• Constance
    1.3k
    Incomplete how? Because it's a short paragraph from a glossary? Every term in that paragraph has numerous references in the suttas and in the commentaries, which have further references in suttas and commentaries.

    The incompleteness is in your approach to the matter.
    baker

    But here we speak of philosophy. We make inquiries, describe, contextualize, and not to make the unspeakable speakable, but to explain what it is all about at the level of basic questions. Just that!
    Why look outside of Buddhism for things to help one understand Buddhism?baker

    Because this is what language does. It is inherently interpretative. Calling something ultimate reality is seriously incomplete. Language is, as I see it, a yoga, and there is nothing new here. But consider, when ideas were first put forth, they were ideas, a way of disclosure as to what things are. Such ways are malleable, open. Life is suffering, e.g. What is suffering? You can dismiss this question, but there IS an answer to it, a metaphenomenological answer. And this stands to elucidate concepts like enlightenment.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    I like to talk to all kinds of thinkers, but some schools of thought i dont like to read. What could eventually resolve Kierkegaard's anxiety if God is a fiction? He did not want to go to reason, it was a path too arduous with its anxiety for him. Hegel's dialectic comes to an end while continuing forever. I do not know what Kierkegaard's final conclusion was. He is too Augustinian for meGregory

    But this begs the question. God? What does Kierkegaard say about God apart from the religious dogma? And what does he say about religious dogma? You really have to comes to grip with the profound differences between rationalism and existentialism.
    Augustine is revered by the church for many reasons, and he does provide interesting philosophy here and there, as with sin: the absence of God, essentially. Not a complete argument, but Kierkegaard saw this as true. See his analysis of sin and the "positing of spirit" but do so as he does, with no scriptural references as all. Nor with any of the church's metaphysics, but rather with an explicit denial of this: the book's full title is, The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. It is an existential analysis of experience, making Time, history, culture, finitude and infinitude, and most of all, the real palpable stuff of what human being are, their heartaches and joys as central to understanding what Christianity really is all about.
    How is anxiety possible at all? How does the mundane affairs of our anxious and concerned spell out in a phenomenological ontology? This is where Kierkegaard puts his timeless stamp on things.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    I don't have a view that solves differences. But the difference between Lacan and Foucault strikes me as a sharp disagreement about what is happening. We live our experiences and the mirror we view them through is significant. The right thing to do is is incumbent upon understanding what is happening correctly.
    Easier said than done.
    Valentinus

    I don't think analyses of systems of implicit power in social institutions is helpful here, and I don't know much about Lacan. But getting understanding of the "right" view is not therefore impossible because it is not easy. why do we disagree so much? Why was Quine so adamantly against Derrida? Why is there such a wide schism between continental and analytic philosophy? It is because, I claim, of the way we constituted intuitively, and the way theory clouds reasoning and experience. I read Being and Time and I knew he was right, instantly. I also knew Wittgenstein was right about his Kantian claims about the delimitations of understanding. These were platforms to build on, but foundationally, right. And Husserl's epoche, I knew instantly he understood something deeply important, the same thing Buddha knew, only the latter knew it so much better.
    Others look upon the epoche and all the post Husserlian work (especially by the French) as just the 'seduction of language". But the proof is in the pudding?
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    I think Augustine was such a big sinner that he had to posit the idea of taking on Jesus's merits in order to feel clean again. I think he went to hell, if there is such a place. I don't know enough about Kierkegaard to say more than I've already had. I appreciate his influence on Heidegger
  • Constance
    1.3k
    I think Augustine was such a big sinner that he had to posit the idea of taking on Jesus's merits in order to feel clean again. I think he went to hell, if there is such a place. I don't know enough about Kierkegaard to say more than I've already had. I appreciate his influence on HeideggerGregory

