Walter Terence Stace

Walter Terence Stace (17 November 1886 – 2 August 1967) was a British civil servant, educator, public philosopher and epistemologist, who wrote on Hegel, mysticism, and moral relativism. He worked with the Ceylon Civil Service from 1910 and 1932, thereafter he worked at Princeton University till his retirement in 1955, as professor of philosophy, and subsequently remained professor emeritus of philosophy.^[3] He is most known for his work in philosophy of mysticism, and books like Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) and Teachings of the Mystics (1960), which have been influential in the study of mysticism, but have also been severely criticised for their lack of methodological rigueur and their perennialist pre-assumptions.

Early life and education

Stace was born into an English military family in London, with his great-grandfather General William Stace having served in the Battle of Waterloo, but chose a religious and philosophical path. He was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh and later Trinity College Dublin, with an aim to a career in the Anglican Church, having experienced a religious conversion in his teens, but here he developed interest in systematic philosophy of Hegel, deeply influenced by Henry S. Macran, and graduated in philosophy in 1908.^[1][2][4]

Career

Under family pressure he joined the British civil service, and between 1910 and 1932, he served in the Ceylon Civil Service (now Sri Lanka) then under British Empire, holding several positions in the Ceylonese government including that of Mayor of Colombo, the capital city. Even today, there is Stace Street in Colombo. It was here that he developed an interest in Hinduism and Buddhism, a subject which was to influence his subsequent studies of mysticism. Meanwhile, he wrote on philosophy on the side and published books like A Critical History of Greek Philosophy (1920), The Philosophy of Hegel (1924), and The Meaning of Beauty (1929).^[4] In 1929, he received a D.Litt. from Trinity College, Dublin.

Stace Road in Colombo is named after the city's former mayor, WT Stace

After 22 years of service, he was offered an option of retirement from civil services in 1932, which he took and moved to Princeton University in 1932 and became Stuart Professor of Philosophy at the university in 1935, he was president of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division) in 1949 and 1950.^[5] Stace retired from his position as professor of philosophy at Princeton in 1955.^[4][6]

He died on 2 August 1967, of a heart attack at his home in Laguna Beach, California.^[2][3]

Philosophy

Stace's first three books, A Critical History of Greek Philosophy, The Philosophy of Hegel, and The Meaning of Beauty were published in 1920, 1924, and 1929, while he worked as a civil servant in Ceylon. After these early works, his philosophy followed the British empirical tradition of David Hume, G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and H.H. Price. Empiricism for Stace did not need to be confined to propositions which it is possible to demonstrate. Instead, our common sense beliefs find support in two empirical facts: men’s minds are similar and they co-operate with the aim of solving their common problems.^[7]

Stace can be considered a pioneer in the philosophical study of mysticism,^[8] Mysticism and Philosophy is considered his major work. Stace was the dissertation advisor of John Rawls when Rawls was a graduate student at Princeton, though it is not clear that he had a strong influence on Rawls. Richard Marius attributed his loss of faith partly to his intellectual engagement with Stace's essay Man Against Darkness.

Phenomenalist philosophy

His work in the 1930s and 40s bears a strong influence of phenomenalism, a form of radical empiricism (not to be confused with phenomenology, which examines the structure and content of consciousness).^[8] In his first book published while at Princeton, The Theory of Knowledge and Existence (1932), Stace proposes an empirical epistemology. He attempts to "trace out the logical steps by which the mind, starting with what is given, arrives at and justifies its belief in an external world".^[9] The book can be seen as a criticism of pragmatism.^[10] His paper Refutation of Realism (1934) acted as a response to G.E. Moore's famous refutation of idealism. Stace did not argue that realism is false, but that "there is absolutely no reason for asserting" it is true, so it "ought not be believed".^[11] Turning from epistemology to ethics, in 1937 he considered whether morals were relative or subject to a general law in The Concept of Morals.

