Looking at The Irreducible: David Bentley Hart's First Chapter in All Things Are Full of Gods 2.0

David Bentley Hart's first chapter in All Things Are Full of Gods presents a compelling argument through a Platonic dialogue that contrasts two opposing worldviews: subjective human experience and mechanistic naturalism. The characters Psyche and Hephaestus embody these differing perspectives—Psyche represents the richness of intentional, subjective experience, while Hephaestus champions the reductionist outlook of naturalism.

The chapter begins with Psyche trying to engage her husband, Eros, in a discussion about her thoughts while picking a rose from the garden. Reflecting on her intentional choice—to pluck or not to pluck—Psyche questions whether a purely mechanistic, naturalistic account of reality can truly explain such an act of intentionality. She wonders if such a decision can be reduced to material processes alone. At this point, Hephaestus steps in as Psyche's foil, defending the naturalist view that "mind is merely a mechanical function or emergent property of the neural machinery" and that "what we arbitrarily single out as meriting the name 'life' is merely a functional arrangement of elements that in themselves aren't alive" (21).

Psyche responds by stating, "A strictly quantitative method can't illuminate a strictly qualitative phenomenon like consciousness, and a strictly third-person method can't illuminate a strictly first-person experience" (23). This emphasizes the fundamental divide between the first-person perspective of consciousness and the third-person perspective of naturalistic science. To truly understand consciousness, we need more than detached observation—we need approaches that respect and honor the subjective richness of experience.

This divide between subjective richness and objective reduction forms the basis of Hart's broader critique of naturalistic science. By relying solely on third-person methods, naturalism inherently excludes essential aspects of consciousness, resulting in an incomplete and impoverished understanding of subjective experience.

The Qualitative Abyss

This is why Psyche speaks of a "qualitative abyss" between the objective and subjective dimensions of reality (25). This term underscores how naturalism—attempting to quantify and describe reality in detached terms—fails to account for the lived, vibrant qualities of conscious experience. By isolating variables and reducing phenomena to mechanical laws, naturalism overlooks the richness and depth of our lived experience. For instance, while we perceive color as vivid and immediate, naturalism reduces it to mere wavelengths of light, missing the essence of the experience—its qualitative fullness. Similarly, when moving from the example of color to music, we can see how naturalism falls short in capturing the emotional depth of subjective experience.

Consider, for example, the experience of listening to music. Naturalism might describe it in terms of sound waves, frequencies, and neurological responses, but it cannot capture the emotional resonance, beauty, or profound meaning that music evokes in us. This gap reveals the limitations of a purely mechanistic worldview in capturing the depth of our lived experience. Just as with the perception of color, the emotional resonance and beauty we perceive in music are part of the qualitative aspects of consciousness that naturalism struggles to explain. Just as naturalism reduces color to wavelengths of light, it reduces music to mere physical properties, missing the essence of what makes the experience meaningful. Such a reductionist view fosters a sense of alienation, reducing the vivid world we interact with to mere particles in motion, devoid of intrinsic meaning or presence.

Hart uses the term "qualitative abyss" to capture this profound gap between subjective experience and objective description—a divide that naturalistic explanations simply cannot bridge. When we reduce qualities to mere quantities, we overlook the depth, richness, and meaning of our experience, exposing the limitations of a worldview that tries to explain away the essence of consciousness. This reduction, Hart argues, is a fundamental category error, as it attempts to use methods designed for physical phenomena to illuminate something qualitatively different—first-person, lived experience.

Bridging the Abyss

The qualitative dimensions of lived experience—those aspects that make reality vibrant and meaningful—cannot be adequately captured by reducing everything to quantitative measurements. Hart sees this as a fundamental limitation of the naturalist perspective. The "qualitative abyss" represents the chasm between a world imbued with meaning and a purely mechanical, lifeless construct—a reality stripped of its essential qualities.

Psyche proposes that the richness of human experience—the colors we see, the beauty we encounter, the moral truths we recognize—are not mere illusions or byproducts of a mechanistic universe but are reflective of a deeper, profound reality. They are essential aspects of creation as it truly is, rich with meaning and purpose. Psyche's argument is that life itself is more than the effect of material forces; it is a kind of intentional intelligence pervading all things. Consciousness, intentionality, and mental unity are not physical phenomena or emergent products of material forces but instead belong to a reality more basic than the physical order; in fact, the foundation of all reality is spiritual, not merely material (18-19). This, according to Hart, is what makes the mechanistic view of nature incoherent and inadequate for understanding the full scope of empirical evidence.

To bridge this abyss, Hart urges us to move beyond the limitations of naturalism and adopt a more holistic understanding of reality—one that acknowledges the deeper dimensions of existence. The qualities we experience are not anomalies to be explained away; they are windows into a deeper truth. By recognizing the underlying fullness of reality, we can bridge the gap between our first-person experiences and the third-person descriptions offered by science.

Hart's critique invites us to reevaluate our understanding of reality—not as a lifeless collection of particles but as a vibrant, meaningful creation. The qualitative abyss becomes an invitation to look beyond the surface and recognize the deeper reality that imbues everything with life and meaning. He encourages us to draw on insights from pre-modern Vedantic and Neoplatonic philosophies to develop a more holistic understanding of reality—one that transcends the limitations of Cartesian dualism still embedded in much of modern science and philosophy. By doing so, we can embrace a worldview that acknowledges the interconnectedness of existence and ultimately bridge the divide between subjective and objective experiences. Perhaps more importantly, we can begin to see how our intentionality drives consciousness rather than our environment.