    His Confessions do sound suspiciously confessional in the extreme. I mean, confessions are commensurate with the deeds done, and he was way over the top. Popular Christianity is a huge guilt trip, especially when it comes to original sin the way Luther talks about it (see this in the Smallcald articles) as the monstrous act we all share in.
    But on the other hand, and this would be Heidegger's response as well, since that time we have become trivialized by our instrumental mentality that issues from the dominance of technology. The world is now a "standing reserve" rather than a dynamic for meaning making in human life. this is why Heidegger championed poetry as a kind of crucible where our dasein creates value. German romanticism has a long history, and the essential idea is that the arts are redeeming. But the arts, I should add, are not complete.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    It's a dilemma because reason says its immoral to take someone else's merits yet spirituality seems to necessitate it in order to become new again. Even Jesus must have had some assertion with his penis in order to be "man" instead of "child" but how and should we reproduce if the whole of our being is mired in sin?
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    What I thinked happened is that the Jewish court accused Jesus's mom of being a whore and his response was as a man, not a child or demigod. So they inferred then that he had lied when he said he was the perfect ,"son of God"
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Most of the saints in the Church were great sinners. They are said to be better than others because of the grace and merit Jesus gave them. Which is my main problem with Christianity: they think they are "Jesus"
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Most of the saints in the Church were great sinners. They are said to be better than others because of the grace and merit Jesus gave them. Which is my main problem with Christianity: they think they are "Jesus"Gregory

    But this is just the dark side of Christianity, the only thing Nietzsche thought about. There is another side altogether.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Take the confessional. If the priest is invalid, no sins are removed. Because all repentance is insufficient. But if the priest is valid, ah hoc there goes the sins. There is no way to justify the legality in Christianity. If we say its just above our thoughts, well so is the mysticism in all other religions. So why give preference to the Bible in our society?
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Here in California christians are up in arms, saying "the Bible is under attack". They think their religion trumps safety over the current virus and they go crazy if you tell them that Jesus is not God. I told one crowd to " recall Jesus" instead of the governor. Ye they don't like me sometimes
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Here in California christians are up in arms, saying "the Bible is under attack". They think their religion trumps safety over the current virus and they go crazy if you tell them that Jesus is not God. I told one crowd to " recall Jesus" instead of the governor. Ye they don't like me sometimesGregory

    But consider that you put the whole matter in the arena of people with a vested interest in the status quo, whether they are simply believers or institutional fixtures, they all, all that are included in your comments, without an intellectual conscience in place well enough to think philosophically about religion. So yes, most Christians lack, well, the capacity for sound argumentation. Kierkegaard is famous for exactly this. See his Attack on Christendom. Thre is a reason he is called the father of Existentialism.
    One doesn't have to be a moron or a predator to be a Christian, I suppose is the point.
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Well thanks, if I read more of him I'll check out that work
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Others look upon the epoche and all the post Husserlian work (especially by the French) as just the 'seduction of language". But the proof is in the pudding?Constance

    Sartre and many others were big fans of H. To my knowledge it's only Merleau Ponty who saw H. more as an usurper than as a heir to Husserl.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Sartre and many others were big fans of H. To my knowledge it's only Merleau Ponty who saw H. more as an usurper than as a heir to Husserl.Olivier5

    By H you mean Heidegger. Heidegger did not pull B&T out of a hat. It is the phenomenology that Husserl gave him, and they do agree a lot. But Husserl did not encompass the whole human dasein, and if you read Heidegger's thoughts on space, time, hermeneutics, moods, das man, the Greeks, freedom, authenticity, instrumentality, ready to hand, presence at hand, and so on, you see how original he is.
    Of course, I certainly haven't read all of either, so I can't speak authoritatively, only based on what I've read. But it was surprising to read Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety. There was Sartre there, Husserl here, Heidegger there, I mean this guy really laid the foundation for all of this.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Heidegger did not pull B&T out of a hat. It is the phenomenology that Husserl gave him, and they do agree a lot.Constance

    Sure, but my question was: does Heidegger pay his debt to Husserl in B&T?
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    I don't think analyses of systems of implicit power in social institutions is helpful here, and I don't know much about Lacan. But getting understanding of the "right" view is not therefore impossible because it is not easy.Constance

    Your are correct that those analyses do involve the power of social institutions. I brought them up more in the interest of introducing personal development as seen through psychological models as an element that deserves a seat at the table if one is to bridge across so many expressions of thought regarding the "ego" as you are endeavoring to do. I threw out one conversation I am interested in. That is not to put them above, Piaget, Maslow, Vygotsky, Jung, etcetera.

