspired humanity to reason with the world itself. This relationship between revelation and reason perhaps reached full exposition in the presocratic philosopher, Parmenides, whose work demonstrated one of the most complex domains of Greek inquiry: the logic of Being, or Ontology.
    Ontic was a word meaning Being, or that which exists. Ology, of course, referred to reason. Thus Ontology, one of the oldest areas of philosophy, referred to the logic of Being, or the logic of what IS. Parmenides exposition argued that there is first and foremost that which IS, and that all other questions are reducible to that which IS, first and foremost. In other words, one might, for example, take the sun, and try, through reason, to discover the logic of that which underlies this phenomenon. If we do so using the model of modern physics, we most certainly would conclude that the sun is a star, and that the patterns of energy manifest in our sun conforms to the principles of nuclear fusion common to all stars. We might go even further into the principles of nuclear fusion founded in subatomic particles to explain this conception of intensified energy under the forces of gravity. Parmenides would hold, however, that before you can explicate the phenomenon the "sun" through reason, there must BE a sun, it must exist independently of its reason, and that explaining the phenomenon through analytic reason depends upon the fact that the sun, first and foremost, exists.
    In fact, for Parmenides, the world we perceive and know is reducible entirely to the greater phenomenon of all that IS, and all other rational explication must follow this fact. Therefore, even reason is an afterthought of Being itself. First, and finally, it is Being and Being alone which is revealed through witness and reason alike. This absolute Being of all that is, in fact, postulates that non-being is, for Parmenides, impossible. The mind can only think about what is, thus what does not exist is irrational and unthinkable. The true Being of all that is, however, can not be grasped by the senses, but only arrived at through pure reason itself. The conception that non-being is impossible, and that that which IS neither arises or can be destroyed, was later adapted by Empedocles and Democritus (the father of modern physics). Einstein and others, later applied this premise as the foundations for the very modern conception in physics that matter is neither created or destroyed. Add to this notion that of Heraclitus that all the natural world is in constant flux and transformation, then the very modern conception that matter merely changes form is complete. Thus many of our most advanced notions of science are contained within the founding premises of rational methodology taking place in a nascent form in the mind of the Ancient Greeks.

Required Reading: "Week 2" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 53-71; Heraclitus: Fragments ; Parmenides: On Nature; The Myth of Psyche.

Homework:
Write a short paper (3-5 pages) on the relationship between logos and the soul (Psyche).  Share you papers in the appropriate conference.

(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 2 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)

Week 3 - The Castle of the Maidens (From Plato to Aristotle and the Dawn of Metaphysics)

Guiding Question: How is what we think of as "real" affected by our values?

    Throughout the Quest we find, through the sage advice of an overwhelming number of hermits and priests, that nothing is ever what it seems. We are told that Galahad was actually fighting the Seven Deadly Sins at the Castle of the Maidens. Every person, animal and even objects are merely symbols for other ideas (which Jung would later call archetypes). All experiences are lessons by which we learn "higher truths." Plato describes in the Symposium an ascension from the objects of the senses to the notion of absolute beauty as follows:

He who ascends under the influence of true love begins to perceive that beauty is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love is to begin with the beauties of earth and mount upward for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions s/he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
    One of the most famous, and enduring, explications of reason, has been preserved in what is often referred to as the Platonic Doctrine of Forms. One could make the case that this Doctrine alone, wedded to Aristotle’s application of it by breaking down inquiry into specialized categories, forms the foundation of all of Occidental science and scholarship. Making this claim is even more startling, however, in that the Doctrine itself is never fully worked out in any one Dialogue of Plato, nor is it named a "Doctrine of Forms" by Plato himself. This "Doctrine" rather describes a thematic, and consistent, way of looking and determining "reality" which shows up in one expression or another in nearly all of Plato’s Dialogues, and is, in many ways, a final explication of many of the Greek schools of thought that preceded Plato.
    This Ancient Greek view of the world is often referred to as "Idealism," and its presupposition were to have an  overwhelming impact on the Occident. Its founding premises is that all that we can truly know of reality can only be accessed by the application of pure reason to the contemplation of ideas that underlie all of the perceivable, and non-perceivable, universe. It is perhaps through this Doctrine that the Greek homage to reason is most fully expressed.
    Idealism holds that before anything physical exists, it is preceded by an idea. That which exists is therefore somewhat an approximation, or an imperfect copy, of its idea, or essence. To illustrate this point, we can take any object that exists and is manufactured by humanity, and admit that before this object existed it was based upon some idea that its creator had in mind. For example, it is clear, if one looks at a house, that before there was a house there was an idea of the house. The house is constructed in the image of the idea of the house. In the world that surrounds human beings, the same can be said of most of the artifacts we see before us. Manufactured articles are uniformly based on some idea which preceded their physical existence. The house, after all, is based on the abstraction of a blueprint, or plan. The idea of the house came before its existence, even if the form of the house evolves over many manifestations. Can the same be said of the sun, the oceans, all that we did not bring into existence in the image of our own ideas?
    For Plato, the answer is yes. In fact, the only reason we have ideas is because we ourselves are the product of an idea, a principle, just as is all of the cosmos. Natural phenomena reflect ideas, are in the form of ideas, just as much as are houses, tools, furniture, computers, space shuttles, what have you. This presupposition does not mean that there is an ideal mountain in the very image of a mountain after which all other mountains are roughly based and are imperfect copies (as many popular interpretations of Plato might have it), but rather that a mountain expresses a principle in form, which itself is as well expressed in the tectonic movement of continents, the inner constructs of the expansion and reduction of matter due to heat, the formation of matter out of gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, etc. all of which manifest phenomena that we can grasp and express symbolically as a form-ula: which is itself a symbolic representation of an idea. The mountain is thus merely the physical form, the image, the manifestation of these principles. Thus within Platonic idealism lies much of the roots of science as we know it: that the phenomenal world is in fact constructed out of principles, which, when grasped symbolically and understood, can, to some degree, predict, as well as witness, events in time. If the conditions are right, the principle or idea will show itself as a particular manifestation of a universal principle, or idea. The principle forms into a physical manifestation. Anything in a form is obviously formed after something other than itself; is the shadow of something more real than the fleeting pattern of the shadow. That which follows the pattern of the form, con-forms, or per-forms, its principle, and potentially can be expressed as a formula, which more closely represents the true reality that the shadow merely projects. Thus each individual form is merely a unique variation on a pure principle. Through contemplation of the shadows, I can grasp its principle, and through this have a better understanding of the world. I can, for example, understand the general principles that form volcanoes, and although each instance of a volcanic eruption may be different and unique—still, by understanding the universal principles of the volcano, I can better understand a unique occurrence of this phenomenon.
    This basic principle is fundamentally important because, in seeking to identify the world, and ourselves in it, we subdivide the world into particular categories related by their forms, or foundational principles. There is the form of a tree, a mountain, rocks, minerals, mammals, amphibians, whatever--all related to a category of one sort or another based on their conformity to the general principle that underlies that phenomenon, and belonging more closely to one category or another because they share more or less of the same characteristics of a particular principle in their structure. All these categories simply express principles. Thus to grasp the particular essence of a phenomenon, I must look to the idea which underlies it and relate it to similar instances of that phenomenon. In this concept alone, we move very close to the methodologies of modern science.
    The "idea" then is essentially what is ultimately real, and the manifestation of the idea merely evidence of the idea which the form expresses. Our consciousness translates this form symbolically into a formula, and we attempt to read and associate formulae through reason to grasp these principles. We literally attempt to read the patterns and forms of the phenomenal world in order to add to our knowledge. This conception is at the heart of the basic Platonic position: physicality is merely a reflection of principles, and to perceive the physical as an isolated phenomenon is to be blind to the essences, the ideas, which the physical expresses.
    The principle therefore precedes, or comes before, its manifestation in the physical universe. The most famous illustration of this is in Plato’s Republic in which those who see only the physical universe are likened to seeing shadows on a cave wall. Increasingly, the Philosopher breaks free of such perceptual bonds, sees that real objects exist behind what we see and are illuminated by fire (often interpreted as the mind), and even further, the ultimate reality of the sun which exists outside the cave itself. That which is ultimately real comes before the reflections, and even the thoughts, that we have during our lives.
    Yet when we say ultimate reality comes "before" a physical event we have entered into a subtle paradox. When we say something came before us, we imply it was in the past. For example, the city of ancient Athens came before the contemporary city of Los Angeles. Thus ancient Athens existed in the past. But when we say the future of Los Angeles remains before us, we are saying that this unknown state of the city is in the future. In this example, when something is "before" us, it is also in front, ahead of us in time, just as the future stands eternally "before" us, or in front of us. Thus what is before us can be both what preceded us, and therefore in the past, and what is in front of us and yet to be, and therefore in the future. That which is before us is both in front of us and behind us simultaneously, and because it lies outside of time as we normally understand it, must be truer than that which we see in time.
    This concept in philosophy addresses the issue of what is ultimately real, and such an inquiry is termed "metaphysics." It is metaphysics in philosophy which also deals with religious questions such as what is of ultimate value, what is ultimately important, and what is eternal; and thus metaphysics also engages questions of faith. So once again, faith and reason, are not as separate in their concentration as is often supposed.
    Metaphysics, as a formal study, had its antecedence with Aristotle, who was in general agreement with Plato on the concept that what we perceive in the world is founded in ideas. If we were to consider what was ultimately real, then Aristotle believed we could investigate "metaphysics," or that which comes after (before) physics. But if we were to study physical aspects of the cosmos, then we could also study structures by creating categories which described the basic principles to which particular phenomenon belong.
    In this sense, Aristotle was far more specific in his search for knowledge than Plato. Aristotle conceded that there may be ultimate principles upon which the cosmos was based, but that in detail, there were particular phenomenon that conformed to subcategories which shared in common specific ideal structures. He, in turn, subdivided inquiry into subcategories. Thus the word "Geo" (earth in Greek) could be wedded to logos, and studies of principles (ideas) pertaining to the earth could become Geology, etc. Physis, or, in Greek, that which has matter and energy and shines forth, was to become Physics. In fact, most of the areas of inquiry in modern science were broken down into subcategories for study under Aristotle, just as the principle of the logos itself was to become "logic." Thus it is to Aristotle that we owe the departmentalization of knowledge in the West.

