I know that Deleuze considered himself a transcendental empiricist and actually a metaphysician who wanted to provide a metaphysics to support mathematics and science. But this is very far from traditional metaphysics, because it has already accepted that there is a 'master' metaphysics implicit in math and science'; that is it has already accepted materialism. So it is really a rejection of traditional metaphysics; it is only a matter of working out all the details. — John
What is common to metaphysics and transcendental philosophy is, above all, this alternative which they both impose on us: either, an undifferentiated ground, a groundlessness, formless nonbeing, or an abyss without differences and without properties, or a supremely indivduated Being and an intensely personalized For. Without this Being or this Form, you will have only chaos... — "Deleuze,
Interestingly, the one-volume anthology of postmodernism I mentioned in the other thread, The Truth about the Truth, has an impassioned essay by Huston Smith saying pretty well exactly that. And, he was included in the volume! — Wayfarer
Interestingly, the one-volume anthology of postmodernism I mentioned in the other thread, The Truth about the Truth, has an impassioned essay by Huston Smith saying pretty well exactly that. And, he was included in the volume! — Wayfarer
But then, another approach would be to find some current writer who is a kind of 'post-modern-neo-traditionalist', who draws all those strands together and then critiques the other post modernists on account of their lack of spirituality. There's bound to be one. That would be 'using the strength of the adversary against him'. — Wayfarer
It sort of views the transcendent as an expression of the world, as something done be existing people, rather than "another realm" which sits above the world. — Willow
I think what I see as the most pernicious postmodern thought is the assertion that the subject is nothing more than what has been constructed by social, cultural and discursive forces. PM is thus a kind of mirror image of the materialistic scientific form of determinism. These twin determinisms deny the freedom and genuine creativity of the person and reduce her to the status of being a mere individual, who is always thought of as being nothing more than a more or less significant part of a more encompassing whole. — John
I do see what you are saying. I think a common characteristic of PM ( and of most other strains of modern philosophy) consists in the denial of transcendence; which is to say a denial of spirit and genuine freedom. And I think this presumption of immanence has come to pass as a result of the domination of the scientific paradigm. Philosophers are just not taken seriously, for the most part, if they start speaking about anything beyond what is understood as the immanent condition of culturally mediated humanity. — John
The traditions of transcendence never understood humanity — Willow
They assert meaning can only come from the outside, even though it comes from within... — Willow
This OP is something you might find interesting - on Jurgen Habermas and the idea of the 'post-secular'. — Wayfarer
The point can be sharpened: in the context of full-bodied secularism, there would seem to be nothing to pass on to, and therefore no reason for anything like a funeral. — Stanley Fish
All 'traditions of transcendence' deny people are meaningful-in-themselves. Someone must follow the tradition or else they are heathen nihilists. — Willow
Now I have come to think this is nonsense because the most real thing about us is our experience of creativity, freedom and spirit, and we should give up any notion that it is possible to give a discursively determinant account of them. We can speak of and from them, we can speak creative truths and truths of and from freedom and the spirit; and we can know intuitively very well what they mean, and what their value is; but we cannot subject such accounts to critique or analysis, or in any way objectify them because that will lead either to their destruction or to some form of fundamentalism. — John
So the self that is the enemy is, if you like, the self that seeks itself, that pleases itself, that is interested in its own pleasures, its own powers, getting its own way. Sure the religions say that is 'the enemy'. — Wayfarer
I have noticed the way 'immanent' is used - as a kind of bulwark against the dreaded 'transcendent', the 'beyond'. — Wayfarer
All of the 'traditions of transcendence' say that truth comes from within. — Wayfarer
I think a common characteristic of PM ( and of most other strains of modern philosophy) consists in the denial of transcendence; which is to say a denial of spirit and genuine freedom. And I think this presumption of immanence has come to pass as a result of the domination of the scientific paradigm. — John
The transcendent meanings of the great works of the spirit within our culture have been leveled down to the rest of the cultural product. According to PoMo, there is no 'high' culture because to say there is would be to posit a hierarchy, a power structure, and hierarchies and power structures are merely arbitrary. But this is a false conclusion that comes about by objectifying the human spirit. The granting of transcendent (higher spiritual) meaning to the works of culture has come to be seen as merely a function of power and/or discourse. — John
Ethical behaviour is sought by the self, is a power of the self, is an improvement the self, an interested of the self, the self getting its own way and pleases the self.
...Christian belief and football game are equal in importance precisely because anything else amounts to destruction or fundamentalism. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Plane of immanence (French: plan d'immanence) is a founding concept in the metaphysics or ontology of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Immanence, meaning "existing or remaining within" generally offers a relative opposition to transcendence, that which is beyond or outside
and this makes me wonder just how you understand spirit and doubt whether your understanding of it is anything like mine.Just so you know, I understand spirit to be utterly unconditioned and our radical freedom as depending on that. If you understand spirit as some kind of emergent phenomenon, then it will be ineluctably dependent on matter/energy and could never be free in the sense I am thinking of.In any case, to think that 'spirit and genuine freedom' are precluded by thinking in terms of immanence is misguided. — StreetlightX
My point is this: people who do not go beyond self-seeking behaviours or unhealthy inclinations are still meaningful. Their lives aren't worthless because they have sinned. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Christian belief and football game are equal in importance precisely because anything else amounts to destruction or fundamentalism. — TheWillowOfDarkness
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