Craig --
"If anyone sees how it is that Not-other (which is the Other[ness] of the other) is not the other, then he sees the Other[ness] of the other-i.e., the Other[ness] of other things." (Cusanus)
First of all, that isn't Nicholas's quote; it's your attempt to extemporize on it to the point of absurdity.
Ham, Is there a translation of Cusanus which is intelligible to English speakers?
Yes, there is. Cusa himself defined his principle thusly: "The first principle cannot be other, either than an other or than nothing, and likewise is not opposed to anything." In my book and on-line thesis I included Professor Clyde Miller's recent restatement of Cusa's theory as a logical proposition:
"For any given non-divine X, X is not other than X, and X is other than not X. What is unique about the divine not other is precisely that it is not other than either X or not X ('cannot be other than' -- 'is not opposed to anything'). The transcendent not-other thus undercuts both the principles of non-contradiction and of the excluded middle."
Since I'm accused of failing to use the official vernacular, let me restate this proposition as Pirsig might have stated it, DQ is not other than SQ, and SQ is not other than DQ. What is unique about DQ is precisely that it is not other than either a pattern or a non-pattern, being or nothing, subject or object, positive or negative, or any other contrariety. In other words, the 'not-other' is what transcends all otherness, yet is responsible for its appearance.
In short, Cusanus' first principle defines the coincidence of all difference. I also point out that this theory has afforded philosophers a logical definition for the ineffable Source whose attributive nature is otherwise indescribable. What astonishes me is that it has been virtually ignored for nearly 600 years.
Regards, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