Required Reading: "Week 3" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 71-80; Plato: Phaedrus; Plato: "The Analogy of the Cave" in the Republic; Aristotle: Logic.

Homework:
Write your thoughts in your online journal concerning the differences and similarities between Plato's ideal forms and literary metaphors.

(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 3 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)

Week 4 - The Hero's Confession (Ontology and Theology)

Guiding Question: Could reason have helped Lancelot?

    In the Quest we see Lancelot fighting Galahad without knowing that Galahad is his more worthy son.  In the context of this discussion we may see Lancelot representing those who have presumed to live by faith who discriminate against those who have developed new ideas through reason.  Faith, the father of Reason, has turned against his child who may be the more sincere seeker of truth.
    As we have seen, the gap between revelation and reason is not as wide in the development of reason as is often supposed. It was the revelation of symmetries and patterns in the world that revealed reason, and those who employed reason as an explication of these natural laws by no means abandoned contemplation of what stood at the heart of the mystery of the cosmos. Both metaphysics and ontology, however, in formal philosophy became more identified with the domains of religious contemplation, and, as such, both of these Greek forums of inquiry found a happy complement in the Hebraic religious conceptions.
    In fact in the New Testament of the Bible, which is written in Greek, the divine principle which brings the universe into existence is referred to as Logos, which originally in Greek had meant "divine reason," but was, particularly after Aristotle, more and more identified with "language." This is because the formulae of logic were a form of language as both literal and symbolic categories, as were the categories of phenomenon and reason that logic created. Thus often the Logos of the Christian Bible is identified with God's word in Genesis (for in Genesis God speaks the cosmos into existence by saying "Let there Be Light" and afterwards the physical properties of light occur). Thus, just as in Plato’s Doctrine, physical reality was preceded by a principle, and just as in Aristotle, this principle is expressed as a kind of language, and just as in Parmenides, this principle was ultimate Being, or the Supreme Being of the Hebraic God whose nature was expressed in Exodus as "I AM, that I AM" (Jaweh). The Greek traditions of reason and the Hebraic conceptions of faith shared much in common, and it is little wonder that the champions of reason would turn their attentions inevitably toward the contemplation of divine principles, and in fact search for proofs for the existence of God that could be concluded through reason, as well as intuitively grasped through faith.
    As mentioned earlier, the Hebraic word for faith is trust, and thus faith in God means trust in God. Even the name "God" does not necessarily reveal what this faith may entail, for the English word "God" comes from Gotu, which in Proto Indo-European meant roughly "Lord of the Bright Sky." Gotu becomes Got in German and God in English. The Divine in the Bible is referred to by several names, although the ultimate true name of God is so sacred as not to be uttered, and is only implied by Jahweh as a Supreme Being. Still, faith in God is trust in ultimate Being, out of which all that IS, is brought into existence.
    The essence of the trust, or faith, in a Supreme Being was to be founded through a relationship with God, and as in all relationships, the integrity of this relationship was to be founded in trust. Because the cosmos comes into existence out of God’s Logos (his word and his reason), to keep faith, one must keep the divine word, its Logos, just as in any relationship one must not break one’s word to keep this relationship intact.
    Thus there is a logic to trust and relationship out of word which is part of the Bible’s heritage in the West. In practical application, much of this logic shows up in the evolution of legal systems in the West in that in the Bible there is initially creation out Word (Logos), a series of covenants, or the giving of one’s word as sacred trust, finally evolving into the writing of covenants into contract law, so that whether word has been broken can be judged by law and the letter (the written contract) of the law itself. Thus the sophistication of legal systems, and legal thinking, is part of the heritage of early theologians, or those who look to the Logos, reason, of divine nature. Another legacy of theology is in fact the sophistication of scientific methodology, although the political controversies between the political church and early Western scientists have served to often disguise this fact. Yet many early inquiries into the nature of scientific reason grew out of those who were searching for ontological proofs for the existence of God. It is to some degree ironic that the division between faith and reason in its contemporary form is somewhat the result of initial efforts taken by individuals to prove precisely the opposite.
    This is not to say that the great era of theology in the West held that reason and revelation were the same, but rather that they were paths that could, and did, lead to similar conclusions, and that one needed both to acquire a full sense of understanding. The legacy they left behind regarding church law and rational methodology has had great secular influence, while their approach to reason directly lead to the advent of much of modern scientific method.
    Augustine (354-430) to a great extent Christianized Platonic thought, converting the realm of Platonic ideas into the spiritual realm of God, and in the process modeled the political structure of the church after Plato’s Republic. Anselm’s (1023-1109) Ontological proofs for the Divine closely resembled the origins of ontology in Parmenides holding that nothing could exist beyond ultimate Being. Aquinas (1225 ? 1274) major works concerned demonstrating that Aristotle could be understood in a Christian context and that Aristotelian observations were not based on sense perception alone. By elaborating this thesis, Aquinas took an antithetical position to that of Averoes, the great Islamic scholar, and his followers, and was precocious in introducing the debate between two types of knowledge: that which is based on sense data, later understood as empirical knowledge, and that which is based on pure reason, such as propositional logic and mathematics. John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) introduced the doctrine held today in the sciences that both the intellect and direct perception constitute knowledge, and further asserted that philosophy as reason could never grasp the whole of a proposition from analyzing its parts. Duns Scotus thus revived inquiry into a "First Cause" as greater than any of its manifestations, and which was intuitively grasped through faith. Thus faith and reason complimented each other. Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) introduced one of the founding premises of skepticism as the foundation of wisdom which is sustained in contemporary scientific methodology. As a major theologian, he believed the intuition of faith higher than any other form of intelligence, but that reason could reveal the outlines of the whole. Applying this methodology, he developed a theory of the rotation of the earth that predates Copernicus by nearly a century, and was a champion of scientific experimentation, diagnostic medicine and botany.