    When I said: "The right thing to do is is incumbent upon understanding what is happening correctly", I was thinking of that as the ethical component of all these philosophies under discussion in this discussion.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Sure, but my question was: does Heidegger pays his debt to Husserl in B&T?Olivier5

    Did Husserl pay his debt to Kant? Kierkegaard to Hegel? Kant to Aristotle? Heidegger to Kierkegaard? But then, no, he didn't. In the end, after Freiberg, the Heidegger's reached out to the Husserl's, and the latter told the former to go F*** themselves. It was because Heidegger sided with the Nazis, even for a brief time.
    As to theory, reading Husserl's Ideas is nothing like B&T at all. Both are extraordinary.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Sartre and many others were big fans of H. To my knowledge it's only Merleau Ponty who saw H. more as an usurper than as a heir to Husserl.Olivier5

    But there is The transcendence of the Ego by Sartre in which he takes issue with Husserl's generative ego, very busy as the fountain of experience. Sartre thought this compromised the unseen, which he infamously called nothingness.
    Haven't read Mereau Ponty. He is on my list, along with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.
  • Gregory
    4.7k
    Heidegger worked in the early 20's under Husserl, along with Edith Stein. Edith thought this philosophy led straight to God and apparently sided to Kierkegaard about the reason\faith divide. Heidegger left that group an atheist, having turned his scholastic training against the movement of the ever quibbling "schoolmen" (Protestant and Catholic) and forged into territory that has yet to be fully explored. His relationship with other cultures was typically German (of its time), yet the self-called "schoolmen" of traditional China had pondered questions that latter concerned him marvelway before he was born. The Japanese took the idea of "being and nothing" in many interesting directions too, more abstractly than the Chinese. What Heidegger added to the conversation among cultures was an emphasis on time, although Hegel ("Self-Consciousness" chapter of PoS and middle section of Philosophy of Nature) and Bergson had paved the way. Heidegger in fact did give to credit to his fellow German by ending B&T on Hegel, although I never remember him talking about Bergson
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    What I found most interesting in The Transcendence of the Ego by Sartre is the argument that Kant meant the "ego" could be assigned to any action at any time but that the experience comes from another source.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    What I found most interesting in The Transcendence of the Ego by Sartre is the argument that Kant meant the "ego" could be assigned to any action at any time but that the experience comes from another source.Valentinus

    Not visiting the text right now, I think what is meant is that the transcendental unity of apperception is a functional center of all experience as it produces pure synthetic form. It is an essentially rational agency that is, of course, transcendental. Thus all judgment issues form this. Experience is also intuitive, and sensory intuitions have there source in something completely other. Noumenal "reality" has two fronts, the TUA is us, the other is not. Husserl called it hyletic. Reading Patrick Whitehead: "Hyletic phenomenology allows for ontological reversibility and recognizes the “unhuman” elements in things."
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Did Husserl pay his debt to Kant?Constance

    Yes, of course. The very name of phenomenology — a word invented by Husserl to describe his approach to philosophy — is based of the Kantian idea that only phenomena are accessible to us.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Yes, of course. The very name of phenomenology — a word invented by Husserl to describe his approach to philosophy — is based of the Kantian idea that only phenomena are accessible to us.Olivier5

