The Way of Being	Copyright © Anil Mitra, 1986 – 2024
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The Way of Being
An extended outline for The Way of Being
Anil Mitra, Copyright © February 2024 – April 19, 2024

Contents
[ to the most recent detailed outline ]

1	Into the way of being

1.1	The way and its narration

1.1.1	The way of being and its aim

1.1.2	Preview

1.1.3	What kind of work this is

1.2	Origins

1.2.1	Seeking and experience

1.2.2	History

1.2.3	Paradox

1.3	Outline and ideas

1.3.1	Outline

1.3.2	The main ideas

1.4	Understanding and living the way

1.4.1	Reading the way

1.4.2	The way—shared negotiation

2	The world

2.1	Metaphysics

2.1.1	What metaphysics is

2.1.2	Meaning and knowledge

2.1.3	Being, beings, and agency

2.1.4	Ultimate metaphysics

2.1.5	A vocabulary for metaphysics

2.1.6	Problems of metaphysics

2.2	Logic, method, and content

2.2.1	Received conceptions of logic

2.2.2	A comprehensive conception of logic or argument

2.2.3	Self-sufficiency and completeness—open and closed aspects of the metaphysics

2.3	Ethics (value)

2.4	Cosmology

2.5	Our world

3	Realization

3.1	Process and the ultimate

3.2	The program and its design

3.3	Everyday

3.3.1	A program

3.3.2	Affirmation

3.3.3	Dedication

3.3.4	Planning

3.3.5	A sample schedule

3.4	Universal

3.4.1	Planning

3.4.2	A sample plan

4	Return

4.1	Living in the world

4.2	Sharing the way

4.3	Universal narrative

The outline
[ to the most recent detailed outline ]

Into the way of being

The way and its narration

The way of being and its aim

Preview

What kind of work this is

The nature of the work

Ideas to action to learning to ideas…

Not dogma

An evolving document

Nature of the evolution

Design and planning

Editing for consistency of expression, e.g., ‘I’ vs ‘we’ vs ‘it’; and for efficient minimalism and poetry of expression.

The whole and its representations

The whole (universe) contains its representation(s). Develop this idea, its consistency (such as it is), and its consequences.

Make it all explicit but do it minimally with regard to its expression and repetition among the sections and subsections.

Perhaps making it explicit at level 2 in the outline would enhance explicitness and minimality.

Perhaps do this by eliminating the first section ‘Into the way of being’ and inserting it in the second section ‘The world’ at the beginning as something like a ‘personal metaphysics’. Similarly, the fourth section may be inserted at the end of the third section, ‘Realization’, as ‘Return’.

Import topics

Introduce meaning with knowledge in §2

Introduce world economics

Issue of subdocuments

To be considered.

Other issues

Import from previous years’ design and planning

Degree of self-generation

Origins

Seeking and experience

With bibliographical elements

History

Paradox

Outline and ideas

Outline

Structure and ideology

Dynamic (re) ordering and concept databases

Concept template

Some canonical outlines

These units may be redesigned as the basis of reworkable outlines.

metaphysics

metaphysics as knowledge of the real, epistemology, abstraction

objects of metaphysics

being, beings, and (concepts, knowledge, and) objects

whole, part, null

universe, void, law

possibility, maximal universe

ethics

world ethic

epistemology

… as part of metaphysics (i) because knowledge is a metaphysical object (ii) as necessary to metaphysics

logic

kinds, logics, facts

logic as metaphysics

real metaphysics, depth, breadth

self-foundation, reflexivity (metanalysis)

doubt

doubt, certainty

experience

substance neutrality, experience, agency, action, as if mind, as if matter

individual, experiential universe

cosmology

the immediate and the ultimate

descriptive cosmology

peak being, dissolution, pathways to the ultimate

dimensions and paradigms of being

the way of being

the way, return

paths, design, programs, affirmation, dedication

ways, means, middle way, pleasure, pain

The main ideas

Primary

Metaconcepts

Foundation and method

Foundation as primary vs interactive

Foundation in being vs experience

Union of the apparent dichotomies

Issue of purism in foundation and method

In metaphysics

In epistemology

Metaphysics and value

Understanding and living the way

Reading the way

The way—shared negotiation

The world

Metaphysics

What metaphysics is

Meaning and knowledge

Concepts, language, and meaning

Knowledge and its problems

Representation?

Abstraction and perfect representation

Pragmatic knowledge

Tentative union

Being, beings, and agency

Ultimate metaphysics

The fundamental principle

The real metaphysics

Experience

The nature and form of the ultimate

Dimensions of being

Paths to the ultimate

Doubt

A vocabulary for metaphysics

vocabulary for metaphysics

Problems of metaphysics

The problems are classical, recent, and of the real metaphysics

To be improved from system of human knowledge and topics and concepts for the way.

This section will

Derive and list problems from (i) the history and received concept of metaphysics (ii) as rationally modified by the conception of metaphysics and real metaphysics of this document,

Address problems not addressed in the main narrative.

The list is informed by Metaphysics – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/).

What is metaphysics and how ought it to be defined?

Some considerations

From its history, metaphysics (i) is inclusive knowledge of the real (ii) emphasizes high level knowledge over detail (iii) tends to not be concerned with science, the sciences, and factual detail.

Here,

Items #i and ii are found and accepted,

Item #iii also has subsumption under what metaphysics must be,

With sufficient and essential generalization, logic is equivalent to metaphysics,

Epistemology and ethics have subsumption under metaphysics,

If meta-metaphysics is conceived as study of metaphysics, it too will have subsumption under metaphysics.