    It was perhaps Nicholas of Cusa’s skepticism that lead directly to the thinker who is still recognized as the founder of Modern Philosophy, and one of the great contributors to the formal construction of contemporary scientific method: Rene Desecrate (1596- 1650). Descartes famous Meditations were initially a quest for a founding principle of certainty that could be used as the foundation for all systems of knowledge. In this attempt, Descartes was searching as well for the rational proof for the existence of God that had been the preoccupation of his predecessors. Applying a skeptical approach to this problem, he subjected all that we assume as certain to radical doubt. In the process, he established the primacy of skepticism which still lies at the root of contemporary scientific method.
    After doubting sense perception, everyday experience, and finally his own existence, Descartes demonstrated that everyday events and observations were anything but certain, and could not serve as the founding premise for a rigorous systemic approach to knowledge. Although Descartes used the uncertainty of dreams to demonstrate the nebulous nature of what we call the "real," even a casual observation of the world of sense experience illustrates the validity of his skeptical approach. On the surface, it is clear that the sun is smaller than the earth, and the earth is relatively flat, but one would hesitate to make such everyday perceptions the foundation for a system of knowledge. Descartes concluded that even the self could be doubted. The only aspect of reality, in fact, that could not be doubted was doubt itself. One could doubt that one doubts, and then doubt that one doubts one is doubting, ad infinitum, but the act of doubting still remained. This resolution, known as the Cartesian Cogito, is phrased in Latin as "Cogito ergo  sum" and is translated as "I think therefore I am." This is perhaps not the best of translations for Descartes "Cogito" refers to the process of pure skeptical thought in meditation: or thinking about thinking itself. Just as one cannot doubt that one doubts without asserting the act of doubting, one cannot think about thinking, without thinking about one’s own thinking until only pure thought remains—beyond doubt and perpetually transcendent. For Descartes, only the act of thought itself remains free of doubt, and even in its contemplation, reasserts itself.
    Descartes concluded from this that pure reason was the only certain approach to knowledge, and that the existence of the Divine was as well seated in pure reason. As he put it, ". . . Certainly I discover within me an idea of God. . . no less than the idea of some figure or number. And I understand clearly and distinctly that it pertains to his nature that he always exists, no less than whatever has been demonstrated about some figure or number. . . .Thus . . .I ought to be at least as certain of the existence of God as I have hitherto been about truths of mathematics."
    Descartes' likening of divine contemplation with mathematics reveals that analytical mathematics for Descartes was the seat of certainty for knowledge in that it was pure logic, "pure reason." This method adapted in the sciences is still known as "rationalism," and still credits Descartes as the founder of its scientific method. By doing so, some of the character of the manner in which we believe in reason today is established, for despite whether Descartes had intended it or not, the mathematical model was to look to quantitative criteria for certainty, and thus the formulation of trustworthy or certain knowledge (or that which we can have faith in and therefore trust) was that which can be measured. This conception that quantitative analysis took precedence over qualities as the measure of all things was decisive. Qualities such as love or courage or even spiritual faith, could not be measured and therefore were not the stuff of rational analysis. This is not to say that Descartes believed that such qualities did not exist, but that rather they could only exist under a kind of duality. Because they could not be quantified, they could not be ascertained as rationally certain. Only matters of pure reason were certain, and other qualities remained, in terms of pure reason, always up for doubt. This starts to lend a certain character to what is to be considered knowledge in the West, and this characteristic remains today in the faith we often have in statistics, measurable phenomena, and quantification as what can be considered knowledge. We see this asserted in the enumeration of IQ scores as criteria of intelligence, to pie charts and percentages as the means by which we measure data. Faith, as pure trust in qualities such as bravery, beauty or courage, will, after Descartes, fall more and more into the hands of the emotionally charged romantics.
    Lest we forget that the roots of quantitative analysis often owe a great debt to religious intuition, however, perhaps it is best we remember that it was Hindu mystics, meditating on a mysterious void at the center of the cosmos (which they termed thero), that would later be incorporated into the Arabic numeral system as zero; an addition to calculation that gave birth to the numeric conception of an infinity without beginning or end. Of course, such a notion had occurred to the world’s great religions before it was a mathematical principle. Indeed, Newton, who is credited with founding differential calculus, as well as his revolutionary insights into the nature of gravity and light, wrote more tracts on interpretations of the prophesies of the Book of Daniel than he did on physics. Leibniz, who may have in fact invented differential calculus, turned his metaphysical speculations towards the investigation of the universe into "monads," in which there "must be a necessary substance . . . as in the fountain-head, and this substance we call God." Perhaps this may be why, too, that contemporary physicists, reasoning only with pure mathematical equations and arriving at the conclusion that black holes in the universe were indeed possible, said they felt it a "religious experience" after finding some evidence that implied that such phenomenon in fact existed. If the mind, working through the abstraction of mathematics alone could uncover physical facts about the universe itself, it also meant that the mind was engaged though its logos to the universe, and that the mind belonged to this universe—just as the Greeks had suspected.

