On Aspiration

In Dialogue with the Cosmic Creature

Every so often – if we are lucky – we undergo experiences that open us up to wider dimensions of reality, and which alter the trajectory of our personal histories.  Such experiences have the potential to make us invincible.  By disrupting and catalyzing the archetypal mythemes that compose our worldview, instigating new flows of psychic narrative, we participate in that creative Other that secretly guides the ebb and flow of material events, and of which we are but one of its manifestations.

Such experiences lay bare a stratum of consciousness that at once both transcends and interpenetrates mundane forms of conscious experience, and thus has been conceived as the inner soul of material phenomenon, an animus mundi, or psychic mechanism of a cosmic creature, whose mode of communication appears in some respect essentially archetypal, imagistic and symbolic.

It is this wider field of consciousness – in which material events appear to be embedded – that our aspirational pursuits hook into in order to actualize the latent potentials of our being.  If we begin to think of material phenomenon as ensouled, as expressing an interior symbolic dimension of consciousness of which we can come into communication with, then we can begin to conceive of the phenomenal properties of our conscious experience as intrinsically meaningful and expressive.

In some sense, we are in dialogue with the cosmic creature we refer to as Cosmos.  Aspiration, I want to suggest, is one way in which we tap into the vitality of a living cosmos in order to bring about the future state or self to which we aspire.

Theorizing Aspiration

Agnes Callard, in her book, Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming argues that the phenomenon of aspiration presents us with a distinctive form of rational agency by which we learn to grasp and live by values that we do not currently fully grasp, values that we aspire to grasp and manifest so that we might become the person we will to become.   Hers is the first attempt I know of to theorize aspiration in the anglophone philosophical tradition; and, while Callard’s theory of aspiration is, frankly, quite brilliant, it suffers, not so much from being wrong, but from being half right.

The concept of aspiration is ubiquitous in various forms of esotericism and mysticism, indicated by the common designation of such domains of activity as a “Path” or “Way”.  What the target of this aspiration is in such contexts is  notoriously difficult to circumscribe in discursive thought, and a litany of descriptors are often marshaled forward in an attempt to signify it.

What these descriptors have in common, however, is a fundamental assumption: that value and meaning are in some sense intrinsic properties of the cosmos in which such pursuits play out.  More generally we might say that this assumption entails that consciousness is a fundamental constituent of reality.  This metaphysics–with its pulsing and vital teleological currents–implies a praxis: to understand, participate in, and embody the dynamic interplay of self and cosmos.

When aspiration is transposed into this context, a new dimension of the phenomenon is revealed, that the aspirant’s activity is nested within a domain of consciousness that has traditionally been the site of extreme religious experience.  It is this domain of consciousness–accessed via the symbolic, the visionary and the intuitive–that the aspirant hooks into in order to move themselves toward the future state or self they aspire to become. [Note: an epistemology of the imaginal is needed].

The Agency of Becoming

To begin, aspiration is the hope or ambition of achieving something of positive value; and, aspirational pursuits take shape in myriad forms: aspirations toward relationships or careers; creative, intellectual and spiritual aspirations, etc.  All these cases, however, share a common feature.  They all involve a transformation from a current state to the future state the aspiration is targeting.

The etymology of the word “aspiration” also sheds some interesting light. In physiological terms, aspiration is the action of drawing breath; and, in phonetics, the action of pronouncing a sound with exhalation of breath.  It derives from the Latin aspirare “to breath or blow upon” and eventually took on the connotation of “to be favorable to, to assist, to climb up to, to endeavor to obtain, to reach to, to seek to reach, to infuse”.  It might be contended then that one way to conceive aspiration is as the breath or spirit (pneuma) that infuses our projects of transformation, the spirit that compels us to become who we are.

For Callard, aspiration is essentially a double phenomenon.  On the one hand, one’s current set of psychological dispositions cause the future state or self being aspired to, to come about.  So far so good.  But a question then arises: how does one know what to aspire to if they are not yet that thing?  If they really know what they are aspiring to, then there is no need to aspire to it, they already have it within grasp; but, if they don’t know what to aspire to, then they have no reason to aspire to it, and thus, no motivation to undertake the transformational project necessary to achieve it.  This give rise to something of a paradox: either aspiration is unnecessary or it is impossible.

