From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Thu May 29 2003 - 01:59:17 BST
Platt,
> Speaking of using words, please explain what you mean by "contingent" as
> in the following passages:
>
> > Yes
> > there is an absolute, namely that all patterns are contingent (except
> > tautological ones, as in mathematics), and that is the starting point of
> > ironic metaphysics.
>
> and
>
> > The
> > mystic Knows that all is contingent, and is therefore free.
>
> Do you mean by contingent 1) happening by chance or accident; fortuitous,
No. Like you, I do not believe in chance.
> or 2) true only under certain conditions; not necessarily or universally
> true,
Yes, but it is in the context of being, not properties of sentences. (In
medieval philosophy, at least, "contingent" is the opposite of "necessary".
God is, and is the only "necessary being". Everything else is contingent
being). So, it also means "created", "could be other than what it is", and
so. But the word "being" needs crossing out, so...
or 3) some other definition?
Yes. I see contingency -- or maybe radical contingency -- as what is meant
by the Buddhist phrase 'pratitya-samutpada', usually translated as
"dependent co-origination". This means that nothing is what it is except in
terms of how it relates to everything else. It lacks "self-existence". The
hard "thing" to understand in this way, of course, is "myself".
>
> I ask because Rorty and other pomos appear to hang their entire
> metaphysics on that one word (while denying they have a metaphysics of
> course).
My "metaphsyics" also pretty much hangs on this one word, with the real
difference between Rorty and me, as I see it, being that I consider the
statement "everything is contingent" to be a metaphysical Truth, that it can
be realized (mystically). {Note: that statement also uses a particular
meaning of "everything": as "every thing (or event, or whatever that can be
observed, thought about, etc.), so the escape-that-can-be-another-trap is
the word "emptiness" or "nothingness": sunyata.}
- Scott
>
> Thanks.
>
> Platt
>
>
>
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