Hi Richard:
PLATT (previously)
Precisely my point. If I believe in an absolute truth and you don�t, then
you have no reason to oppose and try to defeat me if I gain the power to
impose my truth on you.
RICHARD
Yes you do - the reason is that if you wish to maintain the belief in the
absence of an absolute truth in the face of an absolute truth. This isn't
philosophically consistent of course, but if we wish to keep on
intermingling politics and philosophy then that is simply to be expected.
You can maintain your philosophic beliefs all you want under a
dictatorship. But when you find yourself in front of a firing squad for
some trumped up crime against the state, your belief in the absence of
absolute truth will, I assure you, suddenly disappear in the face of
immanent absolute death.
PLATT
Are you absolutely certain that what you say the Nazis did is historically
true? (-:
RICHARD
Absolutely :-) I never claimed not to believe in some form of absolute
truth. It's merely the idea of being railroaded into it on grounds on
political grounds that I have reservations about. As I said, on your
reckoning, even if absolute truth didn't exist, the idea would still have to
have lip-service paid to it.
Well, if you admit to absolute truth, what are we arguing about? That�s
been my contention all along. Once you acknowledge the existence of
an absolute truth--any form of absolute truth--the entire philosophical
edifice of relativism collapses.
PLATT
Reluctance to engage in questions of ideology paves the way for those
with fanatic ideologies to take over. Make no mistake about it: believing
that �the beliefs of each individual are equally valid� is a fanatic
ideology, now being taught on campuses across the country. This
ideology leaves a power vacuum which will be filled by--you guessed
it�intellectuals,
RICHARD
Hang on - intellectuals across the country are creating a postmodern
vacuum which will be filled by... exactly the same intellectuals ?
You got it. They don�t call themselves intellectuals for nothing. They
think they are smart enough to fool the masses, and so far, are doing a
pretty good job of it. (Need I go into the Clinton phenomenon?)
RICHARD
How do you view Elephant's mediating idea that truth can be
subdivided into relative and absolute categories?
PLATT
Sorry, I must have missed that. Can you or Elephant elucidate?
ELEPHANT
In Mahayana Buddhism the distinction is drawn between two 'levels' of
truth or reality. There is first the level, of Samsara, of ordinary reality
within which we make all the distinctions we do make, including those
between what, in an ordinary way, is real and what is not (for example,
the distinction between mirages and real pools of water). And then
there is the level of 'ultimate reality', about which little can be said
except that the view from 'ultimate reality' is an 'enlightened' view, a way
of seeing and being in which there is freedom from Dukkha. The notion
of this 'ultimate reality' can seem very elusive, abstract, philosophical;
and its philosophical elucidation has indeed taxed the brains of the
greatest Buddhist thinkers from Nagarjuna onwards. But it is not just a
philosopher's notion; it is central to the experience of the Buddhist path.
I can see the grounds for confusion. My meaning of absolute truth is
the absolute difference between mirages and real pools of water, i.e.,
the difference between A and B. Ultimate truth of an ultimate reality is
another matter, though I have no doubt that the experience of
enlightenment is absolutely true.
What do you say, Richard? Have we about exhausted the discussion of
postmodernism and absolutes? As much as I have enjoyed our back
and forth, do you agree that it�s time to move on to another subject?
(I�m not much interested in the Nazi Heidegger.) How about Pirsig�s
statement:
�But within modern Buddhist thought dharma becomes the
phenomenal world� the object of perception, thought or
understanding. A chair, for example, is not composed of atoms of
substance, it is composed of dharmas. This statement is absolute
jabberwocky to a conventional subject-object metaphysics. How can a
chair be composed of individual little moral orders? But if one applies
the Metaphysics of Quality and sees that a chair is an inorganic static
pattern and sees that all static patterns are composed of value and that
value is synonymous with morality then it all begins to make sense.�
(LILA, Chap. 30)
Do you buy it?
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