The public philosopher

In 1948, Stace wrote an influential essay, Man Against Darkness, for The Atlantic review in which he examined religion. He concluded that the spirit of scientific enquiry (rather than scientific discoveries themselves) has furthered religious scepticism by undermining the teleological presumption of an ultimate 'final cause'. Concern with divine purpose of events had been replaced by investigation into what had caused them; the new imaginative picture of the world was dominated by the idea that life is purposeless and meaningless. The effects of this change included moral relativity, the individualisation of morality, and the loss of belief in free will.^[12] Stace wrote:

Skepticism did not have to wait for the discoveries of Darwin and the geologists in the nineteenth century. It flooded the world immediately after the age of the rise of science. Neither the Copernican hypothesis nor any of Newton's or Galileo's particular discoveries were the real causes. Religious faith might well have accommodated itself to the new astronomy. The real turning point between the medieval age of faith and the modern age of unfaith came when the scientists of the seventeenth century turned their backs upon what used to be called "final causes." ... If the scheme of things is purposeless and meaningless, then the life of man is purposeless and meaningless too. Everything is futile, all effort is in the end worthless. A man may, of course, still pursue disconnected ends, money, fame, art, science, and may gain pleasure from them. But his life is hollow at the center. Hence the dissatisfied, disillusioned, restless, spirit of modern man.

In the spring of 1949, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a forum called "The Social Implications of Scientific Progress—an Appraisal at Mid-Century."^[13] Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, Vannevar Bush, Nelson Rockefeller were amongst those in attendance. Stace took part in a discussion called 'Science, Materialism and the Human Spirit' alongside Julius Seelye Bixler, Percy W. Bridgman and Jacques Maritain. He contributed an essay, The Need for a Secular Ethic, in which he concluded that although supernatural or metaphysical justifications for morality are in decline, this should not lead to a crisis of the moral faith if it is remembered that 'morals have a perfectly firm and objective foundation in the human personality'.^[14] In 1954, he gave the annual Howison Lecture in Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley, where he spoke on "Mysticism and Human Reason".^[15]

In the fall of 1957, two years after retiring from his post at Princeton, Stace was involved in a controversy surrounding the Princeton Roman Catholic chaplain Dr. Hugh Halton. The chaplain criticised the university's 'abusive liberalism' and Stace was the first of those singled out for censure. Halton stated that 'Stace is enthroning the devil' and that he was 'professionally incompetent', while his philosophy was described as a 'metaphysical mambo'. The Princeton president Dr. Robert F. Goheen stripped Dr. Halton of his title, an action which was supported by Jacques Maritain, the noted Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian and former Princeton professor.^[16]

Stace continued to engage with the public until the end of his career. Two of his final books, Religion and the Modern Mind (1952) and The Teachings of the Mystics (1960) were written for the general reader. He gave lectures at various university campuses around the United States, many of which were included in Man Against Darkness and other essays (1967).

Philosophy of Religion and Mysticism

It is in the philosophy of mysticism that Stace is both important and influential, and his thought is at its most original. He has been described as "one of the pioneers in the philosophical study of mysticism", as someone who laid out and offered solutions to the major issues in the study of the subject, and created an important phenomenological classification of mystical experience.^[8][17] Stace is seen as an important representative of the perennial philosophy (also known as the perennialism) that sees a universal core to religious feelings.^[18][19] However, although he is seen by many scholars as an important thinker to acknowledge, he is also one to dispute.^{[8][note 1]}

Stace’s philosophy of mysticism grew out of his earlier empiricist epistemology, although this is something many critics of his position fail to appreciate.^[8] The concept of the ‘given’, commonly used in phenomenalism to understand the nature of experience, is crucial to both his earlier epistemology and his later analysis. For Stace it lies at the basis of our knowledge of the external world and of ourselves. The given has an important epistemological function because it possesses the properties of certainty (infallibility, incorrigibility, indubitability), and it provides the ultimate justification for all forms of human knowledge. Stace’s Theory of Knowledge and Existence (1932) explains that knowledge arises from the process of interpretation of the given, although he writes that it is not easy to distinguish between the given and interpretation of it. For Overall, the ‘pure experience’ or ‘sensation’ he refers to in Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) is the same as the given that he had been writing about earlier.

