So, as per Hindus, truth is priority 1, then comes good in second place and last but not the least we have beauty.

How does the West order, in importance, the transcendentalia? — Agent Smith

I'm not acquainted with "Hindi priorities of transcendentals" but, during the Scholastic Middle Ages in Europe when "the transcendentals" became foci of metaphysics, I don't recall them being given a set, indefeasibly reasoned, "order of priority" since each is conceived of as an essential feature, or category, of being (i.e. substance).

What are your own thoughts on the matter? How would you order the transcendentalia?

I suppose through a phenomenological-pragmatic prism I conceive of "transcendentals" in order of predicates used discursively for describing, selecting & recognizing ... (and not as reified abstract 'properties' or 'ideals' of objects (pace Plato et al (re: universals)):

(A) "beautiful" ... ought to care
(B) "good" ... ought to flourish
(C) "true" ... ought to translate

... a mirror-image of your (alleged) "Hindi priorities", that is, from a horizonal, ground-up existential perspective (i.e. immanent) in contrast to a vertical, top-down ontological perspective (i.e. transcendent).

I ask because I feel many if not all our problems are caused by not getting our priorities right.

I'd say most problems are caused by incorrigibly failing to discern between 'tractable and intractable and pseudo' problems to begin with, Smith. I think you're making a category mistake referring to existential (pragmatic) "priorities" in terms, or the context, of some "priorities of transcendentals" (metaphysics).

Yeah, reminds me of the famous Arthurian round table - order of importance is N/A. The riddle of the Sancta Trinitas maybe the same idea (to block attempts to develop an hierarchy for the Holy Trinity). All 3 or none! There's more but let's not bite off more than we can chew.

The other thing I wanna know is how to we close the gap between the real (immanent, tangible) and the ideal (transcendental, ethereal)? Pragamtism wins, nevertheless idealism is indispensable. For a moving target, shoot in front of it!

If truth isn't the first principle, one cannot really believe the second and third principles.

If truth isn't the first principle, one cannot really believe the second and third principles. — unenlightened

That's a good point but I guess the big issue here is that Hinduism tend to develop those elements separately.
Truth, good, aesthetics, beautiful, etc... are represented like in a circle. They are not hierarchical.
I even think we should not think on it as our "West" thought but what Buddhism really stands for.

If truth isn't the first principle, one cannot really believe the second and third principles. — unenlightened

:chin:

So,

1. Truth
2. (True) goodness
3. (True) beauty

3017amen (profile)

Truth is beauty, beauty is truth. That's all ye know, and all ye need to know. — John Keats (On a Gracian Urn)

Maybe, just maybe, Truth = Good = Beauty. They're the same thing?!

My analysis is incomplete. Maybe someone can help out. Establish the truth ( :chin: ) of the following equalities:

1. Truth = Good
2. Good = Beauty

:ok:

Maybe, just maybe, Truth = Good = Beauty. They're the same thing?! — Agent Smith

My neighbor is an ugly little bald-headed self-righteous SOB, spreading lies behind your back and pretending. That's the ugly truth. Dunno what's he good for. Then again, he's only human.

The True, the Bad, and the Ugly. A holey trinity?

The other thing I wanna know is how to we close the gap between the real (immanence, tangible) and the ideal (transcendental, ethereal)? — Agent Smith

"The gap" encompasses immanence like the horizon – it's ineluctable.

Prag[ma]tism wins, nevertheless idealism is indispensable.

I guess to idealists it's "indispensable" ...

My neighbor is an ugly little bald-headed self-righteous SOB, spreading lies behind your back and pretending. That's the ugly truth. Dunno what's he good for. Then again, he's only human.

The True, the Bad, and the Ugly. A holey trinity? — Hillary

:snicker:

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

That's why, I suspect, verum, bonum, and pulchrum were designated as transcendentalia; they describe an ideal or best-case scenario. It would've made my day so to speak if all 3 were, well, inseparable and acquiring 1, any one, meant getting the other 2 as well (package deal of sorts).

You might then wanna say "In your dreams Agent Smith, in your dreams!" :sad:

Arigato gozaiumus.

To each his own. I don't wanna give up on something so numinous even if it means a trip to the psychiatrist for psychosis! Madness is better than Sadness? :chin: I think I chickened out 180 Proof.

Maybe, just maybe, Truth = Good = Beauty. They're the same thing?! — Agent Smith

What is = what ought to be = what is desirable?

If you can honestly say that is your experience, then I think you must be enlightened; I am unenlightened.

They are not priorities, or hierarchical. They are attributes. Aphoristic formulae (not mantra) These are attempts at elucidating faceted attributes of a single reality.

