Levels of Being

Subration#

Subration is the mental process whereby one disvalues some previously appraised object or content of consciousness because of its being contradicted by a new experience. For the subject, to subrate means to undergo an experience which radically changes one's judgement about something. An object/content of consciousness is subrated or is subratable when it is, or canbe, so disvaluated, denied, or contradicted by another experience.

What is the mental process through which men generate their ontologies, their ordering of experience in terms of the concept of “being”? How can this process be employed as a criterion for the making of distinctions between “orders of being”? According to Advaita, subration is uniquely qualified to serve as a criterion for the making of ontological distincions. When something is subrated, one believes it to have a lesser degree or kind of “reality” than that which takes its place.

There are, accodring to Advaita, three fundamental modes of being. Reality, Appearance, and Unreality. These three fundamental modes are incommensurable, they are qualitatively different in kind. Thus, they constitute levels of being between which reason is impotent to establish causal relations.

Reality#

Reality is that which cannot be subrated by any other experience. We are by the conditions of our mental being compelled to ascribe “Reality” to that which cannot in fact and in principle be disvalued, denied, or contradicted by anything else; otherwise Reality would cease to perform any useful philosophical function (unless one introduces “degrees” of reality as they are determined by subration which is according to Advaita tend to confound rather than to clarify certain differences in kind that emerge from the application of the criterion of subration).

The only experience, or state of being, whose content cannot be subrated in fact an in principle by any other experience - which no other experience can conceivably contradict - is the experience of pure spiritual identity. Namely, the expreience wherein the separation of self and non-self, of ego and world, is transcended, and pure oneness alone remains. This is the experience celebrated by the Advaitin as one of perfect insights, bliss, and power.

What kind of experience could conceivably subrate unqualified identitty, the experience of absolute value wherein the uniqeu oneness of being stands forth as the sole content of consciousness?

Subration requires the presence of an object or content of consciousness that can be contradicted by other experience. Reality as non-dual, in terms of a phenomenology of experience as well as by definition, denies the possibility of there being some other “object” that could replace it. The Advaitin's Reality cannot be denied bay anything drawn from lower orders of experience. By its nature as oneness, no distinction can be applied to it, and all ordinary valuations, which presuppose a distinction between subject and object, must be suspended when confronting it. Thus by the criterion of subration, Reality is that which is when the subject/object situation is transcended, and the Real is that which is the content of non-dual spiritual experience. The timeless, unconditioned, undifferentiated oneness of being; the Real is thus (nirguna) Brahman.

Apperance#

This is that which can be subrated by other experience.

There are three types of “existents” that need to be distinguished within the domain of Appearance. Appearance comprises hat about which doubts can arise. It is that which is or in principle can be a datum of experience within the subject/object situation. The Apparent is that which is the content of sense-mental experience. It is the differentiated multiplicity of being.

1. The “real existent" that which comprises those contents of experience that can be subrated only by Reality.
   1. For example, among “existential relations”, a relational experience that is founded on the distinction between self and non-self. The non-self taken to be God or another person to whom one offers oneself in loving relation. This relational experience can be subrated by Reality, by and experience that transcends the dualistic distinctions upon which that relation is founded.
   2. Among “particular objects”, those objects that by the manner in which they were brought into being and are resonded to, “participate” in Reality and at the same time retain a distinctive nature of their own. E.g. a work of art, is subratable only through the realization that no work of art is comparable o the splendor of Reality; that no work of art can fully grasp that splendor or transmit it to others.
   3. Among “concepts”, those logical relations, such as the law of contradiction, that have a necessary, indispensable function in organizing and making possible propositional truth. These concepts by definition cannot be denied or contradicted by other sense-mental experience.
2. The “existent”, comprising those contents of experience that can be subrated by Reality or by the real existent.
   1. Among “existential relations”, those relational experiences such as casual encounters with other persons in which the merely conventional or the purely formal predominates. These experiences can be subrated by the more fulfuilling experiences that involve relations between persons as inviolable, subjective centers, as persons with intrinsic and not simply instrumental worth.
   2. Among “particualr objects”, any particular qua paricular, any object which is taken as an independent reality. These objects are subrated by the real existent the moment one realizes and affirms the interdependence and interpenetration of all particulars. In short, the particular qua particular is subrated when the relations that the particular has to things and to processes that are external to it become the content of experience. (Here, one can see the influence of Madhyamikal; dependent arising)
   3. Among “concepts”, those logical relations such as might be employed in a pureply formal logistic system. Logical relations that lack necessity and that function entirely as analaytic statements are subrated by those relation that do, in mental experience, have necessity (e.g. the law of contradiction). (Here the statement is extraordinary bad… rather, “conventional” relations, instead of “formal” relations)
3. The “illusory existent”. It comprises those contents of experience that can be subrated by all other types of experience. Hallucinations, pure fancies, dreams, erroneous sense-perceptions, and the likes. They lack empirical truth.

Unreality#

Unreality is that which neither can nor cannot be subrated by other experience. An “object” is unreal when because of its self-contradictoriness it cannot  appear as a datum of experience.

The illusory existent is that which in fact does not have an objective counterpart, and the Unreal is that which in principle cannot have an objective counterpart. Further, the illusory existent always points to an empirically real existent, whereas the Unreal cannot point to anything.

Unreality is taht which can never be a content of experience. By the criterion of subration, the Unreal is non-being.

Levels of Being#

The hierarchical ontology of Reality, Appearnce, Unreality, holds only from the standpoint of Appearance. From the standpoint of Reality, no other kinds of being are present that can be distinguised. There is no distinction beteween Appearance and Unreality, or between Itself and anything else. From the standpoint of Reality there is and can be only Reality. The distinctions are themselves subratable and hence are confined to Appearance.