We have Quarterly Meeting Carlisle this weekend. I came across this passage recently that made me think of John Darnell, a beloved Friend from Frederick, who gave practically the same message about the blind men and the elephant at multiple Quarterly gatherings. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, 5 blind men are exploring an elephant by touch. One is exploring the trunk, another an ear, a third the tail, and the fourth a leg, a fifth the belly. The point of the story is that there is a truth to what each of them is experiencing, even though it is different from one another; and respecting each other’s experience leads to a truer picture of an elephant. The philosopher Eugene Gendlin has a rebuttal to that story.
“The problem cannot be solved along the lines of the famous story of five blind men
examining an elephant from different sides. They report different findings depending on
what part of the elephant they touch. That is not much of a problem, because the story
assumes an elephant. If the world ( events, experience, let us put “…..” to indicate the
many quite different words that might be used here) consisted of distinct things like
elephants, the problem would not be difficult. One could have many attitudes, theories,
and findings about “the same thing,” and eventually reconcile them when the thing
becomes more wholly known. But, as Austin put it, things don’t come in “handy
denotative packages.” The thing does not remain the same.”
In short, how do we know we are describing the same “thing”?