Required Reading: "Week 4" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 80-94; Augustine: Selections from Confessions (397-398 CE); Nicholas of Cusa: On Learned Ignorance; Rene Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy (1641).

Homework:
Compare and contrast Descartes' thought experiment with his demon in Meditations on First Philosophy and Lancelot's difficulties in the Quest.  Write your thoughts in your online journal.

(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 4 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)

Week 5 - The Youthful Folly of Sir Perceval

Guiding Question: Can wisdom, that can help you at home or work, be accessed randomly?

   Our story, through the adventures of Perceval, brings us into a brief interlude in our discussion on the development of reason in the West, and affords an opportunity to consider the wisdom of another, more ancient school of thought, represented in the I Ching: the ancient book of divination in China.
    The I Ching (Book of Changes) is difficult to date.  It is an ancient divination system of which nothing was written until 1150 BC.  At this date, however, it remains one of the oldest books in the world.  After the first text, more had been added to it in the form of commentaries (many of which are credited to Confucius), enhancing the meaning and interpretation of each section.  Today there are many versions and translations of the I Ching which reflect different world-views.  These include a Buddhist I Ching, which interprets each hexagram more introspectively, and a feminist version called the Kwan Yin.  We have chosen the Wilhelm edition for the thorough context provided by Richard Wilhelm and the insightful "Forward" by Carl Jung.  Of course references to the “Superior Man,” etc. should be assumed to apply to anyone consulting this oracle.
    The I Ching has become another one of the favorite divination methods in Occidental culture as well, along with the Tarot and astrology.  Whether one believes in them or not, at the very least these practices give us some insight into the complexity of human personalities.  Both the Tarot and the I Ching utilize chance in casting the nature of events, ingredients which have become a part of the creative process of twentieth century artists including John Cage.
    In an Oriental context, chance creates the impression of the intervention of another higher consciousness.  The text of the I Ching may be personified when consulting it for clarification of a particular problem, and it may seem as if the text is speaking directly to the questioner.  One may look at this experience from a Jungian perspective, and envision the personality of the text as a projection of one’s own unconscious.  The I Ching helps give a voice to the unconscious, expressing ideas which may contrast with one's own more conventional conscious perspective.

    Due to chance, asking a question implies the acceptance of a variety of possibilities for answers.  Therefore, consulting the oracle puts one automatically in a state more conducive to finding a creative solution.  One then interprets the text subjectively as it applies to the question.  The results are often remarkable.
    Hexagram 4, Meng/Youthful Folly is required for our reading because we are, in the Quest of the Holy Grail, at the chapter devoted to Perceval and the text corresponding to this hexagram seems to be written especially for him.  A footnote in the Wilhelm edition is as follows:

    Perceval indeed seems to follow the hexagram’s advice in the same way he accepts the advice of the many priests and hermits who have spent so much time instructing him in the story.  Certainly Perceval has researched the history and meaning of the quest more thoroughly than any of his companions, thus both “The Judgment” and “The Image” are followed by him.  Next we will look at the moving lines:     Accordingly, Perceval has been kept for a long period by his instructors, but when he is on his own, things do not go as easily for him as they do for Galahad.  At one moment he wants to die simply because he has problems getting a horse.
      Perceval's first instructor on the quest is a woman, his aunt, who has become a holy recluse.  He exerts his independence, and therefore his manhood, by joining the Round Table in spite of the grief it causes his mother.  She died soon after he left to join King Arthur’s court.     Perceval is a virgin yet almost loses his virginity to the devil.     This could be addressed to the problems Perceval had finding a horse.  He was later taken away by the devil in the form of this much sought after animal.     Perceval’s childlike innocence helps him to become one of only three of King Arthur’s court allowed to participate in the mysteries of the Grail.     Perceval seems to be punished by his being stranded on a mountain on a deserted island after being tempted by the devil in the form of a horse.  A priest floats by to explain some of the strange things that happen, but he does not take him away.
    Thus the moving lines could be addressed to the situation of Perceval in the Quest, and demonstrates perhaps through archetypes tailored to a particular situation, how we can get a better understanding of ways to interpret the I Ching.

Required Reading:  "Week 5" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 94-134; I Ching (1150 BC), Jung’s “Forward,” Wilhem’s “Introduction,” Hexagram 4, “Meng/Youthful Folly.”

Homework:
Use the coin method, described on pages 723-724 and the chart on the inside of the back cover of the Wilhelm edition of the I Ching, while thinking of a question requiring a complex answer.  Copy  “The Judgment,” “The Image” and the appropriate moving lines into your online journal and write your own short response to them.

Week 6 - The Slow Ascent (The Formation of Methodologies)

Guiding Question: Does "science only improve?"

