Spiritual enlightenment and arguing about the nature of Reality seem to be, for me, different worlds. — Dominic Osborn
I shall definitely look at the links you posted. — Dominic
Reality is not this, Reality is not that — Dominic Osborn
The positing of a Noumenon is an absurdity: something that exists but is not felt. — Dominic
I think you've misinterpreted the idea. Also I think the way you're conflating Kant and Pierce means you're probably reading things into them that aren't there; they're worlds apart in most ways. (Mind you I'm no expert.) — Wayfarer
Is this a conscious allusion to a phrase from Indian philosophy? If it is, you will know the phrase I mean. — Wayfarer
You seem to be trying to bridge that gap, but I can't tell whether you know that is what you're doing, or whether you're simply 'feeling your way into it'. I suspect it's the latter. — Wayfarer
The vital thing about Thomism, generally, and Maritain, in particular, is that it still has a conception of the hierarchy of being (a.k.a. 'the great chain of being'). This understanding is that there are higher and lower levels of reality, being and knowing. Materialist philosophy (an oxymoron) is based on the lowest level, and denies the others (parodied as 'the flatland' or by Marcuse as 'the one-dimensional man'.) Thomistic philosophy is almost the last outpost of an hierarchical ontology in Western culture, and Maritain one of it's spokesmen (others being Etienne Gilson and the contemporary philosopher Edward Feser.) — Wayfarer
Reality is not this. Reality is not that — Dominic Osborn
Neti-neti is a Sanskrit expression that translates to "neither this, nor that." This expression is used in Hinduism, mainly in Jñāna yoga and in Advaita Vedanta. Neti-neti is a form of analytical meditation that helps the individual understand the nature of brahman (absolute reality) by first understanding what is not Brahman.
Reality is not appearance, but nor is Reality what is behind Appearance. — Dominic Osborn
Wouldn’t every philosopher have as his ultimate aim to work out a self-consistent and exhaustive explanation of things? And wouldn’t that then be a religion? And wouldn’t the quest to live life in the right way inevitably presuppose, or be founded on, or generate––an ontology, a description of things, an account of how things are and why they are as they are, etc.? — Dominic Osborn
I am––initially––repelled by these ideas. — Dominic Osborn
I think it can be seen as triadic but it need not be seen so. The belief in a world beyond your experiences can be seen as ultimately the same belief as the belief that there is a self. Each (the world beyond your experience and the self “inside” your experience) is merely a different version of the Noumenon. The belief in a world beyond your experience is simultaneously the belief that your experience has the character of “I-ness” about it — Dominic Osborn
The belief in a self beyond your experience (or, as I suppose we all imagine it: the belief in a self inside experience or on this side of experience) is simultaneously the belief that your experience has the character of “world-ness” about it. (Apologies for these awkward expressions.) There are two versions of duality here, not three things. — Dominic Osborn
What I think I am saying is that Reality is Indeterminacy, Vagueness. Or, what I am saying, to put it another way, is: you can’t say anything about Reality. I then go on to say that all you can say is what Reality is not. So I then say, Reality is not many things, Reality is not one thing; Reality is not the Physical World; Reality is not the Mind; Reality is not this, Reality is not that, etc.. — Dominic Osborn
I think being “lost in the flow of events or actions in unselfconscious fashion” is knowledge (of those events or actions). I don’t consider Knowledge and Being to be separate. I think your definition of Knowledge mirrors your (dualistic) conception of existence: an existence essentially consisting of a knower and a known, a self and its experience (with the possibility of a third thing too, the Noumenon). I think Knowledge is non-dual and Being is non-dual. — Dominic Osborn
I think you, and Kant, and Peirce have swallowed an absurdity, an absurdity however that is so widely and deeply felt and held that it almost passed into the realm of fact. — Dominic Osborn
The positing of a Noumenon is an absurdity: something that exists but is not felt. If whether something is perceived or not has no bearing on whether or not it exists, why are there not not spooks and pixies dancing on my desk here? The positing of the Noumenon is the conceiving of Ignorance. But the conceiving of two realms, the Known and the Unknown simply proposes Duality again. Why do you accept the notion of "Ignorance" uncritically? — Dominic Osborn
The conceiving of the Definite and the Possible simply proposes Duality again. Why do you accept the notion of "Possibility" uncritically? — Dominic Osborn
It can’t be the case that there are two different things, an existence in which the world is real and an existence in which the world is idealistic illusion, but each looks the same to me. — Dominic Osborn
Either the two parts (Phenomenon and Noumenon) are in some way joined, in which case they are not really two after all, or they are not joined, in which case there must be a thing, nothingness, between them, which is at once an existing thing, and must be, in order to hold the two things apart, and also a non-existing thing because, were it to exist, it would join the two things up. But there cannot be a thing that both exists and does not exist. — Dominic Osborn
I'm not sure on what basis you are claiming to say these things. It doesn't seem to be on the basis of either rational argument or probable evidence. — apokrisis
If they are so non-dual, why do you call Knowledge and Being by different names? — apokrisis
(Yes, I realise you will now call them two aspects of experience - and so we circle back to the necessarily triadic structure that betrays the discursive nature of idealism.) — apokrisis
For an absurdity, it is unreasonably effective wouldn't you say. Science is founded on it for a start. — apokrisis
If it's because they're Catholic, then I should let you know, I am not. It's because I believe the idea of an 'hierarchical order' is essential, and they're one of the culturally Western sources of such ideas. — Wayfarer
'The world is not as it appears, nor is it otherwise' ~ Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. — Wayfarer
However, OP clearly showed why the concept of another person is inconsistent. — maplestreet
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