Sure. But what is the use of this? It's not as if understanding that things look differently from different perspectives is going to bring about world peace. — baker

:up: Jainism's Anekantavada.

Anekāntavāda (Hindi: अनेकान्तवाद, "many-sidedness") is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects. Anekantavada has also been interpreted to mean non-absolutism, "intellectual Ahimsa", religious pluralism, as well as a rejection of fanaticism that leads to terror attacks and mass violence. Some scholars state that modern revisionism has attempted to reinterpret anekantavada with religious tolerance, openmindedness and pluralism. — Wikipedia

Once you realize that disagreements, the seedbed of all violence, including wars, arise from looking at issues from only one side and not from all sides, including your enemy's your reason to take up arms will be gone. World Peace!

Right, Jains. People who make a point of eventually slowly dying of starvation.

Once you realize that disagreements, the seedbed of all violence, including wars, arise from looking at issues from only one side and not from all sides, including your enemy's your reason to take up arms will be gone. — TheMadFool

Your reason for taking up arms might then be gone, indeed, but not your enemy's.

Your reason for taking up arms might then be gone, indeed, but not your enemy's. — baker

That's because they haven't looked at our differences from all sides - anekantavada failure.

Right, Jains. People who make a point of eventually slowly dying of starvation. — baker

Any hard evidence for this?

Your reason for taking up arms might then be gone, indeed, but not your enemy's.
— baker

That's because they haven't looked at our differences from all sides - anekantavada failure. — TheMadFool

Why should they?? They are your enemies. Why should they care about seeing things the way you see them?

Right, Jains. People who make a point of eventually slowly dying of starvation.
— baker

Any hard evidence for this? — TheMadFool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallekhana#:~:text=It%20is%20the%20religious%20practice,all%20physical%20and%20mental%20activities.

I always thought of suicide as better than murder. I guess Sallekhana brings to the fore the dilemma that's been bothering me for ages: Die or Murder (innocent animals, people, plants to live). Some have made the right choice to my reckoning. I'm deeply privileged then to have met some Jains in my life.

Why should they?? They are your enemies. Why should they care about seeing things the way you see them? — baker

If they want the truth, they should care but,

Ok, I believe you but there are those who are not interested in the truth, or in justice. It (death) won't come swiftly. — Abu Hirawa (The Misfits)

I agree with you that real contradictions are impossible. If someone claims a contradiction as real, say p & ~p, all we have to do to resolve it is to say p from one angle, ~p from another angle but not the case that p & ~p from the same angle. The p & ~p was only an apparent contradiction. — TheMadFool

Ok.

Literally the article says:

An object can be potentially F and potentially not F, but it cannot be actually F and actually not F at the same time. — javi2541997

It seems more natural to relate "at the same time" to "be" rather than to "object":

An object can be potentially F and potentially not F, but it cannot be actually F and actually not F at the same time.

If they want the truth, they should care but, — TheMadFool

While all along, you get to be the arbiter of truth, eh?

While all along, you get to be the arbiter of truth, eh? — baker

Where did you get that from? Anekantavada takes into account all parties involved, favoring none over the other. My views are the same as anyone elses, including yours.

However, that we disagree, a contradiction threatening to rear its ugly head unless it hasn't already, suggests a higher truth who's projections are the two of us. Don't you wanna what that truth is? I want to.

It seems more natural to relate "at the same time" to "be" rather than to "object": — litewave

But the object is the real subject of this Aristotle axiom. The act of potentially transforme is experienced by the object itself. The verb “to be” is just intrinsic.

While all along, you get to be the arbiter of truth, eh?
— baker

Where did you get that from? — TheMadFool

Your words.

Anekantavada takes into account all parties involved, favoring none over the other. My views are the same as anyone elses, including yours.

That is your view. Surely you're aware that other people don't think this way. It's safe to say that most people don't believe that your views are the same as theirs, and certainly not as relevant as theirs.

However, that we disagree, a contradiction threatening to rear its ugly head unless it hasn't already, suggests a higher truth who's projections are the two of us. Don't you wanna what that truth is? I want to.

Underneath your optimism, idealism, egalitarianism burns a fire of supremacism. :blush:

Your words.

Anekantavada takes into account all parties involved, favoring none over the other. My views are the same as anyone elses, including yours.
That is your view. Surely you're aware that other people don't think this way. It's safe to say that most people don't believe that your views are the same as theirs, and certainly not as relevant as theirs. — baker

You've, I'm afraid, missed the point of anekantavada which is to point out that there are no real contradictions but only apparent contradictions. Your whole argument is predicated on the former. In true anekantavada spirit, my response would be you're right but, for better or worse, I'm not wrong. Let's just leave it at that. Feel free to disagree though.