These are ancient attributes and can be traced back to the origins of human thought itself. Hence one may find them or some variant thereof in every ancient philosophical system, and which will hold their ground (truthfulness) with some expertise.

Another (call it ontological, phenomenological, or whatever) aphoristic formulae is:

Sat, Chit, Ananda

Aphoristic formulae (not mantra) — skyblack

Perhaps in interest of being precise one should clarify, a mantra, strictly speaking, is also an aphoristic formulae (i.e. needs unpacking), in their old language, which simply happens to be Sanskrit. It has nothing to do with its popularized usage/interpretation of repetitive chanting. That concept is a later day add-on.

If truth isn't the first principle, one cannot really believe the second and third principles. — unenlightened

Why assume these "principles" are propositional (cognitive) stances? On what grounds – "principle" – does one "really believe" truth if "truth is the first principle"? (re: problem of the criterion) :chin:

What's more "numinous" than, as I've pointed out, the encompassing immanent horizon? (Jaspers, Spinoza ... Democritus, Anaximander, Laozi) :fire:

On what grounds – "principle" – does one "really believe" truth if "truth is the first principle"? — 180 Proof

Because one internalized this principle early in life, before one's cognitiive ability of critical thinking developed.

:eyes:

ask because I feel many if not all our problems are caused by not getting our priorities right. For example, I'm a sucker for good-looking peeps and my life is nothing but a series of disasters caused by my idée fixe with beauty. — Agent Smith

I'm not Hindu, but the idea of listing one's hierarchiy of priorities is an interesting one.

Truth and justice seem like they should make the list, but not beauty unless that is taken to mean all worldly pleasures.

At any rate, my top priority is my family, truth and justice be dammed.

I ask because I feel many if not all our problems are caused by not getting our priorities right. For example, I'm a sucker for good-looking peeps and my life is nothing but a series of disasters caused by my idée fixe with beauty. — Agent Smith

You're shallow and you suffer from lack of something in you. This is the true meaning of your desire for physical appearance. I've dated super good looking individuals, and appearance-challenged individuals. I'm speaking from experience.

Maybe, just maybe, Truth = Good = Beauty. They're the same thing?!

My analysis is incomplete. Maybe someone can help out. Establish the truth ( :chin: ) of the following equalities:

1. Truth = Good
2. Good = Beauty — Agent Smith

This might make a little more sense if interpreted along the lines of:

1. (Complete) Conformity to that which is real = (Complete) Gratification of life’s deepest ingrained desire (i.e., the deepest ingrained desire of each and every psyche)
2. (Complete) Gratification of life’s deepest ingrained desire = (Complete) Fairness, as a composite of both that which is (completely) just - correct, right - and that which is (completely) aesthetic

Since we are imperfect, we can’t have it (this equivalency) in its complete, absolute, form - this being instead the ideal - but can only appraise proximity or furtherance from this complete state of Truth/Good/Beauty as ideal, this being the pragmatics of life

And such means of interpreting would not necessarily be equivalent to:

What is = what ought to be = what is desirable? — unenlightened

But then establishing the truth of it? Some of us are still trying to establish the truth of “I am”.

You're shallow and you suffer from lack of something in you. This is the true meaning of your desire for physical appearance. I've dated super good looking individuals, and appearance-challenged individuals. I'm speaking from experience. — L'éléphant

To appreciate beauty, a quality listed among transcendentalia, is, I think, decidely not shallow! Even the Hindus, as outlined in the OP, made a big deal of sundaram. There's an entire branch of philosophy - aesthetics - devoted to the topic.

Perhaps I/we commit what I call the omniscience fallacy which is basically arguing from the false assumption that we know everything there is to know about a certain topic and drawing a possibly erroneous conclusion from actually incomplete information. Hillary mentions ugly truths as a counterexample to the transcendentalia; however, that maybe more a symptom of our ignorance than a truth about the world. That said, I haven't the foggiest how genocide, cold-blooded murder, rape, etc. can be labeled aesthetic. :confused:

I'm not Hindu, but the idea of listing one's hierarchiy of priorities is an interesting one.

Truth and justice seem like they should make the list, but not beauty unless that is taken to mean all worldly pleasures.

At any rate, my top priority is my family, truth and justice be dammed. — Hanover

My response would be that the transcendentalia are going to be beneficial for your family.

you suffer — L'éléphant

On target! I do (for no apparent reason)! :sad:

... ugly truths as a counterexample to the transcendentalia ... — Agent Smith

I attempt to incorporate "ugly truths" (i.e. disvalues) in my conception – negative dialectic (i.e. non-identity) – of "the transcendentals" as

• resisting indifference / waste (aesthetics)
• resisting harm / injustice (ethics)
• resisting error / nonsense (logic)

(wherein the former concerns 'judgments-conduct' / the latter concerns 'practices-norms') which are modes of immanent resistance ... instead of transcendent idealizations-idolatry (re: "the Beautiful" "the Good" "the True").