The 1952 books

In 1952 Stace published three books about religion. Each examined the struggle between the religious worldview and those of science and of naturalism, which he had begun to explore in his essays Man Against Darkness and The Need for a Secular Ethic in the 1940s. Religion and the Modern Mind is divided into three sections, the first of these looks at the medieval "world-picture" which Stace characterises as marked by a religious, moral and purposeful view of existence. The second section looks at the modern world, which is characterised by the rise of science and naturalism (although Stace denies that the latter logically follows from the former), and the Romantic reaction to this. The final section looks specifically at religion and morality in the modern world. Stace examines religious truth and its expression, and concludes that the latter necessarily takes symbolic form in much the same way as he does in Time and Eternity. He also roots morality in both utilitarian considerations and in mysticism, which together fuse into "a single homogeneous set of ideal ends".^[23]

The Gate of Silence is a 50-page poetic meditation on the religion and naturalism in which Stace expounds "the doctrine of the flatness of the world",^[24] which is a world that is void of meaning, purpose and value, in which "the hogwash of spirituality"^[25] will provide no solace. In his prefatory note Stace explains that he wrote the book four years previously and that it "records the phase of intellectual and emotional experience through which the writer was passing at the time."^[26]

Stace called Time and Eternity a "defence of religion"^[27] that also seeks to investigate how God can be both being and non-being. He roots the book in the ancient religious insight that "all religious thought and speech are through and through symbolic".^[27] Addressing the apparent inconsistency between the book and the naturalism of Man Against Darkness, he maintains that he does not withdraw his naturalism by "a jot or a tittle",^[27] but rather seeks "to add to it that other half of the truth which I now think naturalism misses."^[27] In addition to the symbolic nature of all religious expression, the book proposes the existence of two realms of being, time and eternity, which intersect but do not contradict each other. According to the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, many consider this to be his most profound work.^[28]

The 1960 books

Stace published his two final books on religion in 1960. The Teachings of the Mystics(1960) was written for the general rather than academic reader. The book sets out a simplified version of his philosophy of religion found in Mysticism and Philosophy, and gives examples from writings of mystics (and occasionally from the scriptures of the world’s principal religions) that illustrate his idea that mysticism is everywhere "the apprehension of an ultimate nonsensuous unity in all things".^[29]

Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) is generally regarded both as Stace’s key work and one that is the "standard point of departure"^[30] in the critical study of mysticism. In it Stace explains that he writes as a philosopher, empiricist and analyst rather than mystic,^[31] and that mystical experience can and should be distinguished from its interpretation.^[32] He makes a distinctinction between extrovertive and introvertive mystical experience.^{[note 2]} In the former, the mystic perceives the unity in "the multiplicity of external material objects", while in the latter the mystic perceives the One within the depths of her consciousness "as the wholly naked One devoid of any plurality whatever".^[33] Stace also looks at whether mystical experience can be considered objective or subjective, and considers whether the relationship between God and the world should properly be considered pantheism, dualism or something else. He examines mysticism, logic and language, and concludes that the laws of logic do not apply to mysticism and that mystical experience is paradoxical but not ineffable (a development in his thought from Time and Eternity). Finally, Stace says he does not wish to be drawn into a battle of prejudices as to whether or not mysticism contributes to the moral good.

Stace summarised his thought on mysticism in two lectures given at Mount Holyoke College in 1961, entitled The Psychology of Mysticism and The Philosophy of Mysticism respectively.^[34] In the former he states that the psychology of mysticism must rely on introspection, because it the only method that is available to investigate the phenomenon, despite it being difficult to verify (unlike the inspection of physical events). Like William James, he distinguishes between ordinary and mystical consciousness; the former he describes as sensory-intellectual, while the latter contains neither sensory nor intellectual content. He then proceeds to layout the psychological qualities of mystical experience, which he roots in a passage from the Mandukya Upanishad:^{[35][note 3]}

1. Undifferentiated unity
2. Dissolution of the self
3. Feeling of revelation or veracity of the event
4. Feeling of blessedness and peace
5. Feeling of serenity
6. The transformation of the subject's moral character from evil towards good and nobility.