   Lancelot, beguiled by his passion, seems at least temporarily to represent faith without reason.  Lancelot certainly had faith in the ennobling (and therefore good) effects of the love of his Queen, yet we learn from the hermits that his love had been misplaced. He has been, in fact, blinded by his love, and distracted from what should have been his true goal: to purify himself in order to be worthy to participate in the mysteries of the Grail. Although he is a sincere seeker, he has great difficulties becoming "cleansed" of his past sins so that he can see reality "as it is." Rene Descartes, during the first half of the 17th Century, attempted a similar sort of "cleansing." Withdrawing from his own secular life, Descartes retreated to Amsterdam, seeking sanctuary.  There he went into deep "Meditations" by retreating into the confines of a huge furnace (which was of course not in use) in order to keep from the distractions of the world.  As we have seen, by doubting the reality of his own perceptions, and even identity, he attempted to determine the "real" through the "light of pure reason."
    Faith in knowledge grasped through reason alone came to be called "a-priori," or knowledge which preceded experience and was based upon pure reason, such as mathematics. The antithesis to this form of reasoning would come initially from John Locke, who in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, took exactly the opposite approach.
    For Locke, the mind was a Tabla Rasa, or a blank slate, which recorded data acquired through sense perception. The blank slate analogy might be better expressed in our time by the analogy to a computer. The mind, like a computer, contains all the necessary components to process, and even abstract, information; but that information must come from without. The mind is not the origin of this data, it rather processes information and abstracts, synthesizes, and formulates information. The conclusions reached on the bases of acquired data, however, were subject to mistaken conclusions through the misassociation of perceptions, such as the conception that everything red is hot.
    Superficially, we can see that this conclusion may have been initially drawn based on some form of experience. Fire, for example, often appears as red, as do certain heated minerals. But the color red has nothing essentially "hot" about it, any more than blue indicates what is cool. In fact, flame can be blue if it reaches a certain heat, as can superheated metals. So the concept that red is hot and blue is cool is a "mistake" based on common experience, but which cannot be considered as knowledge. For Locke, what we must do to determine whether or not our abstractions of data are mistakes or not is to go back to the world and test our conclusions through demonstration. Of course, this remains the major method of the "empirical" sciences, which include all of the laboratory sciences. To this day such scientific investigation depends upon experience under tight conditions (or experimentation) and demonstration under these conditions to verify conclusions. By establishing this criterion for validity, however, Locke may have even further widened the gulf between what was to be considered faith, and what was considered to be reason, for Locke believed in intuition (viz. primarily as it concerned the existence of God), but all intuition, to be knowledge, had finally to be demonstrable: ". . .intuition and demonstration are the degrees of our knowledge; whatever comes short. . ." no matter . . . with what assurance soever embraced, is but faith or opinion, but not knowledge. . ."  Notice that in the above quotation, faith and opinion, are placed into the same dubious category, as faith begins to lose credibility as a foundation for knowing.   We may again find a parallel in our story when Lancelot does not seem to have the understanding, reasoning power or intuition to make the right choices.
    David Hume, himself an empiricist, adapted Descartes’ skepticism and applied it to Locke’s empirical method in a unique way. The conclusions we verify through demonstration might, for Hume, be mistaken as well if we misasssociated data in terms of cause and effect. For example, I might take a rooster living in Eastern Standard Time in the US and notice that every dawn the rooster crows. I may repeat this observation many times, and finally conclude there is a cause and effect relationship between the sun rising and the rooster crowing. However, if I took this same rooster and put him on a jet to Hawaii, and thereby radically changed time zones, he would crow at the time when the sun was rising in Eastern Standard Time. Thus my conclusion would have been mistaken, precisely on the basis of cause and effect. The sun rising was not causing the rooster to crow. If I investigated this further I might finally discover that the rooster is crowing in accordance with the brooding cycles of the hens, which is dependent largely upon when they are fed. Thus a superficial observation might yield mistaken conclusions. The practical effect of this on experimental methods was to tighten up the conditions under which experiments were conducted to control variables and give a more certain basis upon which to draw conclusions—and thus in empirical method skepticism remains the dominant assumption (just as it was for Descartes) that findings are only relatively certain, and must constantly be retested for verification.
    On the theoretical level, Hume went on to question whether or not cause and effect were actually a firm basis upon which to draw conclusions about the facts of the physical world, as well as our own identity. Hume suspected that cause and effect may just be the way in which we perceive the phenomenal world, as well as ourselves, but may not be ultimately the condition under which phenomena function. For example, thunder and lightening occur simultaneously as a result of the super heating of the atmosphere, although because light travels faster than sound, it appears that the lightening may be causing the thunder. Hume held that much of what occurs in common phenomena may be the same, and that cause and effect relationships are only the way in which phenomena show up in the dimension of time we inhabit. This form of radical skepticism was adapted by other empiricists, including Bishop Berkeley and others, but was largely considered an eccentric notion at best until the very recent advent of quantum mechanics in physics, in which subatomic particles do not appear to function under cause and effect relationships, nor to obey any of the laws of time-space we normally consider to be the context of all phenomena. Thus an eccentricity in the history of the philosophy of knowledge eventually appeared to be a fact in the research of the peculiar nature of the physical universe. This also radically rephrased the classical question of a "first cause" considered by Aristotle, Anselm, Parmenides, to mention a few. There was, under Hume’s skeptical eye, no first cause at all. Everything occurs simultaneously, much as it is conceived of in Chan Buddhism, as well as other systems of Oriental thought.
    The practical outcome of the two approaches to knowledge which held that certainty could only be assured through demonstration and experimentation (the empiricism of Locke and Hume), and the conception that only pure reason revealed certainty through logic and mathematics (the rationalism of Descartes) was to create two paradigms for science: rationalism and empiricism. Empirical knowledge contrasted with rational knowledge in a key way. The rationalism of Descartes was "a-priori," or coming before experience, and this implied that the mind, independent of sense data or any experience of the world whatsoever, was capable of arriving at truth through pure reason. Empirical knowledge was "a-posteriori," and truth could only be acquired through experience and experimentation with the world itself. It was Immanuel Kant who would attempt to synthesize these two apparently contrasting methods.
 

Required Reading: "Week 6" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 134-161; Galileo Galilei: Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World (1632); John Locke: Essay on Human Understanding; David Hume: Selections from A Treatise of Human Nature (1740).

Homework:
Discuss reasons for a preference for thinking of the stars, moon and planets as material objects or as divine personalities.  Enter your thoughts in this week's conference and in your online journal.

(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 6 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)

Week 7 - Sir Gawain and Hector Warned in a Vision (Kant and the Uncertainty of "Knowledge")

Guiding Question: Is Gawain unethical from a Kantian perspective?

