From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Thu Aug 26 2004 - 06:55:30 BST
Ham Priday to Scott Roberts and Paul Turner
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 1:50 AM
Subject: RE: MD The individual in the MOQ
Gentlemen, my posts seem to be arriving out of sequence, so I'm not sure
when this exchange took place.
> Paul,
>
> > Paul [to Ham]:
> > No it isn't. It would, however, be illogical to state that Quality is
> > everything and, if it can't be its own source, is therefore also not
> > everything. (Although I think there is Indian logic which permits this,
> > but this logic is usually used to point away from itself to an
> > alternative understanding. I'm sure Scott will correct me :-))
>
> [Scott:] Naturally :-). The correction I would make is that the logic is
> not used to point away from itself to an alternative understanding. For
one
> thing, in the item under investigation it points to the impossibility of
> any understanding, in the sense of something one can capture discursively.
> But also, it does not want to point away from itself, but to keep one's
> attention on the something and its discursive incomprehensibleness. I
would
> add (since I'm not all that sure the Indians would agree, or not all of
> them), that it points toward the incomprehensibleness as the item's
nature,
> that what is to us incomprehensibility is to the item its source of
> creativity, or modus operandi, or something like that.
> - Scott
At the risk of violating the rules here, may I suggest that chasing around
to find a logic that "permits" one conclusion over another is not helpful
when the goal is simply to explain a concept and its meaning. Logic does
not apply to undifferentiated Quality or Essence, anyway, and its use to
validate (or invalidate) a metaphysical scenario is a distraction to
understanding.
I think it was David Morey who suggested that I look into Heidegger's
non-dualism to better understand MOQ. While I admire Heidegger as an
analytical thinker, his emphasis on being-there (the "dasein" concept of
existentialism) is contradictory to the philosophy of Essence. I much
prefer Karl Jaspers' insight.. Jaspers writes with great clarity (even read
in translation), and his discussion of "The Comprehensive" has application
to both of the metaphysics in question. The following is from chapter 3 of
his small volume "Way to Wisdom".
"What is the meaning of this ever-present subject-object dichotomy? It can
only mean that being as a whole is neither subject nor object but must be
the Comprehensive, which is manifested in this dichotomy.
"Clearly being as such cannot be an object. Everything that becomes an
object for me breaks away from the Comprehensive in confronting me, while I
break away from it as subject. For the I, the object is a determinate
being. The Comprehensive remains obscure to my consciousness. It becomes
clear only through objects, and takes on greater clarity as the objects
become more conscious and more clear. The Comprehensive does not itself
become an object but is manifested in the dichotomy of I and object. It
remains itself a background, it boundlessly illumines the phenomenon, but it
is always the Comprehensive.
"But there is in all thinking a second dichotomy. Every determinate object
is thought in reference to other objects. Determinacy implies
differentiation of the one from the other. And even when I think of being
as such, I have in mind nothingness as its antithesis.
"Thus every object, every thought content stands in a twofold dichotomy,
first in reference to me, the thinking subject, and secondly in reference to
other objects. As thought content it can never be everything, never the
whole of being, never being itself. Whatever is thought must break out of
the Comprehensive. It is a particular, juxtaposed both to the I and to
other objects.
"Thus in our thinking we gain only an intimation of the Comprehensive. It
is not manifested to us, but everything else is manifested in it."
Jaspers concludes this section with the statement: "Suffice it to say that
the Comprehensive, conceived as being itself, is called transcendence (God),
and the world, while as that which we ourselves are it is called
being-there, consciousness, mind, and existence." I depart from Jaspers
only with respect to his definition of the Comprehensive (Essence) as
"being", as I regard beingness as an "intellectualized" property of
experienced objects rather than the nature of Essence itself.
Does this bring us closer to understanding, or am I only inviting a
firestorm by introducing a "theistic" existentialist to the discussion?
Essentially,
Ham
>
>
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