Truth, beauty, and goodness are qualities of divinity. At the same time, they are qualities that we can live. They infuse the nitty-gritty of our everyday existence. Living these values does not turn us into God, but they represent what we can comprehend of God. Everyone, whether religious or not, has tasted supreme truth, beauty, and goodness at one time or another.
Consider the alternatives. Who would not prefer a life based on truth? Sensitive to beauty? Dominated by goodness? To cultivate that takes a philosophy of living.
The chapters whose links are given here make up a book written for a mass audience, not a university audience. I am currently writing a book on these themes for more educated readers.
A
caveat. Any particular formulation of
philosophy, especially in bulleted lists, is likely to become static.
Moreover, the project of constructing a new philosophy of living is a
group project, not an individual affair. Nevertheless,
since personality is a mystery beyond philosophic comprehension, however, since
each main theme—truth, beauty, and goodness—culminates in an enhanced
experience of personality relationships, and since the “categories” here are
doors, not dogmas, I hope this sketch may help you go beyond this site.
Here's a transcript of a presentation applying the philosophy of living to the theme, "Joyous Living."
Here's a preface for the student and an introduction.
Refining our initial sense of reality, we develop our sense of fact into science.
Be alive to the surroundings, noticing things, facing facts, determining facts with scientific care as needed. (What is a fact? What are problems surrounding the theory and practice of establishing facts well?)
Explore causes. (What kinds of causation can we observe? What limits are there to the concept of causation?)
Gain a broad evolutionary perspective.
Around these habits of mind grow the virtues of scientific living.
We can enjoy success in the ever-progressing quest for wisdom—an integrated comprehension of reality on material, intellectual, and spiritual levels. We make the truths of philosophy our own in several ways. Here is a broad method for thinking on any level, material, intellectual, or spiritual.
Sharpen your intuition to the level of insight.
Draw inferences from the starting points you have thus made clear.
Form a wisdom perspective weaving diverse strands of intuition and reasoning. Mature concepts form through years of struggle and growth.
Our affirmations of the reality of matter, mind, and spirit are so basic that they can neither be proved nor disproved; any proof or disproof assumes too much or proves too little. Bringing the meanings of facts and the meanings of values together leads to the syntheses that form philosophy.
Religion is so often taken as an institutional affair, a matter of creed and ritual, but the life of religion comes through spiritual experience. The door to the truths of spiritual experience is faith. Science-centered and humanistic perspectives sometimes tell part of the story or all of the story about what seem to be spiritual experiences. Therefore the person of faith moves in a field of adventure in which discernment grows gradually. If we say “Yes” in faith, we express our primary relationship with God in prayer, worship, and service. We begin to relate with everyone as members in a universal family. We gain new light on questions about human suffering and eternal life. Integrating science, philosophy, and religion leads to a new vision of history and cosmology . . . and the mysterious, wondrous, unique personality.
On each of these levels—science, philosophy, and spiritual experience—we see both the stability of truth and the dynamism of truth.
The more we realize truth, the more we feel the beauty of truth, preparing us to enjoy the beauties of nature and the arts.
Taking time in the beauties of nature allows us to enjoy the paradox that, while we somehow transcend nature, we are also a part of nature. Our sense of the beauties of nature is enhanced by input from every other area in the “map” of truth, beauty, and goodness on physical, intellectual, and spiritual levels. One of the striking beauties of nature is the capacity of the human body to enter into a system of integrated living, beyond the conflict of the spirit and the flesh, where self-mastery regarding physical impulses show our marvelous potentials as many-dimensioned beings.
There are fun arts (gardening, play, sports, humor) as well as fine arts that engage us on an emotional level and take us to thoughts of eternal import. Reflections on these topics culminate in reflections on the art of living, from personal grooming and keeping an orderly home and workplace; to the vigorous attitudes needed for challenges; to principles of balance for health, sanity, and happiness.
We usually experience the art of living more like improvisation with a jazz band than a solo performance of a predetermined score; but sometimes we glimpse a stretch of our lives as part of a cosmic symphony of vast grandeur.
Beauty is a gift, the value that governs the realm of feeling—from transient, material emotions to sublime feelings of soul. Beauty discloses an integrating, evolving universe. Realizing the beauty of truth prepares us to participate in the beauty of goodness.
Goodness spills over from the divine to the human.
The golden rule, viewed through many cultures and disciplines, proves to offer a treasure-chest of guidance for the decisions that exercise our precious personality freedom. Progressive human interaction
· begins on the level of sympathetic understanding,
· moves through the philosophic recognition of duty,
·
and culminates in the spiritual joy of loving service.
How can we move from duty consciousness to a spiritual quality of action?
On a foundation of morality, we can explore compromise, the mercy process, and conflict.
There are virtues connected to practices in each area of truth, beauty, and goodness. These virtues combine and unify in strong character. How does character grow? It is not particularly a self-conscious and deliberate affair. Why does love grow as we pursue truth, beauty, and goodness?
Revised July 2006