Underneath your optimism, idealism, egalitarianism burns a fire of supremacism — baker

From a certain perspective that could be true and I feel sorry that I could be read that way:

After all your speeches and posturing you're nothing but a common thief. — (Die Hard)

All I can say is I'm just an African ape, like Richard Dawkins takes great pains to point out when referring to h. sapiens, trying to make sense of faer world.

It appears that the matter is more complex than I thought. When is it not? Anyway, there's a right perspective i.e. though everyone is entitled to an opinion, we can still get to what might be called an objective truth (see addendum 2 in my OP) which no one in faer right mind can/would deny. This however doesn't imply that two parties in a dispute, philosophical or otherwise, are wrong though. All it means is the real (?), the whole truth is more intricate, thus more beautiful even if also exasperating, than we imagine it to be.

Ha ha! This reminds me of something that happened in a freshman philosophy class. The lecturer was a graduate student, and had commented that a square circle was something impossible. I thought this to be wrong, so proceeded to draw a rounded square. I commented that I didn't think it was impossible and showed them the picture. They just got mad and dismissed it.

Later I realized that we can make up whatever words we want from our personal or societal context to represent reality. Words are shorthand for reality, and to discuss contradiction in terms, we must first understand the full meaning of reality behind the words. For example, my "rounded squared" could be labeled as a "Square circle" if I and others around me thought that was an acceptable definition. But that is all it would be, a squarish figure that was rounded.

In the case of the philosophical square circle, we are looking at the geometric proved definitions of 2D objects. When the idea of a "square circle" is presented, its really shorthand for, "A geometrically proven and defined 2D object that is both a square and a circle at the same time." Of course that cannot exist.

Now in your case of perspective, you're introducing a 3D object. But that does not fit the original definition's tie to reality, that it is only a 2D object. Could we call your 3D object's perspective a "square circle"? Sure, we can call anything, anything within a context. But is that the same as the context of the philosophical square circle argument in 2D geometry? No.

You've, I'm afraid, missed the point of anekantavada which is to point out that there are no real contradictions but only apparent contradictions. Your whole argument is predicated on the former. In true anekantavada spirit, my response would be you're right but, for better or worse, I'm not wrong. Let's just leave it at that. Feel free to disagree though. — TheMadFool

No. What you're failing to acknowledge is that in your quuest for egalitarianism, you're bulldozing over the opposition, or at least trying to do so.

Underneath your optimism, idealism, egalitarianism burns a fire of supremacism
— baker

From a certain perspective that could be true and I feel sorry that I could be read that way:

After all your speeches and posturing you're nothing but a common thief.
— (Die Hard)

All I can say is I'm just an African ape, like Richard Dawkins takes great pains to point out when referring to h. sapiens, trying to make sense of faer world.

Hey, false humility makes for false pride!

Anyway, there's a right perspective i.e. though everyone is entitled to an opinion, we can still get to what might be called an objective truth (see addendum 2 in my OP) which no one in faer right mind can/would deny. This however doesn't imply that two parties in a dispute, philosophical or otherwise, are wrong though. All it means is the real (?), the whole truth is more intricate, thus more beautiful even if also exasperating, than we imagine it to be. — TheMadFool

This is a romanticism that someone living in the real world wouldn't indulge in.

This, I suppose, is the Buddha's madhyamaka/the middle path. — TheMadFool

The Middleness of the Path

Examples so far have not incorporated a participle. In my lifetime I heard the phrase "to square the circle" far more often than "a square circle".

Now if you treat the verb "square" in 2D geometry on a flat plane containing a circle, and square the area of the circle, the squared circle looks like a circle because its squareness is recessive (to look at). Yet we lengthened a straight line in it (perhaps by the square root of 2). Alternatively we may double the length of that line.

If it is sliced into segments, it shows two square corners. Thus circles are quite squary anyway: we only bring it out when slicing them.

Once you realize that disagreements, the seedbed of all violence, including wars, arise from looking at issues from only one side and not from all sides, including your enemy's your reason to take up arms will be gone. World Peace! — TheMadFool

Ah yes. So when the Nazis come to take me to the gas chambers I should try to see things from their point of view.

Now in your case of perspective, you're introducing a 3D object. But that does not fit the original definition's tie to reality, that it is only a 2D object. Could we call your 3D object's perspective a "square circle"? Sure, we can call anything, anything within a context. But is that the same as the context of the philosophical square circle argument in 2D geometry? No. — Philosophim

Yes, you're right a square circle is about the 2D world. However,

The finger (square circle) pointing at the moon (contradiction) is not the moon (contradiction). — Thich Nhat Hanh

Suppose there's a truth regarding, say, God in a 3D world. Call this G. We, in our 2D world, can only see shadows of G. Theists believe God exists (square shadow) and atheists believe God doesn't exist (circle shadow). Put the two parties on the same stage and we have a contradiction: God exists & God doesn't exist (square circle).

