[FairfieldLife] Re: Transcendental vs Naive Realism
In ancient India the materialist sect was represented by the Charvakas. The sect is very old and was prevalent during the time of the historical Buddha, 563 BCE. It is really no philosophy having died out sometime shortly after the Buddha's passing. However, there are rank materialists and there are refined materiasts, the latter represented by Vatsyana the author of the Kama Sutra. The Charvakas rejected the idealism of the Upanishads. They accepted only four means of valid knowledge: earth, air, fire and water and that from these three we could understand the world and all of its events. They did not accept inference as a valid means of knowledge. Brhaspati is the reputed founder of this sect. His Sutra is now lost but according to Sharma, we have no reason to doubt that it once existed. In a nutshell, the name Charvaka signifies a person that believes in eat, drink and be merry, or a person whose doctrine is superficially attractive. I must admit that when I first read about this sect, it seemed to make a lot of sense because it seemed so dirt simple. Later, after having read and contemplated real Indian philosophers I came to realize the superficiality of the metaphysics of materialism. The materialistic sect of Brhaspati taught that perception is the only authority; the elements are the only means of epistemology or valid knowledge. Enjoyment is the only end of human existence; mind is only a product of matter. There is no other world; death means a simple liberation. Earth, air, fire, and water are the elements. Consciousness arises from matter and is the result of a combination of matter; the soul is nothing but the conscious body. There is no heaven, no liberation, nor an individual soul-monad - nor do the actions of any rituals produce any real effect. If food given to the gods are enjoyable,then why not give it to the poor down below? How can a man burned to ashes return here to live again? The three authors of the Vedas were buffoons, knaves, and liars. So, perception is the only means of valid knowledge for the Charvaka. Inference is just a leap in the dark; going from the known into the unknown, though sometimes inference is accidentally true. So, inference is rejected and verbal testimony too and even induction and deduction is considered by them to be argument in a circle. This sect and the doctrine of materialism has been reject by all systems of Indian Philosophy and criticized in numerous writings. The view that rejects inference is itself a product of inference. Thoughts and ideas, not being material objects, cannot be perceived; they can only be inferred. So, the Charvaka materialist is self-refuted and really no system of philosophy or metaphysics at all. Perception itself is often proved to be false and untrue. If consciousness means self-consciousness it means they are humans and cannot be identified with the body. Animals also have bodies, but not rational consciousness. If consciousness is an essential part of the body it should be inseparable from the body, but it is not - it dies, faints or is otherwise is in a dream state, etc. The knower cannot be reduced to only a body because all objects presuppose the existent of the knowing subject. The cause of consciousness cannot be a material object - if consciousness is a property of the body it should be able to be perceived like other material objects. Transcendentalists accept sense-perception and inference as a valid means of knowledge, as well as verbal testimony and the scriptures. Work cited: /'A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy'/ by Chandrahar Sharma, M.A., D. Phil., D. Litt., LL.B., Shastri, Dept. of Phil., Benares Hindu U. Rider, 1960 pp. 40-44 Most people are realists, that is, they get their knowledge from using common sense or logic. Almost everyone get knowledge through our eyes and sometimes our ears. Other forms of valid knowledge we get through the verbal testimony of others, inference, and through the scriptures, that is, /anything that is recorded by any means, graphic or textual./ But, are these forms of knowledge the only valid means of obtaining knowledge? /Epistemology/ is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. So, let's review the valid means of knowledge: * Sense experience * Verbal testimony * Inference * Scriptures We transcendentalists postulate that Consciousness is the ultimate reality - without it people would not be conscious - there would be no perception. This is a dirt simple fact of life requiring no further proof. No rational person would claim that they don't exist, unless they were insane or demented - it's just not rational. We are conscious of ourselves enough to know that we exist and are self-conscious. So, we are agreed that the physical world contains numerous contradictions. Everyone experiences the world mostly with their senses: mainly our eyes and our ears;
[FairfieldLife] Re: Transcendental vs Naive Realism
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, punditster@... wrote : In a previous post, (Naive Realism) this fellow proposed that: Meditators are transcendentalists, whereas naive realists are materialists. I missed this previous post, can you post a link? That report was a reflective account of an un-reflective view. For, strictly speaking, the moment a naive realist reflects upon his view he is no longer completely naive. According to my professor, A.J. Bahm, the naive realist is something of a strawman set up by epistemologists to represent us in our un-reflective moments. This straw man may not be quite like any of us, or you, because most of us have reflected somewhat on the transcendental view as opposed to the materialistic view. Yet, we can recognize that it represents a view we transcendentalists hold much of the time. In order to remind the good reader of all the salient points covered in that cogent post by this fellow, it would be perhaps beneficial to review here, to wit, those salient points: There are six statements which summarize the doctrine of a Transcendentalist: Objects do NOT exist independently of their being known. They cannot endure or continue to exist without being experienced by anyone. Knowing objects creates them. Rubbish Objects derive their existence or nature from the knower. Prove it. Objects, including their qualities, are affected merely by being known. Knowledge of objects changes their nature. Sorry, I'm not religious. Objects are not as they are and are not as they seem. Or, as we sometimes say, appearances are not realities. What seems obviously so is sometimes not so. Fair enough on that one. Objects are not known directly; that is, there is something between them and our knowledge of them. We do not experience them exactly as they are because they are distorted by the intervening senses. Yup, obvious really. Objects are not public; that is, they can not be known by more than one person. exactly alike. Several people can see the same object and see it differently. Another hit, keep going you'll get there in the end. Or force yourself into a corner of unreasonable conclusions drawn from poor inferences. Are we agreed so far?