Stace characterised his philosophy of mysticism as the examination of whether mystical experience is subjective or objective, that is whether it is imagined or real. Again he turns to the Mandukya Upanishad for his definition of mysticism, and identifies the realisation the personal self is identical with the infinite Self at the core of the experience. Although there are three causes for this (loss of individuality; transcending space and time; feeling of peace and bliss) these are not logical reasons. Further he holds that the unanimity of mystical experience across cultures is not an argument for its objectivity, as illusions can be found in all peoples and cultures. That mystical experience is found in all cultures indicates that it is a part of human nature. Next Stace asks how we can say if something is objective. He defines the most important criteria for determining objectivity as ‘orderliness’ - or keeping in order with the laws of nature - rather than verifiability. Mystical experience is neither orderly nor disorderly, so cannot be classed as either subjective or objective. Stace terms this "transsubjective" (because the notions of subjective and objective do not apply to the infinite).^[39]

Influence

Stace's schema of mystical experience formed the basis for the most commonly cited scale to measure reports of mystical experience, Hoods Mysticism-scale.^[40]

Criticism

Although Stace's work on mysticism received a positive response, it has also been criticised in the 1970s and 1980s, for its lack of methodological rigour and its perennialist pre-assumptions.^{[41][42][43][44][web 1]} Major criticism came from Steven T. Katz in his influential series of publications on mysticism and philosophy,^{[note 4]} and from Wayne Proudfoot in his Religious experience (1985).^[45]

As early as 1961 the Times Literary Supplement was critical of Stace's scholarship:

Professor Stace seems to have no knowledge of any Indian language and his examples are drawn from what is most monistic in the Upanishads and other sacred writings, usually in a very free translation not notable for its accuracy or for its lack of bias.^{[46][note 5]}

Moore (1973) gives an overview of criticisms of Stace. He notes that the positing of a "phenomenological identity in mystical experiences" is problematic, which leads to either non-descriptive statements, or to value-laden statements on mystical experiences. Moore doubts whether Stace phenomenology of mystical experience is sufficient.^[47] Moore notes that Stace's quotations from mystical writings are brief, "often second-hand," and omitting the contexts of these quotations.^[47] Stace's list of characteristics hardly represents the broad variety of mystical experiences described by mystics.^[47] His "unitary consciousness" is only one characteristic, and not necessarily connected to illuminating insight.^{[48][note 6]} According to Moore, Stace also thinks too lightly about the relation between experience and language, supposing that descriptions are phenomenologically straightforward and reliable.^[49] Stace is also normative in his preference for monistic mysticism and his rejection of theistic mysticism.^{[49][note 7]} Moore concludes by noting that Stace fails to understand the difference between phenomenology and metaphysics, and that his writings don't provide solutions to the philosophical problems which mystical claims raise.^[49]

Masson & Masson (1976) note that Stace starts with a "buried premise," namely that mysticism can provide truths about the world which cannot be obtained with science or logical thinking.^[52] According to Masson & Masson, this premise makes Stace naive in his approach, and which is not accord with his self-presentation as an objective and empirical philosopher.^[52] According to Masson & Masson, Stace fails in presenting mystical experiences as an objective source of information. They question Stace's exclusion of trances and other phenomena from his investigations, noting that such phenomena are an essential part of many descriptions of mystical experiences.^[53] They give the example of Ramakrishna, a 19th century Indian mystic, who is presented without a critical consideration of the sources.^[51] They further note that Ramakrishna and delusions, a fact which they deem problematic for the use of Ramakrishna as a prime example of mystical consciousness.^{[54][note 8]} They further note that Stace seems to be unaware of the major relevant scholarly studies on mysticism at the time of his writings.^[55] According to Masson & Masson, Stace's criteria for inclusion and exclusion of cases are based on personal preferences,^[56] and "his work reads more like a theological text than a philosophical one."^[57]

