On Sep 5, 2013, at 12:47 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Marsha said: > > Btw, here is a Paul Williams quote that I found in the MoQ Textbook: > "Williams (1988, p.83) states that the First Aspect refers to the falsifying > activity of language which implies independent and permanent existence to > things." > > > dmb says: > > Again, you're confusing the disease with the cure. This falsifying activity > is also known as reification and you keep insisting that this is inescapable. No, I have made no such claim. > In effect, this would be that a cure is impossible. The cure would be to dump the poor metaphor. > It would mean that the MOQ is impossible. Huh? > It would mean that rejecting SOM realism is impossible. It's not my quote. It is a quote from the scholar that you quoted. > And I keep telling you that you're wrong about that. If it were true, it > would be impossible for Williams to explain what is being said here about > falsification. But here is, doing exactly that: (Paul Williams, "Mahayana > Buddhism", Routledge, 1989, p.83/84). > > "In order to understand what is being said here, one should try and imagine > all things, objects of experience and oneself, the one who is experiencing, > as just a flow of perceptions. We do not know that there is something "out > there". We have only experiences of colours, shapes, tactile data, and so on. > We also don't know that we ourselves are anything than a further series of > experiences. Taken together, there is only an ever-changing flow of > perceptions (vijnaptimatra)... Due to our beginningless ignorance we > construct these perceptions into enduring subjects and objects confronting > each other. This is irrational, things are not really like that, and it leads > to suffering and frustration. The constructed objects are the conceptualised > aspect. The flow of perceptions which forms the basis for our mistaken > constructions is the dependent aspect." > > Many different philosophers are able to see this "falsifying activity" for > what it is. Here is Charlene Seigfried, for example, paraphrasing William > James: > > "abstractionism had become vicious already with Socrates and Plato, who > deified conceptualization and denigrated the ever-changing flow of > experience, thus forgetting and falsifying the origin of concepts as humanly > constructed extracts from the temporal flux." (William James's Radical > Reconstruction of Philosophy, 379.) > > > Confused much? Not at all. > Marsha said: > I do like the use of the word 'process'. James really likes the word > 'process'. I take it, dmb, that you are using a definition of perception > that is much broader than 'sensory input', including such experiences as > nighttime dreams and daydreams? Paul William, though, seems to being using > perceptions in the sensory sense (colours, shapes, tactile data, and so on.") > > > dmb says: > If Paul Williams is not going beyond sensory sense, then he is not talking > about Mahayana Buddhism but traditional sensory empiricism or Positivism. > Since the title of his book is "Mahayana Buddhism," your interpretation is > highly implausible. Radical empiricists (the cure) like Pirsig and James > certainly do go beyond traditional sensory empiricism, which is predicated on > subject-object metaphysics (the disease). > > Confused much? Not at all. > Pirsig on the MOQ's empiricism:"The MOQ subscribes to what is called > empiricism. It claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the > senses or by thinking about what the senses provide. Most empiricists deny > the validity of any knowledge gained through imagination, authority, > tradition, or purely theoretical reasoning. They regard fields such as art, > morality, religion, and metaphysics as unverifiable. The MOQ varies from this > by saying that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism > are verifiable, and that in the past they have been excluded for metaphysical > reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the > metaphysical assumption that all the universe is compose of subjects and > objects and anything that can't be classifieds as a subject or an object > isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all. It is > just an assumption." > > In other words, "To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its > construction any element that is not directly experienced NOR EXCLUDE from > them ANY ELEMENT THAT IS EXPERIENCED." > > > Still confused? Not at all, thanks to my own investigation. > > Until you can admit that you might be wrong, that you might need correcting, > you will never learn. In other words, you will never learn. > > > > ------------------------------- > > "... what that one stuff of which things and thoughts are both made might be. > What is required, James argues, is an approach he calls radical empiricism. > Empiricism, he insists, is the opposite of rationalism. Rationalism tends to > emphasize universals and to make wholes prior to parts. "Empiricism on the > contrary lays the explanatory stress upon the part, the element as an > abstraction. To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its > construction any element that is not directly experienced nor exclude from > them any element that is experienced."" > > "that consciousness is a process and only a process, that what we call > objects are really bundles of relations, and that all we have to work with, > think about, or live with is somehow experience" > > "James' factual statement is that our experience isn't just a stream of data, > it's a complex process that's full of meaning." > 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