   Like the other characters in the Quest, Gawain receives sage advice. He and Hector received a vision from God. But when the vision was interpreted by one of the most saintly hermits, Gawain could not accept the interpretation. The hermit advises Gawain that he must work on improving himself, or his quest would never bring him honor; only shame. Yet Gawain is so assured by his past successes that he ignores this advice and continues on in his own way. This decision has disastrous results. Gawain kills and wounds his friends and allies, including the great hero Owein the Bastard. Through Immanuel Kant we may come to understand Gawain's tragedy as a failure to attend and interpret the signs around him correctly due to a failure of ethics, rather than merely a lack of faith.
    Kant held that a certain kind of knowledge was "a-priori" and a certain kind of knowledge was "a-posteriori," and that these two polarities established a tension which constituted the relationship of our consciousness of the phenomenal world. What was uniquely a-priori was the manner by which consciousness understood and reasoned with the world; which for Kant was through categorization.
    The overwhelming phenomena of the world were reduced by consciousness into categories which could be abstracted into rational patterns and subjected to reason. For example, when one says the word "tree" it stands for all the trees in the world. Of course, no one has seen, or even come close to actually experiencing, all the trees in the world, and indeed it is questionable whether what we think of as a tree abstractly exists concretely in the world at all—yet we understand what is meant when one says the word "tree" as categorically and symbolically standing for all the trees in the world. Thus for consciousness the category "tree" stands for all the trees in the world.
    Having established this fact, we can then invent sub-categories and more narrowly define the reference, such as trees that are "evergreens" and trees that are "deciduous," and from there different categories such as "Ponderosa Pine" or "Oak," etc. The inclination to reduce the world into abstracted categories, however, is a property of the way in which our consciousness abstracts the world and understands it in general.
    The world that our consciousness places into categories is a "phenomenon;" a word which has its origins in the Greek phenom meaning "appearance." In other words, the phenomenon of the world merely appears to our consciousness, which then processes what is perceived into categories in order to grasp its true nature. Thus our inclination to abstract the world into categories so that we can reason with it is what Kant terms the "categorical imperative" and is a-priori; that is, it is an aspect of our consciousness that is within the mind before we experience the world at all. The world, as a phenomenon, is then understood and categorized by our consciousness a-posteriori, or after we experience it. The problem is, do the categories by which we abstract and understand the world actually exist or are they merely properties of our own consciousness?
    For example, when we say the world "mammal" we may mean to imply "any of various warm-blooded vertebrate animals of the class Mammalia, including human beings, characterized by a covering of hair on the skin and, in the female, milk-producing mammary glands for nourishing the young." We add to this other characteristics such as live birth, lungs, etc. But does this category actually exist in nature, or are the shared common features we select to describe through the category "mammal" a convenient arbitrary set of features selected in order to reduce the overwhelming phenomenon of organic life into a subset that we can reason with? Even the category "mammal" became problematic with the discovery of the Platypus, which seemed to be only partially mammal-like, and to partially share characteristics with other classes of life. So, for Kant, consequently, every time we create a category to describe the world we encounter, we are only partially describing this phenomenal world, and partially describing our way of understanding it. In fact, the phenomenal world, or what Kant calls "things in themselves" cannot be truly known by our consciousness.
    To illustrate this point one can do a simple experiment. Touch a nearby desk or table with your hand. The desk will reveal its texture, surface, resistance and constituency partially to the sense of touch. Now take up a pencil, hold it, and touch the surface of the desk with the pencil. The desk will reveal its surface in a different fashion. The surface may feel harder, more resilient, even "colder." This simple experiment illustrates that when one touches the desk with one’s hand one is not truly sensing the desk itself, buts rather feeling one’s hand feeling the desk. With the pencil, one is feeling one’s hand sensing the mediating object (the pencil) sensing the desk. Neither means of sensing the desk is revealing the desk itself however. In fact the desk as a "thing in itself" can never be known by our consciousness or by perception. We can only know it in the way we know it, and that unique way is a-priori, independent of the desk as a phenomenon. What the desk "really" feels like simply can’t be known.
    In this fashion, Kant is implying the very limits of reason and knowledge themselves, for there can never truly be what we term "objective" knowledge. We can only know the phenomenon of the world of appearances in the fashion that we can know and understand it; and the way we understand the world, in its abstract dimension, is to reduce the phenomenon of the world into hypothetical categories. Kant is not doubting the accuracy of pure reason itself to describe the world in this analysis, but merely pointing out that our capacity for reason should not be mistaken for things themselves. In fact, he suggests that behind the appearance (the phenomena) of the world there is a "noumenon" which is projecting the phenomenon of the world, that can never be known, and which is as well projecting us. In a sense, he is restoring consciousness as implicit to the world, but accepting that our consciousness can only know the world in its own unique way. Thus he is as well pointing out that we should not mistake the way we know the world for the world itself, or the consequences may be disastrous.
    Interestingly enough, this disaster is implied as an ethical one. The question becomes not one of what we know, but how we should define and employ what we know when we are dealing with the phenomenal world. Here he is pointing out the difference between knowledge and judgement, for it can only be the two taken together which constitute "wisdom." The former implies that one knows something, but the latter raises the question of what one should do with this knowledge.
    For Kant, the ethical dimension of human knowledge can only be resolved through the use of pure reason, through the categorical imperative. Ethical codes which direct our knowledge should be as consistent and logical as mathematical equations. Kant’s ethics allow for few exceptions to an ethical principle which has been determined as being correct "a-priori." For Kant, this was not to treat anyone as a means, but always as an end in itself. Thus we can arrive at ethical resolutions before we actually encounter situations that may call for their application, and that we must remain consistent with these principles, allowing for no degree of variance.  In this way the "rational" human is also, without exception, a moral one.  Gawain's real sin may not be in his focus on his "earthly" needs as opposed to his spiritual one.  He uses other people as only as the means for attaining his own glory.
    Many believe that at the outset of the advent of scientific methodology Kant was precocious in envisioning that eventually questions of human knowledge must finally become ethical problems. That is, not just what we know, but what we should do with this knowledge and the degree to which it may empower us to effect the world in which we live. Thus the question of knowledge becomes partially a question of faith, or having trust, in this knowledge. It is not just what we know, but whether or not we trust what we know to resolve the deepest questions of our own existence that is brought into question.

Required Reading: "Week 7" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 162-175; Immanuel Kant: Selections from Critique of Pure Reason (1787).

Homework:
Write a brief summary of Kant's requirements for a universal system of ethics and send this to the instructor's email address.  Use your summary to evaluate the business practices in your environment.  Log your observations in your online journal.

(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 7 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)

Week 8 - Trials and Temptations of Sir Bors (The Challenge)

Guiding Question: What questions remain unaddressed by science?

    With the advent of modern science, there seems to have been as well a resurrection of the debate concerning faith, and what we exactly mean by "faith." If faith still means "trust," then is what we trust that which we have faith in? The problem arises of whether we truly trust science, technology, or even the social sciences, as the balm for all the existential questions that haunt the human soul? It seems that along with our quest for knowledge through reason there is as well a deep seated longing for meaning in human experience and a desire for a deeper sense of belonging to the integrity of life itself. The empirical sciences have revealed for us patterns of evolution, biochemistry, and geology that upon their first introduction inspired great debate within the religious and scientific communities, although they did not seem to be such controversial issues to those, like Darwin or Galileo, who bequeathed these new observations and insights to the human community. Many, if not the majority, of the influential men of science were as well men of faith, and of course this has held true into contemporary times as popularly noted in Einstein’s famous statement that he "wanted to read the mind of God." In this sense Einstein’s desire is not different from that of Augustine through Descartes and Nicholas of Cusa, nor from Aristotle’s directive that the capacity for reason lead directly to the capacity for wonder. Faith can inspire reason, even if reason alone cannot resolve the problems of our most basic existential doubts, and the popular controversies between some of the findings of science and those of orthodoxy in religion may be far more debates over interpretation of findings than they are of metaphysical wonder. Indeed, many of the pioneers of contemporary physics have found in their analyses parallel structures in Hinduism, Buddhism and other Oriental religions, as well as ontological parallels in Islam and Judeo-Christianity. These parallels, however, are based on interpretation rather than the limited conclusions that can be formed on the bases of reason alone, for the crisis between faith and reason is not as much one pertaining to their findings, but rather to what these findings might mean. Indeed since the time of Descartes, Locke and Hume, issues over reason have been concerned more with method than meaning, and the controversies over the meaning of what we know has lead many directly into domains of metaphysical contemplation. The debate over meaning is one of the implications of our
findings? To what degree are we morally responsible agents within an increasingly complex universe? And how are we to act and conclude upon our knowledge in a rational way that inspires our faith in ourselves as well as establishes our integrity in our relationship to the cosmos? The dialogue between faith and reason has become one partially between doubt and trust, as well as the search for meaning in human experience. Without faith, we may always be plagued with doubts about the perilous roads down which reason alone may lead us. It may be that in the future, rather than faith and reason being cast as antagonists in this drama, they turn out to be each other’s greatest allies.We find these working in harmony to aide Sir Bors when he makes difficult decisions.  Bors is not in any way a Messiah who is confidently moving along a predetermined path.  Like ours, Bors' successes are dependent the wisdom of his own decisions based on a combination of his convictions (faith), reasoning and a sincere (and ethical) concern for others. These qualities seem to combine to give Bors the wisdom to make the decisions which make him successful despite his "spotted" past.

