Bill, & list,
In addition to the story of Genie, there's plenty of evidence in
developmental psychology that reasoning, and indeed language, is a
social phenomenon. I'd mention Vygotsky and Tomasello, but then i'd have
to leave out all the others.
I'm surprised to see this part of your message though:
[[ One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer
has been the traditional Orient, where life has historically been
cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humans nearly routine. A
modern example is Maoist purges and the rape and pillage of Tibet. Mao
and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. ]]
So did the European invasion of what we now call the Americas. History
does not at all bear out your suggestion that genocide is an "oriental"
phenomenon or that life is cheaper on the other side of the world.
[[ For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't
that the message of the Bhagavad Gita? So kill away, oh nobly born,
and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. ]]
No, that is not the message of the Bhagavad Gita. You might have a look
at Gandhi's commentary on it -- Gandhi (1926), ed. John Strohmeier
(2000), The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley
Hills). Gandhi acknowledged the Gita as the main inspiration for his
life and work. Would you say that he was deficient in conscience?
As i hinted in my previous message, i see a close parallel to Peirce's
ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the
bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, which is simply that one vows to
work for universal enlightenment, not for private salvation or personal
attainment of nirvana. The more i study them, the more i'm convinced
that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in
accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see
through the differences.
However i don't cling to this thesis tenaciously ... if you can present
evidence to the contrary, by all means do so!
gary F.
}Set thy heart upon thy work, but never upon its reward. [Bhagavad-Gita
2:47]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson & Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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