Neither/Nor

a philosophy that shows the way to find your way

I’m Bryan Kam, and I’m providing the theory for Liminal Learning’s practice.

Neither/Nor is a work of original philosophy and a framework for personal and collective flourishing. It is both a book which explains this approach, as well as a set of practical tools to help individuals and small groups flourish.

In Neither/Nor, I propose that we encounter our world in two ways: through concepts (reason) and through perception (experience). Reason means learning through abstraction, language, mathematics, and so on — the cleanliness of concepts; experience means learning from life itself — the messiness of living life. Though distinct, these two ways are inseparable: we can’t learn concepts without perceiving, nor can we experience life without preconceptions. This is not a new distinction, but a very ancient one, and I will trace the many ways the two appear, with many names and guises in the history of philosophy and science.

My core claim in Neither/Nor is that understanding and investigating each of these ways of knowing distinctly can provide us with better ways of navigating life.

Neither pure reason nor pure experience alone will allow us to change ourselves or the world we live in. Instead, by approaching each way of knowing one at a time, we can learn what each feels like. By doing this we can then combine them again, and learn to navigate life by using both in dynamic tension. This is not a simple one-off balancing act, like balancing a scale, but like the balance of an organism in motion, shifting in relation to the environment and its goals.

I will show this to be a skill which can be taught, learned, and practiced. In Neither/Nor I provide the theoretical background, through an adventurous tracing of how these two ways manifest in the long history of philosophy, as well as a practical and exciting set of tools for experimenting in the world.

Knowing when to use language, and when to experiment, is at the heart of Neither/Nor. To navigate life well, one must cultivate flexibility in moving between reason and experience. This requires developing self-awareness, tolerance for uncertainty, and the courage to switch between the two, even when doing so feels risky or counterintuitive. A central maxim: if you wish to end in reason, start with experience, and vice versa.

The two modes entail different ways of learning. The first involves concepts (learning about something), and it is learned from other people or from books, and is typically taken on trust from skilled practitioners. The second involves action (learning how to do something), and it requires trial and error, experimentation, variation and selection. Both methods of learning inform each other.

Neither theory nor practice is "better"; both are required, and Neither/Nor is about learning how and when to switch between the two to solve real-world problems. When one can skillfully navigate between these, a third mode of learning, related to wisdom emerges (learning how best to live).

Finally, Neither/Nor shows how all conceptual frameworks — from capitalism to democracy to physics — arise out of human sociability and social concerns. All knowledge develops within groups of people living in particular cultures in particular historical periods in time. This means that changing our ways of knowing is a social practice that requires close conversation, sharing experiences and providing critical feedback.

Theoretical knowledge is indispensable, but it is typically over-emphasized in our culture and most young people have never been taught how to question the knowledge they’ve been handed down by society, media, and school systems. Neither/Nor redresses this imbalance by placing its emphasis on experience as essential for the pursuit of meaning, purpose, and knowledge about the world. Liminal Learning applies specific Neither/Nor practices that help youth question conceptual frameworks and engage in trial-and -error experimentation, in collective contexts, alongside peers and mentors doing likewise.

Neither/Nor provides the theory. Liminal Learning is where we will put that theory into practice, with exercises and content in Liminal Learning’s Quests and Heists. And this practice will in turn inform the evolution and shape the final form of the book.

If you’d like to learn more about Neither/Nor, you can start here to listen to our podcasts on the subject, or subscribe for updates here.

I look forward to meeting you,

Bryan