Required Reading: "Week 8" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 175-207. Bertrand Russell: Why I am not a Christian; Stephen Hawking: the final chapter of A Brief History of Time; Albert Einstein: Ideas and Opinions.

Homework:
Make a list of questions you consider unaddressed by science.  Post these in this week's conference.  The class will choose four of the questions accumulated and four new conferences will be constructed to discuss each of the four.

(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 8 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)

Week 9 - The Miraculous Ship

Guiding Question: How can we act without acting?  How could this be applied to work?

    The image of a miraculous ship, which seems to move by itself floating around the world since the most ancient of days, is an image as well of effortless and eternal change achieved through integration into the flow of both time and events.  As such, the image is reminiscent of the Taoist concept of wu-wei, which meant literally "non-action."  But wu-wei did not mean retiring from one’s worldly duties, but rather harmonizing so closely in accordance with one’s nature that actions seems effortless.  Certainly Galahad’s actions in the Quest could be seen as an example wu-wei.  He moves exactly in accord with his destiny, and, thus, is successful in everything he does.  In Taoism, wu-wei does not mean standing outside the changes of nature, for this would be like trying to stand still against the current of a stream.  Similarly, ceasing from our labors in an active world would surely produce conflict.  Rather we must sacrifice the misdirected actions of an independent and deluded ego, and take our lessons for human behavior from observations of nature herself:
 

    Fritjof Capra, in The Tao of Physics, points out the similarities of this emphasis of continuous change with the observations of Heraclitus who we first met in Week 1, and who wrote close to the same time as Lao Tsu, author of the Tao Te Ching.  Both also recognize nature's changes as cyclic.  Capra’s book was written to show how science (particularly Quantum Physics) has come to recognize many Eastern concepts concerning nature as similar to this area of science.  In this sense, Western science has discovered that in order to keep advancing, it must move away from thinking of matter as static; as only moving when acted upon by a force. The new model is one of a more dynamic universe in which everything is constantly moving.
    The Taoist movement in China was indeed a similar reaction against the rigidity of Confucian philosophy.  Wing-Tsit Chan of Dartmouth College, in his introduction to A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, states:
      The Tao Te Ching was written as well as a guide for the decision-making of wise leaders.  It will be interesting to juxtapose its theme of correct conformity to nature through wu-wei with  readings from a book put out by Harvard Business School in 1991, Getting to Yes.  Getting to Yes was written to promote a working alternative to the rigid “positional” bargaining style which has tended to dominate corporate America.  We will use this text to help create a further bridge connecting the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching to modern everyday life.

Required Reading:  "Week 9" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 207-221; Lao Tsu: Tao Te Ching (479-438 BC); Fisher, Ury, Patton: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving in.

Homework:
1) Choose a chapter/poem from the Tao Te Ching that seems particularly meaningful to you and copy it into your online journal.
2) Compare and contrast the management styles recommended in the Tao Te Ching and Getting to Yes.

Week 10 - Adventures of the Companions

Guiding Question: Is Galahad a saint or a psychopath?

    At the turn of the twentieth century William James gave his famous “Gifford Lectures” at the University of Edinburgh.  These lectures later became published in the form of the book, The Varieties of Religious Experiences.  William James began his academic career in Physiology until he later became a psychologist.  During that time he published Psychology: A Briefer Course in which he described human consciousness as a stream of ideas.  By the time he made these lectures James considered himself a philosopher while retaining the views accumulated through his experiences in experimental psychology.
    James’ approach to religion in The Varieties of Religious Experience is both rational and practical.  He judges the religious practices of human beings by their “fruits” (or by the positive effects on the practicing believer and his/her community). James uses evidence from human history to show both the positive and negative effects of religious practices.  He demonstrates the limitations of reason alone in light of the powers of transformation, endurance, morality and creative genius resulting from experiences due to faith.  He attributes these powers to the unconscious, though he does not rule out the possibility of “divine intervention.”  Even then, he shows that the divine will seems to be expressed through the portal of the unconscious.
    Certainly the bulk of psychological research on the unconscious has been accomplished in the twentieth century by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. James Hillman, among others, have employed Jungian psychology to established a new branch in the field called "Depth Psychology."  It is highly recommended that the student, wishing to do further research in the area of the unconscious, begin by reading James Hillman’s Revisioning Psychology.  In Hillman, Jung’s archetypes of the unconscious regain their independence from the Ego and, once again, become the gods of old.  Depth Psychology addresses each individual’s “inner world” which certainly affects their behavior in the “outer world” but not as directly as James' work, which also seems to be foreshadowing Behaviorism.
    William James’ work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, is used in this course because of its focus on how religion is used, affecting daily life and the possible benefits to the community.  This text will help us find ways, in our discussions, to judge the characters in the Quest by the world-views represented in The Quest of the Holy Grail and our own.  At this point in the story, “The Adventures of the Companions,” Galahad and his friends have just enacted a great slaughter of human life.  It is interesting to note that Galahad had avoided much killing up until this point and had even regretted the loss of life in this instance.  However, a priest appears later to tell the heroes that their victims’ deaths were justified.  Galahad’s actions may be considered right and consistent within the values represented by the book, but what should we think about the possibility of the existence of others whose values may be different than the author’s.  This would certainly be a greater concern if the story represented itself as an historical text as opposed to fiction.  But, even as a fictional story, it is promoting values that we might not think appropriate, even for 1220 CE when the story was composed, and/or from 1 to 600 CE when the story was supposed to have occurred.
    Are our heroes of the Quest merely slaughtering psychopathic or are they merely oppressing others whose beliefs may be different than their own? On the other hand, what benefits do the knights and their community receive due to their faith in the principles of their religion, and how might we acquire those benefits for ourselves?  We will address these and similar questions in the conferences.

Required Reading:  "Week 10" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 235-251; William James: Selections from  The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).

Homework:
1) Although you are only required to read from the chapter entitled "Saintliness" to the end of the book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is recommended that you read the entire work.
2) Please add your own brief psychological analyses of the principle characters in the Quest to your online journal.
3) Also, please explore your own unconscious by adding descriptions of your dreams to your online journal.

Week 11 - In the Presence of Thou

Guiding Question: Who is Black Elk's "Thou?"