The point is, if both theists and atheists are true (a contradiction), we have to accept the reality of a square circle. But, we can't, a square circle makes zero sense. The immediate reaction is, as per recommendations of classical logic, is to declare one side as wrong/false.

However, there's another way - anekantavada (not-one-sidedness or many-sidedness) in which both theists are true and atheists are true but since they're from different points of view, there's no contradiction, no square circle.

I guess what I want to get across is there are many alleged square circles out there (theism-atheism, physicalism-nonphysicalism, realism-antirealism, etc.) but these aren't real/true contradictions, they only appear to be, their resolution achieved with the aid of anekantavada (many-sidedness).

So, yeah, I couldn't draw you a 2D square circle but that wasn't what I intended to do. You're supposed to have paid attention to thesis-antithesis pairs, some of which I mentioned above, the very essence of disagreement, discord, strife, and chaos which are, all said and done, square circles, no?

Ah yes. So when the Nazis come to take me to the gas chambers I should try to see things from their point of view. — EricH

The horror, suffering, and anguish of a situation is all the more reason to invoke anekantavada. One party involved has failed to give the other's point of view the attention it deserves.

This is a romanticism that someone living in the real world wouldn't indulge in. — baker

It's romanticism that has brought about change in this world, a change for the better. All the good there was/is/will ever be was born in the minds of dreamers.

Ah yes. So when the Nazis come to take me to the gas chambers I should try to see things from their point of view. — EricH

The horror, suffering, and anguish of a situation is all the more reason to invoke anekantavada. One party involved has failed to give the other's point of view the attention it deserves. — TheMadFool

This is so bizarrely wrong I can't tell if you're being ironic - but I will take your words at face value.

Anekantavada can work if there are reasonable people on both sides - but in this flawed real world we live in that is far too often not the case.

On my side I HAVE given the other party's point of view the attention it deserves. The other party is a psychopath intent on killing me - AND - who is incapable of listening to my point of view.

I have two choices - defend myself or be killed.

psychopath — EricH

It isn't you!

Projected back into our world — TheMadFool

I get this now. I guess I didn't know (as a youngster) I had to restrict myself to being Euclidian. There was no harm in the syllabus (then) and no harm in our doing things that weren't on it either.

Suppose there's a truth regarding, say, God in a 3D world. Call this G. We, in our 2D world, can only see shadows of G. Theists believe God exists (square shadow) and atheists believe God doesn't exist (circle shadow). Put the two parties on the same stage and we have a contradiction: God exists & God doesn't exist (square circle). — TheMadFool

That's still not a contradiction though. That is a contradiction of beliefs, but not of facts. In the theists case, there is a God. But honestly, neither the atheists nor theists know of God, because they can only see parts.

In their particular case, the flashes of God revealing themselves to people would be the only thing they could agree exists. Atheists cannot deny it exists if its observable, but they might call it something different than a theist would. A theist might say its God, an atheist might say its the Goldbring effect. Each might have some extra beliefs or connotations they attach to the God parts, but at the end of the day, the only thing they really know are that these things exist.

Its like seeing part of a square, and saying you know a square. You can't know what a square is until you see it, and you define it in a way that is provable and repeatable. The 2D shapes are not different people's or cultures opinions of squares or circles either. They are clearly defined and provable entities. One person might say, "Squares come from God," and another might say, "Squares are a natural formation," but all of that is irrelevant for what IS, and that is that it is a square.

Perspective merely gives you a portion of what you can know. When you claim the knowledge of what you have gives you knowledge outside of your perspective, that is a failure of reasoning and knowledge, not a contradiction with another view point.

But I am a person who believes that contradictions are indicators of what is not real. Reality has no contradictions. Apparent contradictions are when a person is confused or misinformed about reality. I believe you either have the truth, a portion of the truth, or you hold beliefs which aren't true. Two people cannot hold two contradictory truths. One is right, or both are wrong. I see the poetry in what you mean by Anekantavada, but it does not hold up on technical scrutiny.

That's still not a contradiction though — Philosophim

God exists & God doesn't exist, is not a contradiction???

That is a contradiction of beliefs, but not of facts — Philosophim

So, now, it's a contradiction!

As you can see, you're, like everyone else, is trying to make sense of a square circle and, intriguingly, you have resolved it employing the technique the Jains recommended - by shifting between different persepctives. I preach, you practice! Excellent!

The horror, suffering, and anguish of a situation is all the more reason to invoke anekantavada. One party involved has failed to give the other's point of view the attention it deserves. — TheMadFool

It deserves such attention? "Deserves" by whose standards?

Waiting for others only makes one a victim, and if persisted in, eventually, a martyr.