Dear all, I haven't followed the whole thread. But try to explain the connection with James and Pragmatism. How is James related to the Eastern approach?
On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 8:29 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote: > > Mary said to dmb: > ...What I would say is that it occurs to me that there are basically two > ways you can approach the MoQ. Either you take a Western road to get there > via James and the Pragmatists or Empiricists; or you come at it from the > Eastern Buddhist perspective. Both are valid. It seems to me that those > who have an Eastern appreciation are much more likely to see the > Intellectual Level as SOM than those who are approaching from the other > road. I guess this makes neither one wrong, but IMHO the MoQ has much > greater explanatory power when the Intellectual Level is viewed as SOM than > when it is not. ... Much to my own surprise, I find that I am becoming daily > more and more in the Eastern mysticism camp. > > > > dmb says: > > Well, I think that ZAMM is an East meets West kind of thing and so the > trick is to see that James's approach and the Zen approach are actually the > same approach. There is a paper on-line you might be interested in > pondering. It starts out like this.... > > The Varieties of Pure Experience: William James and Kitaro Nishida on > Consciousness and Embodiment > Joel W. Krueger > 1. Introduction The notion of "pure experience" is one > of the most intriguing and simultaneously perplexing features of William > James's writings. There seems to be little consensus in the secondary > literature as to how to understand this notion, and precisely what function > it serves within the overall structure of James's thought. Yet James himself > regards this idea as the cornerstone of his radical empiricism. And the > latter, James felt, was his unique contribution to the history of > philosophy; he believed that philosophy "was on the eve of a considerable > rearrangement" when his essay "A World of Pure Experience" was first > published in 1904. While Western philosophy is still perhaps awaiting this > "considerable rearrangement," James's notion of pure experience was quickly > appropriated by another thinker who in fact did inaugurate a considerable > rearrangement of his own intellectual tradition: the Japanese philosopher > Kitaro Nishida (1870—1945), the founder and most important figure of the > Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy.1 Kitaro Nishida is widely > recognized as Japan's foremost modern philosopher. His earliest major work, > An Inquiry into the Good (1911), is generally considered to be the founding > statement of the Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy. Other prominent > Kyoto School figures, including Hajime Tanabe (1885–1962), Keiji Nishitani > (1900–1990), and Masao Abe (1915– ), each acknowledged the profound > influence of Nishida's work on their own intellectual development. > Pluralistic in his outlook and comparative in his methodology, Nishida was > throughout his life deeply influenced by a number of western thinkers and > religious figures (a trait shared by most other prominent Kyoto School > figures). For instance, Nishida speaks favorably of Augustine, Kant, Hegel > and Bergson, and concedes that these Western thinkers, among others, had a > hand in shaping his thought.2 But it was with James's formulation of > pure experience that Nishida first believed that he had found a conceptual > apparatus upon which he could ground the characteristic themes and concerns > that have since been designated "Nishida Philosophy." Additionally, Nishida > felt that James's idea of pure experience was able to preserve some of the > more important features of Buddhist thought that Nishida looked to > incorporate into his own system. Though he was only to practice Zen > meditation for a relatively short time, the distinctively Zen concern with > cultivating an intuitive, pre-reflective insight into the nature of reality > and experience was conjoined, in Nishida, with the Western emphasis on logic > and argumentative rigor in a somewhat unlikely alliance. > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail has tools for the New Busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your > inbox. > > http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_1 > 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/md/archives.html > 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/md/archives.html