Take for instance a person who aspires to become a lover of classical music.  They think, presumably, that being that kind of person is good.  They imagine, say, what it would be like to be enraptured by a Beethoven symphony, and think “I’d like to be that kind of person”.  Of course, they are not (yet) that kind of person, and the aspirant recognizes this deficiency, often painfully.

Such a person may attempt to remedy this by taking a course in musical appreciation.  But how do they take this first step?  How do they know that becoming such a person is worthwhile?  If they are not that type of person, a person who deeply appreciates classical music, then how do they know that they ought to aspire to be that kind of person?  That being that kind of person would be a good thing?

Callard responds to this problem by introducing a second dimension of aspirational pursuits.  The value of the future state or self being aspired to is grasped by the aspirant, only incompletely.  Although the aspirant does not have a full grasp of the value of the future state or self they aspire to, the form of that value is dimly, or implicitly, recognized by them, giving the aspirant just enough of a grasp to begin making their way toward that future state or self.  The value of this future state or self provides something of a teleological structure, a road map, of the activities that are necessary for actualizing it.  This for Callard, is a normative feature of aspirational pursuits.  Values can be vaguely grasped due to the normative sway they have over us.

The aspiring lover of music, dimly grasps the value of becoming such a person, even though they cannot tell you why.  But they have to put in years of dedication and hard work in order to actualize it.  Values are there to be grasped, but only the requisite actions will fully actualize them.

But for Callard, the value of the state or self one aspires to need not be secretly present in the aspirants unconscious or soul, there to be magically grasped in some liminal aether.  No spiritual pregnancy need occur; rather, values are just the types of things that are there for us to recognize and follow up with action.

The Call of Aspiration (Or, Phenomenological Depth Charge)

It is this second dimension of aspiration that Callard has half right.  When we transpose the phenomenon of aspiration into the context of esotericism and mysticism the value of the future state or self one aspires to is seen to be not merely a normative feature of rational agency; but rather, an intrinsic property of the field of consciousness the aspirant is embedded within.

Callard is right, aspiration is essentially a double phenomenon.  On the one hand, it is our current psychological dispositions that cause the future state or self to come about.  On the other hand, that future state or self gives form to our current condition, providing structure to the activities that will be necessary to manifest it; yet, this future state or self is more than a normative ideal, it is a feature of a deeper stratum of consciousness, an inner noetic dimension of being that at once both transcends and interpenetrates our current states, offering elusive glimpses from behind the veil of matter of the self or person we aspire to become.

Take for instance our aspiring lover of classical music.  She may have grasped the value of becoming such a person, and surely both her current psychological dispositions and the future self she aspires to play a necessary role in this.  But how has she grasped this value?  On the model I am proposing, she grasps this value because that value is an intrinsic property of the world she inhabits.  At some point that value made an appearance and struck her in such a way so as to change the course of her particular history.  Instead of thinking of values as things, however, it may be better to think of values as latent potentials in the self and world that afford actualization.

The value of the future state or self the would be lover of classical music aspires to is not so much the value of ‘being a lover of classical music’; but rather, the value of actualizing a latent potential of one’s being that is afforded by the particular structure of self and cosmos at a given time.  It is that latent potency which is lit up but the call of aspiration.

Imagine our aspirant as a young girl.  She does not yet appreciate the value of classical music.  But lets say that her mother does.  The mother plays music herself and the daughter is continually exposed to the reactions her mother has to experiencing such music.  The daughter in fact sees the effect that the music has on her mother, and in so doing grasps the value vicariously.  Something in the daughter is lit up by seeing her mother appreciate music in the characteristic way she does.

What is being activated in the daughter is the potential she has for embodying this value.  The value of the future state she aspires to is not so much the value of being a lover of classical music, but the value of actualizing a latent potential of her being.  It is that latent potential which is lit but the call of aspiration.  It is the value of the untapped potential of her future state manifesting in the present contours of her phenomenal experience.

A more satisfactory account of aspiration emerges when we adopt this assumption.  The aspirant grasps the value of the future state or self they aspire to because it is really there.  The cosmos teems with intelligence and meaning.  The value of the future self that one will become shines forth from a living cosmos, beckoning the aspirant to heed its call.