Metaphysics as knowledge of the real

How this is adequate and potent

The extent to which it is ultimate

How and to what extent it overlaps or contains received conceptions

What is metaphysics’ fundamental object and what is its nature?

Some possibilities

World like kinds (substance, process, relationship…) and idea like kinds (concept, word, trope…) may be considered but the essential object is found to be being in the sense of (i) that which is (exists) or, perhaps better, (ii) that which can be known to be.

Being

Being itself has no further fundamental nature but beings and aspects of being do (an aspect of being is found to be a being and, with sufficient abstraction, being itself is a being).

What is the ground of being?

The concept of ground

The ground of being is that from which it springs but itself is its own source.

The ground

The possibilities include the kinds above, but being is found to be its own foundation and ground.

The nature and extent of being

What is the nature of being and what are its high level aspects?

The nature of being

Being was defined as that which is; being-as-being has no further nature except that it is knowable.

The aspects—dimensions and categories

We may call these ‘dimensions’ or ‘categories’, but what we find is that the categories are derived from experience (in its most general sense) rather than imposed.

What we find is that experientiality and its aspects are fundamental (i) receptive-neutral-agentive (ii) identity-extensional-durational (iii) as if mind-as if matter-cause-necessity-determinism-freedom-indeterminism (iv) the unity of object kinds, the concrete-abstract distinction as pragmatic (mode of distinction) rather than real (particularly, the ‘abstract’ is not a category but the result of abstraction from particulars and collections, of which the concrete is a particular case… and the abstract do not fail to exist in space and time but may have had space and time abstracted out to full or lesser degree).

Identity

The concept.

Identity of objects, its nature.

Identity, change, and extension (space and time).

Identity of selves, its nature.

Persistence over change (time).

Modality

Is being necessary? I.e., must there be beings (‘sometimes’ or ‘eternally’)?

More generally, necessity and possibility (metaphysical or physical) fall under modality.

Are there necessary beings?

Are there possible beings?

‘Necessity’ and ‘possibility’ in this context are modal because they are not just about being (existence) but conditional existence—necessary or possible.

Duality of necessity and possibility.

Other kinds of modality.

Does existence imply existence in and of space and time? If not, should spatial and temporal existence be considered modes of existence?

Significance of the dimensions and categories

They are high level understanding (‘science’) relative to which particular knowledge (e.g., the concrete and abstract sciences) is detailed and specialized

What are (the) dimensions (categories) and paradigms of being and what is their metaphysics?

To be improved from the little manual.

Examples of dimensions (i) universal—experientiality (ii) pragmatic—nature (with as if mind, as if matter, and the simple or physical, and the complex which includes life) and society.

Examples of paradigms (i) universal—abstract logic (ii) general—indeterminism with adaptive selection (iii) physical—mechanism and cause (with and without partial indeterminism) (iv) of psyche—bound and free experientiality and action (v) social—.

What is the extent of the universe and what is the enumeration and variety of things in it?

This question is rather of quantity and complements the questions of aspects, natures, and kinds, which are rather of quality. But both are asking—of the possible, what obtains? And, of course, what is possibility, what are its kinds, and of the kinds, which obtains here? Is it the most inclusive kind?

What is the nature of our being—metaphysics, beings, agency, and action

What is the possible and productive interaction? How complete is it relative to all being and what is the sense of the completeness?

Is the connection forced, posited, or natural (or combinations thereof)? Is being – knowledge – agency – action seamless?

What falls under metaphysics—i.e., metaphysics as the all-inclusive discipline

How are epistemology, logic, and value subsumable under metaphysics?

What else is subsumable under metaphysics?

What are the kinds and methods of metaphysics?

What are the kinds of metaphysics relative to the real?

Real

Direct

In which the elementary empirical and rational are one.

Speculative

Scientific or hypothetico-deductive.

Posit

Early and experimental metaphysics

Dogma

Though we reject arbitrary dogma on rational grounds, philosophical and theological dogma generate useful ideas and action—directly and by reaction

Dogma has a spirit which suggests the capacity for truth and is thus a generator of truth by inspiration

Imaginative and exploratory

Essential precursor to rational metaphysics

Existential generator of ideas and action

What are the method(s) of metaphysics and are they subsumed under metaphysics?

See Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Abstraction, concretion, and the problems of abstract and concrete objects

See discussion in What are the high level aspects or natures of being?

Reflexivity and revaluation at all levels of content and method (including content and method as one)

Metaphysics as science

Topics that are now footnotes to the history of metaphysics

Substance (rejected but accepted as approximation in limited circumstances, e.g., a cosmos); older categories; universals (accepted as a case of abstract object); first causes, unchanging things, beings as such—i.e., in essence; the possibility of metaphysics—which had to do with older conceptions of metaphysics and received criteria of knowledge that ought to be archaic.

Logic, method, and content

Received conceptions of logic

Deductive logic and its kinds

Logics in which the conclusion does not follow from the premises with certainty

A comprehensive conception of logic or argument

Direct establishment of fact

Observation

Necessity

Are all necessary ‘facts’ analytic?

Inference

Certain

Less than certain

Inference, necessary or likely, from the null premise

Self-sufficiency and completeness—open and closed aspects of the metaphysics

Ethics (value)

Cosmology

Our world

Realization

Process and the ultimate

The program and its design

Everyday

A program

Affirmation

Dedication

Planning

A sample schedule

Universal

Planning

A sample plan

Return

Living in the world

Sharing the way

Universal narrative