According to Katz (1978), Stace's typology is "too reductive and inflexible," reducing the complexities and varieties of mystical experience into "improper categories."^[58] According to Katz, Stace does not notice he difference between experience and interpretation, but fails to notice the epistemological issues involved in recognizing such experiences as "mystical,"^[59] and the even more fundamental issue of which conceptual framework precedes and shapes these experiences.^[60] Katz further notes that Stace supposes that similarities in descriptive language also implies a similarity in experience, an assumption which Katz rejects.^[61] According to Katz, close examination of the descriptions and their contexts reveals that those experiences are not identical.^[62] Katz further notes that Stace held one specific mystical tradition to be superior and normative,^[63] whereas Katz rejects reductionist notions and leaves God as God, and Nirvana as Nirvana.^[64]

In defense of Stace, Hood (2001) cites Forman, who argues that introverted mysticism is correctly conceptualized as a common core, since it lacks all content, and is the correct basis for a perennial philosophy.^{[65][note 9]} Hood notes that Stace's work is a conceptual approach, based on textual studies.^[45] He posits his own work as a parallel approach, based on an empirical approach, thereby placing the conceptual claims in an empirical framework,^[66] assuming that Stace is correct in his approach.^[67] Jacob van Belzen (2010) criticized Hood, noting that Hood validated the existence of a common core in mystical experiences, but based on a conceptual framework which presupposes the existence of such a common core:

[T]he instrument used to verify Stace's conceptualization of Stace is not independent of Stace, but based on him."^[44]

Belzen also notes that religion does not stand on its own, but is embedded in a cultural context, and this should be taken into account.^[68] To this criticism Hood et al. answer that universalistic tendencies in religious research "are rooted first in inductive generalizations from cross-cultural consideration of either faith or mysticism,"^[69] stating that Stace sought out texts which he recognized as an expression of mystical expression, from which he created his universal core. Hood therefor concludes that Belzen "is incorrect when he claims that items were presupposed."^{[69][note 10]}

Shear (2011) notes that Stace regarded extroverted mysticism to be a less complete form of mysticism, but was puzzled by the fact that there are far more descriptions of introverted mysticism than of extroverted mysticism.^[72] Shear proposes a developmental sequence of three higher states of consciousness:^[73]

1. the recognition of pure consciousness/emptiness
2. the stable presence of this pure consciousness/emptiness throughout all activity
3. the recognition of this pure consciousness/emptiness as the ground of all being

According to Shear, HS1 corresponds to Stace's introverted mysticism, whereas HS3 corresponds to Stace's extroverted mysticism, and is actually the more developed form of mysticism, in contrast to what Stace supposed.^[72]

Works

• A Critical History of Greek Philosophy (1920) Online text
• The Philosophy of Hegel: A systematic exposition (1924) Online text
• The Meaning of Beauty (1929)
• The Theory of Knowledge and Existence (1932)
• The Concept of Morals (1937)Stace, Walter T. (1937, Reprinted 1975 by permission of MacMillan Publishing Co. Inc., Also reprinted January 1990 by Peter Smith Publisher Inc). The Concept of Morals. New York: The MacMillan Company; and also reprinted by Peter Smith Publisher Inc, January 1990. p. 136. ISBN 0-8446-2990-1.  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• The Nature of the World. An Essay in Phenomenalist Metaphysics (1940)
• The Destiny of Western Man (1942)^[74]
• Religion and the modern mind (1952)
• Time and Eternity (1952)
• Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) Full text online
• Teachings of the Mystics (1960)
• Man against darkness, and other essays (1967)

See also

• William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience
• Richard Maurice Bucke and Cosmic Consciousness
• Aldous Huxley and The Perennial Philosophy
• Nondualism

Explanatory notes

References

Sources

Printed sources

Web-sources

Further reading

• Mohammad Fanaei Nematsara, Walter Stace's philosophy of mysticism: a critical analysis

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Walter Terence Stace

• Short biography at Princeton University
• Slide show on some of Stace's ideas
• Introductory chapter, The Teachings of the Mystics
• Photograph of Walter Stace at LIFE, 12 August 1955
• Works by Walter Terence Stace at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Walter Terence Stace at Internet Archive