[FairfieldLife] Re: Transcendental vs Naive Realism
Most people are realists, that is, they get their knowledge from using common sense or logic. Almost everyone get knowledge through our eyes and sometimes our ears. Other forms of valid knowledge we get through the verbal testimony of others, inference, and through the scriptures, that is, /anything that is recorded by any means, graphic or textual./ But, are these forms of knowledge the only valid means of obtaining knowledge? /Epistemology/ is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. So, let's review the valid means of knowledge: * Sense experience * Verbal testimony * Inference * Scriptures We transcendentalists postulate that Consciousness is the ultimate reality - without it people would not be conscious - there would be no perception. This is a dirt simple fact of life requiring no further proof. No rational person would claim that they don't exist, unless they were insane or demented - it's just not rational. We are conscious of ourselves enough to know that we exist and are self-conscious. So, we are agreed that the physical world contains numerous contradictions. Everyone experiences the world mostly with their senses: mainly our eyes and our ears; sometimes taste and smell. We observe the world over time and take note with our senses: we see a flower; watch an event; hear a sound or a voice and from our sense impressions we deduce and analyze. But, sometimes the sense do NOT perceive the world exactly as it is. When sense perceptions do not agree, or are contradictory and conflicting, which sense should we accept as true? If appearances derived through one sensory channel appear contradictory, it is natural to appeal to other senses for corroboration. We hear the distant carpenter's hammer strike once after we see it stop striking. We see lightning flashes now, but hear thunder later. The steam of a distant whistle stops while the sound continues. How do we decide between conflicting senses? What are thoughts? Are thoughts physical objects that we can see with our eyes or hear with our ears? /Or, are thoughts transcendental sources of valid knowledge? / In a previous post, (Naive Realism) this fellow proposed that: /Meditators are transcendentalists, whereas naive realists are materialists. / That report was a reflective account of an un-reflective view. For, strictly speaking, the moment a naive realist reflects upon his view he is no longer completely naive. According to my professor, A.J. Bahm, the naive realist is something of a strawman set up by epistemologists to represent us in our un-reflective moments. This straw man may not be quite like any of us, or you, because most of us have reflected somewhat on the transcendental view as opposed to the materialistic view. Yet, we can recognize that it represents a view we transcendentalists hold much of the time. In order to remind the good reader of all the salient points covered in that cogent post by this fellow, it would be perhaps beneficial to review here, to wit, those salient points: There are six statements which summarize the doctrine of a Transcendentalist: 1. Objects do NOT exist independently of their being known. They cannot endure or continue to exist without being experienced by anyone. Knowing objects creates them. 2. Objects derive their existence or nature from the knower. 3. Objects, including their qualities, are affected merely by being known. Knowledge of objects changes their nature. 4. Objects are not as they are and are not as they seem. Or, as we sometimes say, appearances are not realities. What seems obviously so is sometimes not so. 5. Objects are not known directly; that is, there is something between them and our knowledge of them. We do not experience them exactly as they are because they are distorted by the intervening senses. 6. Objects are not public; that is, they can not be known by more than one person. exactly alike. Several people can see the same object and see it differently. Are we agreed so far?