    The hero, Lancelot - loved by all (especially the queen), owes much of his honor to his spiritual qualities.  He is a sincere seeker of the Grail but, because of his worldly attachments, he must experience the glories of the Grail at a greater distance than those whose very essence has marked them as participants in its holy mysteries.  He truly has what Buber describes as a “distracted, weakened, degenerated, contradictory spirituality.”  Yet, he has been able to “reach again the life of spirit which can utter Thou.”  “Thou” is used by Martin Buber in his landmark text I and Thou to denote the presence of a consciousness which is revered by a subject - I.
    As Buber held, and Lancelot's experience in the Quest testify, living in too close proximity with one's Thou may prove too intense.  Buber stated that  “. . . it is not possible to live in the bare present.  Life would be quite consumed if precautions were not taken to subdue the present speedily and thoroughly.  But it is possible to live in the bare past, indeed only in it may a life be organized."
    Buber continues, “. . . And in all the seriousness of truth, hear this:  Without It man cannot live.  But he who lives with It alone is not a man.”  The It here denotes the conceptions of the world as objective, as contrasted to the subjective presence of the self (I) and the other (Thou).  But It can as well stand for using another person as an object.  Thus, It may be, and often is, another human being. Lancelot knows no such objectification of his beloved, and on Buber's terms has certainly proved himself to be a man; for he was shot through with a paralyzing fire caused by his coming too near the Thou of his beloved.  This "Thou," for Lancelot is his lover, but what if we consider Thou as it appears in varied forms from time to time, culture to culture, person to person?  The saints and shamans of every culture seem to identify, and personify, a large portion of the universe within their “Thou.”  Thus the universe itself becomes sacred, intimate and alive.  What happens to this highly subjective world view when a consumer-oriented world, which often perceives nature as a resource only, and thus an It, encroaches on their sacred sense of all nature as a “Thou?”
    Black Elk was a holy man, a mystical elder of the Lakotas.  His story tells of a major cultural change among his people.  He relates how his “Thou” had been transformed to the functional “It” of people of a foreign culture.  He shows his remorse as a man whose vision has lost its power and he seems to partially blame his own lack of strength for this loss.  It is not mentioned in the introduction that Black Elk was also a devout Catholic who taught the Catechism to his people.  Black Elk Speaks is a melding of his native shamanism, the structure of Christian liturgy and the poetic vision of John Neihardt.  As the modern pow wow movement has spread among Native peoples across the U.S. bringing together both reservation and urban Indians displaced from their own traditions,  Black Elk Speaks has become a kind of Pan-Indian Bible.  The blending of styles mentioned above has caused the work to speak to those whose own cultures have become a blend of European and Indigenous American perceptions.

Required Reading:  "Week 11" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 253-268; John G. Neidhardt and Black Elk: Black Elk Speaks (1932); Martin Buber: I and Thou (1958).

Homework:
Please read Martin Buber's I and Thou and then use the ideas learned from this work to analyze the clash of world views described in Black Elk Speaks. Keep a log of your analysis in you online journal, making notes as you are able to find correlations between the texts.

Week 12 - The Holy Grail

Riddle:
What's better than God
And worse than the Devil?
The Dead eat it
But, if you eat it,
You would surely die.

Guiding Question: Is the Holy Grail empty?

    We began the course by discussing beginnings, and we will end it with a discussion of Death.  Certainly every human being has wondered what lies beyond the portal we call "Death."  Our earliest remaining human artifacts have been found in graves which seem ritually prepared to help the departed in another world.  With the advance of civilization, these small artifacts will culminate in great Pyramids and Cathedrals, as well as tombs which honor and revere the departed in both artifact and ritual.  The question of what lies beyond the life experience even defines many traditional conceptions of faith. One’s faith is judged by the amount of confidence one has that one will continue to live on.
    The state of our consciousness and personality which may survive Death range in interpretations throughout the world's great religions.  Particularly of Hinduism, it is implied that we will go to that place where the karma of  our lives have best suited us.  If we were good, we will go where we choose.  If we have lead a life against the life principle itself, our souls may go to a hellish planet or we will be reborn as a lower life form in order to review some lessons before earning the privilege of being a human once again.  Such attitudes toward Death also tend to define the paradigms of various cultural values, from the eternal hunting grounds of some Native American religions to the Valhalla of eternal war and renewal in the religions of the ancient Vikings.  Our more positive options in the next world range from becoming higher angelic beings in paradise (such as the Christian Heaven) and there sharing in the presence of God, to becoming a part of the deity itself, while retaining some sense of our own personality (as in some conceptions in Hinduism), to losing our personalities in the ultimate Godhead (as in the Hindu Nirvana).
    There is too the Buddhist notion concerning an ascension to what could theoretically be the source of all Being itself; and which ironically, to the Western ear, is Nothing. Yet, this Nothing is not negative.  As in the Tao, it is the source of all that is, just as all that has form and substance in the appearance of the world, merely stands out from the greater venue of space which surrounds it.
    What may be most difficult in our Quest, even as a concept, is the idea of an all-encompassing Nothingness as emptiness.  Could this clairvoyant, pure absence untainted by matter, form or substance, be what Galahad saw when he looked inside and saw directly the mysteries of the Holy Grail?
    Is such a realization of pure emptiness pleasure or horror?  Is our highest state of consciousness (as some Oriental religions and philosophies might have it) merely realization and final acceptance of what we may fear the most?  And is this merely the sum reflection of ourselves?  Is this nothingness, as in the Tao, merely what we pour into it, but is never exhausted, always empty, and therefore pure, offering us back only our own reflection?  If so, what qualities must a person have within themselves to revere such Nothingness as one's “Thou?”  The word "Nothing" in English means "No Thing," thus not an It.  It is thus pure subjectivity.  Would those qualities be admired by our family, friends and co-workers?
    The required readings will explore ideas concerning Nothing from different cultural perspectives, drawing on various different human faculties in the process.   Reason as discursive thought will be employed, just as understanding is utilized as intuition of concepts, judgments and principles. Revelation as a realization communicated by Divine Will also comes into play.   The selection from Sartre’s Being and Nothingness will explore these approaches to Nothingness in far more detail, using terminology which has been developed in the field of philosophy over centuries of European history.  Though one may detect a sense of reverence in Sarte for Nothingness, this sense of reverence is even more apparent in some religious texts.  In both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, non-being is juxtaposed against an array of deities whose personalities may be seen as representing philosophical concepts.  In a certain sense, for Chan Buddhism in China, which is later mispronounced as "Zen" in Japan, “Nothing IS better than God.”  Even God, as entity, bows to the void, and thus the realization of no-thing-ness manifests our highest state of consciousness. True Nirvana is a profound emptiness.  Thus it is suggested that to grasp our own subjectivity in time, even as this incorporates our consciousness of the fact of Death, may be the most vital aspect, the final goal, of being alive; and what is most vital about being alive has always been what has guided our Quest.

Required Reading:  "Week 12" in the Study Guide;The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 269-284; Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness (1956), Part One: Chapter One: Section V "The Origin of Nothingness"; D. T. Suzuki: Manual of Zen Buddhism (texts from 406 CE - 1768 CE); Mandukya Upanishad and Karika Upanishad (600 BC).

Homework: We will continue our conferences our the next two weeks and the Instructor will be available for advisement during that time while you are completing you final papers.

(Note: Sections of the description of "nothingness" in the Study Guide for Week 12 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the authors of the general MAPS Curriculum. The general section is by Robert H. Price, also amongst the Authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.))

Course Description

Course Syllabus