Say who everyone is as you go along - Faculty of Philosophy ...

44
What is What is?
If the world is an illusion, two questions are presupposed: Who is subject to the
illusion? and What is reality?
According to Nietzsche and Zen, no-one is subject to the illusion. Indeed, that
there is anyone to be deceived is itself part of the illusion. If this were the case, I
think we would have to give up talking about ‘illusion’ here. Unless someone or
something is, or could, be deceived it does not make any sense to talk about an
illusion. In particular, ‘the self’ or ‘the subject’ cannot be an illusion. Otherwise, who
or what would be subject to the illusion that there is a self or subject? If there is the
putative illusion of the self or subject, there is a self or subject. Therefore, the Zen
and Nietzschean doctrine that the world, including the self, is an illusion is self
refuting. It is false. Indeed, it might well be an illusion.
According to Nietzsche, there is no reality to contrast with illusion. There is no
such thing as the way what is really is, to contrast with its illusory nature. On the Zen
view, either a view like Nietzsche’s is right, or else there is the emptiness of Satori,
which is beyond the duality of illusion and reality. Now, it does not make much
sense to say that there is illusion or deception but no reality. If nothing is the case, it
is impossible to be tricked into the false view that something is the case. It follows
that Nietzsche’s view that there is no reality, only illusion, is false. Of course
Nietzsche might still be right that the world as we ordinarily experience it is
presented to us in a perspectival way, and its appearance is constituted by power
relations. This might be importantly right. However, perspectives are perspectives
on, that is, they are perspectives on something rather than nothing. If there are no
facts, only interpretations, something is interpreted. The question is; What?
There is profound insight in the Buddhist view that it is possible to transcend the
dualities of the empirical world. It is important to Zen that there should be meditative
practice rather than the posing of metaphysical questions. Nevertheless, we might
ask, What is Satori? Is Satori the disclosure of an ultimate metaphysical reality?
Satori is beyond being and nothingness. Satori is beyond becoming. Becoming is the
transition from being to nothingness or from nothingness to being. In Satori there is
the cessation of becoming and, therefore, the cessation from being to nothingness or
nothingness to being. Nevertheless, I hesitate to call this the transcendence of being
and nothingness. I accept it is the transcendence of the empirical world, of this being
this way, that being that way. It is, in my view, a synthesis of being and nothingness
which I call no-thing-ness. No-thing-ness is a reality but not a physical or mental
reality. Although, Zen practicioners will not engage in metaphysics, only practice, I
maintain that no-thing-ness is a spiritual reality.