[Marsha]
When you wrote 'historical philosophical conversation', weren't you
limiting the statement to Western-centric historical philosophical
conversation? I am interested in exploring the relationship between
Buddhism and the MoQ.
[Arlo]
I do not speak any Eastern languages, nor am I fluent enough to
understand the specific cultural and historical meanings of what gets
translated into the English term "relativism" when the word is pulled
out of that context and put in a paragraph in front of me.
It may very well be that whatever term the Buddhists use that we
translate as "relativism" matches the MOQ's stance precisely. But the
problem is (1) we are not in that context, in the Eastern world with a
fluent understanding of their thoughts and language and cultural
history, and (2) the term when used in translation is someone's best
approximation of whatever original term was used within that language,
and so I don't think demanding the term be used is wrong-sighted.
In essence, even making this argument, you are saying that the there is
no real term in English that coincides with the original idea taken out
of that context, and "relativism" may be close but you're off then in
redefining 'relativism' to capture what meaning was lost in translation.
This may be good for you, but when that argument extends outside of
people knowing how you have personally redefined the word, it becomes
entirely problematic.
Maybe "relativism" isn't the best lexical selection in translation.
Maybe "contextualism" or "relationalism" or whatever is better, I don't
know. But why reforce meaning to keep a particular 'word' rather than
improve your understanding of meaning and offer words in English that
may, or do, map onto the original cultural-historical idea better?
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