No doubt. But here there is a logically invalid conflation of these concepts in their absolute form - Truth with a capital “T”, and so forth - with non-absolute, and hence imperfect, instantiations of these perfect ideals …. Or so the argument might go.

But yes: The rapist, for one example, rapes because the rapist’s desires are gratified by so doing and, so, the raping is good for the rapist, minimally, while the action takes place. Ever seen the movie Perfume; it illustrates how acts such as murder can be or become aesthetic for the murderer. So too I imagine can become most any commonly deemed wrong that is a personal good for the person engaging in it, like the act of manipulating others. Or, the reality that many truths can hurt, at least in the short-term, and are thereby often treated as bad, furthermore often deemed untrue on this count. Human caused global warming comes to mind.

Nothing new in all this, I would think.

Nevertheless, in any supposition of True = Good = Beauty these terms can only be interpreted in terms of absolute ideals, or universals, from which all imperfect variations which we deal with result. So, for one example, the doing of wrongs is good for the wrongdoer, otherwise they wouldn’t be done, but this instantiation of “good” would be so far removed from the “Good” so as to either be deemed a bad or an evil by most.

To not be addressing these perfect ideals is to instead be addressing the notion of “truths = goods = beauties”, but I’ve never read it expressed as such by any philosopher, and this expression would indeed at best be buffoonery I would think - as per above examples.

Then again, there’s always relativism to fall back on for some - such that there is no such thing as a universality shared by all truths, by all goods, and by all beauties.

I attempt to incorporate "ugly truths" (i.e. disvalues) in my conception – negative dialectic (i.e. non-identity) – of "the transcendentals" as
• resisting indifference / waste (aesthetics)
• resisting harm / injustice (ethics)
• resisting error / nonsense (logic)
(wherein the former concerns 'judgments-conduct' / the latter concerns 'practices') which are modes of immanent resistance instead of transcendent idealization-idolatry (re: "the Beautiful" "the Good" "the True"). — 180 Proof

Amazing how you're the very picture of clarity, señor!

1. Truth (Logic & Epistemology)
2. Good (Ethics)
3. Beauty (Aesthetics)

How do you explain the conspicuous absence of metaphysics from the transcendentalia? Is it implied/implicit? Nonsense perhaps? Unrealistic (the parable of the arrow)?

Before I forget, a million thanks.



Indeed, there's what we wish for (perfection) and what we have to live with (imperfection). I suppose we feel better about ourselves, being flawed, we can even then conceive of the flawless. There's another thread, by Jack Cummins, on human judgment & error. Can error ever get a handle on accuracy?

As for relativism, I am of the view that it's a suicidal meme (it blows itself up, for apparently no reason at all). Even so, we could set that aside and run with it. Where does relativism take us before it bleeds to death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound?

There's another thread, by Jack Cummins, on human judgment & error. Can error ever get a handle on accuracy? — Agent Smith

I'll fallibly affirm "yes". I'm a fallibilist, after all.

Even so, we could set that aside and run with it. Where does the path of relativism lead before it bleeds to death from a self-inflicted gunshot? — Agent Smith

Ah. I'll leave that for the relativists to answer.

fallibilist — javra

My take on fallibilism: The idea is not not to make mistakes, but to know ? you're committing them? The former is impossible and hence absurd, the latter is Socratic knowledge (I know that I don't know).

This might help out:

Historically, fallibilism is most strongly associated with Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and other pragmatists. Global fallibilism (also called pragmatic fallibilism, contrite fallibilism, epistemic fallibilism, epistemological fallibilism or fallibilistic empiricism) implies that no beliefs can be conclusively justified,[3][5] or in other words, that knowledge does not require certainty.[6][7] Moreover, global fallibilists assert that because empirical knowledge can be revised by further observation, any of the things we take as empirical knowledge might turn out to be false.[4][8] The claim that all assertions are provisional and thus open to revision in light of new evidence is widely taken for granted in the natural sciences.[9] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism#Global_versus_local_fallibilism

the latter is Socratic knowledge (I know that I don't know). — Agent Smith

Why not? "I fallibly know that I infallibly know nothing."

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Panta rhei or Change is the only constant. — Heraclitus

Not exactly though, and hence

Change is an illusion. — Parmenides

Heraclitus subsumes Parmenides but the converse isn't true.

Since we can't be correct, let's at least reduce our error!