Dante on Idealism. Or Dante in dialogue with Bernardo Kastrup and others

This is a contribution to recent dialogues on idealism between
Bernardo Kastrup, John Vervaeke, Matt Segall, Philip Goff and
others, including myself.


I draw particularly on:


- Dante's account and analysis of his journey to the heart of
consciousness in all its fullness - source and manifestation - in
the Divine Comedy


- how minds as we know them not only dissociate but also
project and introject, and what meaning this might have for
Bernardo's thesis


- trinitarian understandings of oneness, and the dynamics of
creation.


I start with some concerns that I have with Bernardo's account
of analytic idealism, much as I value all that he does. They
focus on his sense of mind at large, or God, and his use of the
phenomenon of dissociation.


I'm struck that Dante's discovery of his true nature in God
goes hand in hand with the increase of his individuality and
personhood. Also, he not only experiences dissociation, or a
sense of separateness, but projection and introjection - two
further mechanisms that minds deploy, which I think are key.


This takes me to trinitarian understandings of oneness, in its
eternal and infinite form. In divine life, kenosis is ecstasis;
giving is receiving; knowing and unknowing are a mutual
unfolding; longing is satisfaction; expansion is the expression
of what already is. If the meaning of our life is the discovery
of our nature in theosis, that might add to the model.


Beatrice conveys this movement to Dante, overcoming his
separateness by discerning his projections, and offering them
back to him as introjections of the truth of himself, others and
God.


Finally, I raise questions of suffering, the nature of life,
and why we experience separateness at all, before the discussion
concludes with the hadith beloved by Sufis, another idealist
expression of genius:  


“I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I
created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew
Me.”