In the West, agnosticism is generally thought of in terms of two basic forms:
- Uncertainty about the existence of God, Ultimate Reality, and/or spiritual/metaphysical truth.
- Certainty that such knowledge is unattainable.
The first form of agnosticism, which is generally the type meant when Westerners describe themselves as "agnostic," is simply the recognition of one's ignorance regarding metaphysical matters. It neither affirms or denies the existence or nature of the transcendent, simply because one is not certain whether there is anything transcendent, and/or whether such terms have any meaning. This basic position (or non-position) should perhaps be called nothing more than "uncertainty," because it is not the sort of approach that T.H. Huxley had in mind when he coined the term "agnosticism." Even so, it shares with Huxley's agnosticism (and most other forms) a basic non-committal foundation.
Huxley's agnosticism, the second form, is more aggressive and thoroughly considered. Not only does this type of agnostic claim not to know of ontological matters, but also asserts that they are in principle unknowable. A variety of arguments, chiefly epistemological, are presented in support of this position. This article will not examine those arguments, as it is outside the scope of the current discussion, but it bears mentioning that one oft-cited approach is that of "noncongnitivism," the view that positively formulated metaphysical statements are inherently devoid of real meaning. For the noncognitivist agnostic, Wittgenstein's famous maxim rings true - "what we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence."
Enter the East
While agnostics of these two common Western varieties also exist in the East, the spiritual traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism offer a glimpse at a somewhat different approach to the question of whether ontological matters such as the existence and nature of Ultimate Reality are knowable. Although each of these traditions has deep and complex philosophical roots nourished by centuries of debate and analysis, it may appear on the surface that Buddhism (in particular) reaches conclusions very similar to those of Western agnostics - namely, that the question of "God" is either unknown, unknowable, or unimportant. Buddha himself seems to have favored the latter view, asserting that such matters were not particularly relevant to the aims of Buddhism, which focuses on psychological liberation through pragmatic individual effort.
It bears noting, however, that Buddhism is fundamentally an outgrowth of pre-existing Hindu traditions, and within these schools of thought, metaphysical questions were of primary importance. While a simplistic view of Hinduism might consider it explicitly theistic in the standard Western sense, this view does not stand up to more rigorous examination. In reality, both early Hindu writings and their later Buddhist counterparts take a considerably more nuanced approach, generally favoring an apophatic ontology or "negative theology." In these philosophical traditions, a dialectical process is employed (most notably by early Buddhist thinker Nagarjuna) to show that nothing meaningful can be positively asserted about the Absolute by the process of human conceptual thought and logic - but this is not to say that that the Absolute itself is meaningless.
Rather, as Nagarjuna, certain Vedic writings, and the Chinese Taoist tradition first establish, a more accurate approach is to combine an informed noncognitivism with a certain sort of "faith" in the transcendent. This faith, of course, is notably different from its Western counterpart, which generally involves making any number of positive assertions about the existence, nature, and even the aims and desires of the Absolute (or "God," as the Western terminology would have it).
The informed (meaning contemplated or considered) noncognitivism mentioned above is in fact the source of the Eastern sort of philosophical "faith," and shapes its expression. This unique noncognitivism could be called "transcendental" in the sense that rather than merely declaring talk of ontological matters meaningless based on the typical Western linguistic or epistemological grounds, it undertakes a thorough effort to say anything meaningful about the Absolute before finally discovering, through direct personal experience, the futility of the quest.
For further reading, see "Faith & Logic in Eastern Spiritual Traditions."
James Quirk - I have been studying and practicing Eastern and Western philosophy on an independent basis for over ten years, with an emphasis on ...
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