dmb, I have read his biography and think William James was historically very interesting. - Your words, on the other hand, do not ring good to my ears. I do not think you know what you are talking about. and even with the Ronettes humming your praise in the background, your posts seem discordant. Flush.
Marsha On Oct 6, 2010, at 12:50 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > Marsha said: > Based on my understanding of Buddhist philosophy, Quantum Physics, the MoQ, > philosophical readings supporting various types of relativism, and my own > personal first-hand experience, I subscribe to, at the very least, > epistemological relativism. > > > dmb says: > > Everyone's point of view is based on their understanding of things. What else > could it be based on? The problem is that you're constantly ignoring evidence > against your point of view. You cling to it despite the fact that you are > repeatedly shown to be using bad logic and bogus definitions. It's like > talking to a creationist about evolution. The facts simply do not matter to > you and - what's even worse - you heap scorn on anyone who disagrees with > your contradictory nonsense or anyone who presents a case against it. > Nastiness seems to be your only mode of defense. You've even attacked your > own statements just to get at me - several times! At this point I sincerely > wonder if you are even capable of having a meaningful conversation or even of > expressing a coherent thought. Give it shot. Who knows, maybe you'll even > like it. > > You know, when people think together - I mean really focus and co-operate > rather than compete or grandstand - it's magic. It's awesome. There will > always be those who see what you didn't see and not everyone will see what > you saw. When a whole group works together on the same thing, the > comprehension level of each and every individual will hugely improved. There > could be a few rare exceptions, but basically nobody can do as well on their > own. I've seen this process work its magic many, many times. Your spiteful > and unresponsive behavior is a monkey wrench in that process. You're doing a > disservice to this forum and to yourself. And why? What's the point? Why go > to the pool if you don't want to swim? Why go to a discussion group if you > don't want to discuss? > > Ah, but if a philosophical discussion depends on the use of intellectual > static patterns and if static patterns are ever-changing then the truth of a > statement has evaporated before you even get to the end of the sentence. If > static patterns are ever-changing then truth is so fleeting that it's > meaningless. See, when static is construed as dynamic, as ever-changing, you > have cut off your own legs and are otherwise intellectually paralyzed on a > dead-end street. These are very bad consequences and that's why it's such a > tremendously bad idea to construe static patterns as ever-changing. Have you > ever acknowledged this point? By confusing DQ and sq, it really makes quite a > mess of things and that's how you end up landing on relativism. > > From William James's "Varieties of Religious Experience", the chapter titled > "Philosophy", pages 408-10: > > What religion reports, you must remember, always purports to be a fact of > experience: the divine is actually present, religion says, and between it and > ourselves relations of give and take are actual. If definite perceptions of > fact like this cannot stand upon their own feet, surely abstract reasoning > cannot give them the support they are in need of. Conceptual processes can > class facts, define them, interpret them; but they do not produce them, nor > can they reproduce their individuality. There is always a plus, a thisness, > which feeling alone can answer for. Philosophy in this sphere is thus a > secondary function, unable to warrant faith's veracity, and so I revert to > the thesis which I announced at the beginning of this lecture. > In all sad sincerity I think we must conclude that the attempt to demonstrate > by purely intellectual processes the truth of the deliverances of direct > religious experience is absolutely hopeless. > It would be unfair to philosophy, however, to leave her under this negative > sentence. Let me close, then, by briefly enumerating what she can do for > religion. If she will abandon metaphysics and deduction for criticism and > induction, and frankly transform herself from theology into science of > religions, she can make herself enormously useful. > The spontaneous intellect of man always defines the divine which it feels in > ways that harmonize with its temporary intellectual prepossessions. > Philosophy can by comparison eliminate the local and the accidental from > these definitions. Both from dogma and from worship she can remove historic > incrustations. By confronting the spontaneous religious constructions with > the results of natural science, philosophy can also eliminate doctrines that > are now known to be scientifically absurd or incongruous. > Sifting out in this way unworthy formulations, she can leave a residuum of > conceptions that at least are possible. With these she can deal as > hypotheses, testing them in all the manners, whether negative or positive, by > which hypotheses are ever tested. She can reduce their number, as some are > found more open to objection. She can perhaps become the champion of one > which she picks out as being the most closely verified or verifiable. She can > refine upon the definition of this hypothesis, distinguishing between what is > innocent over-belief and symbolism in the expression of it, and what is to be > literally taken. As a result, she can offer mediation between different > believers, and help to bring about consensus of opinion. She can do this the > more successfully, the better she discriminates the common and essential from > the individual and local elements of the religious beliefs which she compares. > I do not see why a critical Science of Religions of this sort might not > eventually command as general a public adhesion as is commanded by a physical > science. Even the personally non-religious might accept its conclusions on > trust, much as blind persons now accept the facts of optics- it might appear > as foolish to refuse them. Yet as the science of optics has to be fed in the > first instance, and continually verified later, by facts experienced by > seeing persons; so the science of religions would depend for its original > material on facts of personal experience, and would have to square itself > with personal experience through all its critical reconstructions. It could > never get away from concrete life, or work in a conceptual vacuum. It would > forever have to confess, as every science confesses, that the subtlety of > nature flies beyond it, and that its formulas are but approximations. > Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways > that exceed verb al > formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that > glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes > too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his > volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun, for his profession > condemns him to this industry, but he secretly knows the hollowness and > irrelevancy. His formulas are like stereoscopic or kinetoscopic photographs > seen outside the instrument; they lack the depth, the motion, the vitality. > In the religious sphere, in particular, belief that formulas are true can > never wholly take the place of personal experience. > > > > > > > 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