    But the point is he does go on without self effacing disclaimers, even though Kant's "Copernican Revolution" thesis hovers over everything he did. Of course he was allowed to do this because his handling of things was done as an independent synthesis of Kant and others. Heidegger is the same, though Husserl hovers close by at times. Husserl's natural attitude obviously played a role in the das man of B&T, as well as the idea of authenticity, but then, where did Husserl get it? Of course, he read Kierkegaard and others. Time? Clearly Kant's Deduction is behind this, but no mention of Kant in the exposition of Time's adumbrations of memory in the Ideas I.( Elsewhere? I haven't read of it.)
    People want to diminish Heidegger, but it can't be done. In Heidegger, the human reality lives and dies and cares and is presented in the fullness of our Being in the world. But he does not affirm the transcendental ego, as Husserl did, and it is here, at this juncture this ego makes no "appearance" that interesting phenomenology lies.
  • Heracloitus
    500
    a word invented by Husserl to describe his approach to philosophyOlivier5

    The word was used before husserl though.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    I don't share your confidence in finding a unifying viewpoint amongst these different thinkers regarding the experience of consciousness.
    For what it's worth, here is Sartre's statement in the Transcendence of the Ego:

    We may therefore formulate our thesis: transcendental consciousness is an impersonal spontaneity. It determines our existence at each instant, without our being able to conceive anything before it. Thus each instant of our conscious life reveals to us a creation ex nihilo. Not a new arrangement, but a new existence. There is something distressing for each of us, to catch in the act this tireless creation of existence of which we are not the creators. At this level man has the impression of ceaselessly escaping from himself, of overflowing himself, of being surprised by riches which are always unexpected. And once more it is an unconscious from which he demands an account of this surpassing of the me by consciousness. Indeed, the me can do nothing to this spontaneity, for will is an object which constitutes itself for and by this spontaneity. The will directs itself upon states, upon emotions, or upon things, but it never turns back upon consciousness. — Sartre, translated by Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    Fair enough, he didn't invent the word.
  • baker
    5.6k
    Why look outside of Buddhism for things to help one understand Buddhism?
    — baker
    Because this is what language does. It is inherently interpretative.
    Constance
    The thing is: You're not doing your homework. I'm tired of referring you to suttas for the questions you ask. There are Buddhist answers to the questions you ask about Buddhism. But you ignore them. Forget them. Apparently, don't even think of looking to the suttas for them.

    It's as if you actually aspire to keep yourself ignorant of Buddhism, so that you can keep making up your own parallel Buddhism and your own definitions of terms.

    :( :( :(
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    Hegel used the word in the title of his first major work in 1807. This is because he invented phenomenology. Kant was in the tradition of Berkeley and Locke. Fitche tried to break from this mold and make a new type of thinking possible, but he only made the prototype blueprints. Schelling invented a lot of ideas for Hegel (who wrote an early work on Fitche and Schelling, siding with Schelling) but his philosophy was Vendentic, simply mystical idealism. This is not what Hegel is because he defends realism AND idealism in a unified system, which is phenomenology. Hegel's works presents experiments of thought that move and pass into other in long sequences. You have to actually read large portions of these pages to really understand what he was talking about and why he was an innovator
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Heidegger worked in the early 20's under Husserl, along with Edith Stein. Edith thought this philosophy led straight to God and apparently sided to Kierkegaard about the reason\faith divide. Heidegger left that group an atheist, having turned his scholastic training against the movement of the ever quibbling "schoolmen" (Protestant and Catholic) and forged into territory that has yet to be fully explored. His relationship with other cultures was typically German (of its time), yet the self-called "schoolmen" of traditional China had pondered questions that latter concerned him marvelway before he was born. The Japanese took the idea of "being and nothing" in many interesting directions too, more abstractly than the Chinese. What Heidegger added to the conversation among cultures was an emphasis on time, although Hegel ("Self-Consciousness" chapter of PoS and middle section of Philosophy of Nature) and Bergson had paved the way. Heidegger in fact did give to credit to his fellow German by ending B&T on Hegel, although I never remember him talking about BergsonGregory

    The question is why Stein goes one way, Heidegger another? What makes for the timeless indecision of philosophy is not the issues being so vague, but the vagaries of people's experiences. Some people are simply intuitively wired for existential affirmation of religion.
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