dmb,
"The goal of Madhyamaka philosophy is the abandonment not of reality, but of a
way of taking up with reality, and that way turns out to be inexpressible
precisely because of the character of language and thought---always
reificatory; always imposing a conventional grid."
(Garfield, Jay L., 'Empty Words)
Please explain how you think I understand 'reification.' I do not think you
have a clue.
Marsha
On May 28, 2011, at 11:38 AM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> Marsha said to dmb:
> From much I've read, reification represents the conventional way of thinking,
> and since I accept ''reification' from the expanded Buddhist understanding I
> think I will just ignore your posts. This is another of your fly-speck
> attempts to discredit the person rather than address the issue. Would you
> like me to post more quotes explaining 'reification' from the Buddhist
> point-of-view? Call me a delusional fanatic if you like. Your ad hominem
> nonsense doesn't mean much to me. It's a low-grade form of rhetoric.
>
>
> dmb says:
> Yea, go ahead a post your "evidence" again. And I will show you once again
> that the quotes do NOT support the "expanded Buddhist understanding". Last
> time, your own evidence said concepts MAY be reified. Common sense,
> conventional thinking is not philosophical. It's practical and the average
> guy does not doubt the existence of the traffic light. That kind of common
> sense realism or natural essentialism is NOT a problem. Realistic
> conceptualizations work quite unproblematically on the conventional level.
> Reification becomes a problem when conventional notions are asked to do
> philosophical work, when ordinary thoughts and things become metaphysical or
> ontological categories.
>
> Pirsig's attack on Plato's fixed and eternal forms and his attack on
> Aristotle's substance are proper attacks on reification, for example. The way
> he and James both insist that subjects and objects are concepts rather than
> the starting points of reality, for example, is an attack on reification.
>
> Your incoherent attack on reification is just a foolish. You're oblivious to
> the problem where it actually exists and instead use the term to condemn any
> and all concepts. Like I said, if you were able to comprehend the meaning of
> the term you'd reject Bo's position in a very big way. He has reified the MOQ
> and yet you follow him even while you blather on incoherently about
> reification.
>
> You know, the cool thing about Buddhism is that it is more like psychology
> than religion. William James thought one particular Buddhist guest speaker at
> Harvard was a better psychologist than himself, and told him so after the
> talk. There are Buddhist scholars who say that the Buddha was a pragmatist
> and a radical empiricist and who say James's work is compatible with Japanese
> Zen Buddhism. My point? Zen and the Art doesn't need any Buddhist expansion
> or correction, least of all from non-Buddhist, non-scholar like you, because
> it's already there.
>
> Again, I'll remind you that you repeatedly cited an enthusiastic William
> James fan to dispute William James. The quotes you post as evidence for your
> notion of reification do not support that notion at all.
>
> What I don't get is WHY you need to believe that the intellect cannot escape
> SOM or reification. It's pretty clear that you have some kind of deep
> emotional commitment to the belief that intellect is something to killed
> rather than cultivated. But why do you NEED to believe that? Is like a sour
> grapes thing? You're tired of being told that you have the wrong idea and
> that your laboring under a misconception and so rather than do the work it
> takes to think things through you simply decided that ideas and conceptions
> themselves are inherently bad. You've adopted a virulent form of
> anti-intellectualism in order to protect your self-esteem, to get off the
> hook and otherwise evade the issues. That's why nobody can ever have anything
> like a real conversation with you.
>
> If I present the evidence, you say it doesn't explain anything or dismiss it
> as authoritarian rather than authoritative. (Man, is that dumb!) If I
> explain, you ask for evidence. If I use logic, you don't see the point.
> Considering the context, that behavior is wildly inappropriate. Words and
> ideas are our common currency, the medium of exchange, not the root of all
> evil. You're betting that cash is no good and yet cash is all you have to
> bet. It's simply incoherent.
>
> Nobody thinks you're going to be persuaded by this or any other argument. I'm
> not really talking to you because there is no talking to you. Ask anyone
> who's ever tried.
>
>
> So what happened, eh? Did tragedy follow some kind of intellectual hubris?
> Somebody got hurt and you blame thinking itself? A smart person broke your
> heart? What? Why do you NEED to believe the intellect is inherently stuck on
> a metaphysics and can't escape reification? Why do you NEED to hold thinking
> in such contempt? And, considering this attitude, why would you join a
> philosophical discussion group in the first place? Isn't that a bit like a
> neo-nazi skinhead joining the NAACP?
>
>
>> On May 28, 2011, at 9:39 AM, david buchanan wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> John said to Marsha:
>>> ...when you originally flip-flopped on your support for Bo, the reason you
>>> gave was chiefly that he'd been loyal for so long. Then came the
>>> intellectual justification for your emotional reaction. Now I don't
>>> criticize that process, in fact, I think it's honestly the only way we do
>>> things. We always rationalize what we really want emotionally. Which is
>>> why I don't think the 4th level can rightly be termed "intellectual".
>>>
>>>
>>> Marsha replied:
>>> I might have defended Bo because of his loyalty to the MD, but that was not
>>> the reason I came to believe Bo is correct. I was backed into a corner, he
>>> backed me into a corner, and I was struck wordless. I realized that
>>> conceptualization reifies. I didn't know the word then, but I clearly
>>> understood the process. Only later did I stumble across the word 'reify'
>>> and after reading it a number of times I recognized it as the process from
>>> which I couldn’t escape...
>>>
>>>
>>> dmb says:
>>> There is an recent article in Mother Jones about "the science of
>>> self-delsusion". While emotion is a crucial component of the overall
>>> cognitive process, various studies show that people with deep emotional
>>> attachments to a belief or point of view will ignore and/or attack anything
>>> that threatens to undermine that belief. Such a person will dismiss
>>> evidence, deny facts, deny logic and generally do whatever it takes to
>>> protect the delusion that comforts them. Usually, this type of
>>> self-deception is found among political ideologues and religious believers.
>>>
>>> And in some case we even find folks who are willing to defy dictionaries
>>> and encyclopedia articles.
>>>
>>> If reification is an error wherein abstract concepts are mistaken for
>>> actual, concrete realities, AND Bo's position says that the MOQ is reality,
>>> then he has committed that error in a very big way. If Marsha actually had
>>> a realization as to the meaning of "reification" she would not be defending
>>> Bo. She would be using him as an example of what can go wrong when concepts
>>> are reified.
>>>
>>> And if there is no self-delusion at work in maintaining the view assertion
>>> that the intellectual level is equal to subject-object metaphysics, then
>>> how would we explain the fact that they are clinging to that view despite
>>> the author's explicit statements to the contrary? Evidence doesn't get much
>>> clearer or more authoritative than that. What could be more rigid and
>>> static than a point of view that will not bend in the face of such clear
>>> and obvious evidence?
>>>
>>> What's more fun and satisfying than talking to a delusional fanatic? Almost
>>> anything.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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