There can, it may be argued, be no negative facts: this does not prove that Mother Hubbard and her dog did not encounter a most distressing negative phenomenon when they opened the cupboard, which admits neither of metaphysical nor psychological reduction. Heidegger's withers are unwrung by all those sunny analyses which prove that nothing, or the total absence of anything, is not a genuine object, and that it is not therefore possible to feel dread in the face of it. Nothing or the total absence of anything is a genuine object of contemplation and of varied emotional attitudes—much of the exquisite culture of Japan, for instance, seems to be built around it—and it is much more certain that this is so than that some piece of analysis is a correct one.
Sunday 30 August 2020
J.N. Findlay and the Non-Apprehension of Existence (anupalabadhi)
Thursday 27 August 2020
Dharmakirti, an Idealist?
If cognition has the form of the object, what evidence is there for the external object?39 If cognition is without the form of the object, how could(from: dharmakirti idealism
it be an experience of that object?
If cognition’s having the nature of awareness is not conditioned by resemblance, then that nature of awareness is established of the cognition
just from cognition itself (svata eva). What is then contributed by an external object?
This does not seem so far away from the position that Shankaracarya impugns in Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya II.ii.28.
Monday 24 August 2020
Kumarila and Vitanda in Slokavartika
Vitanda does not offer an exposition of the personally held metaphysics and it is this alone that can create a doubt in the opponent's mind. You have to be able to incorporate that strong central observation, account for it and move to a new synthesis. The big flash must be shaded out by a bigger one.
Crazy ideas coming from philosophers are generally preceded by an intuition that they experience as a eureka moment whereby a field of thought becomes crystallised and an intelligible pattern is discerned. This flash is like the M.I.B.s but it destroys not the memory of ever having seen aliens but the fibrillating antennae of the illative sense. Conclusions are missed that ought to be obvious and the reductio ad gibbering folly follows not. No, our philosopher receiving the spark from heaven remains complacent.
more anon.
Tuesday 18 August 2020
Thought for the Day
Are thoughts images? Can we think in images? Could we imagine a series of images representing a logical sequence or an imagistic syllogism. The Imagists thought so. A haiku creates evanescent clarity, or a thought that is momentary but also abides as a continuing mood.
Normally we imagine that we think with subvocal half sentences and phrases of the sort that Joyce tried to capture in Ulysses. Language at its most abstract is founded on the concrete. The word ‘character’ has an interesting etymology coming from the Greek ‘kharassein’ sharpen, furrow, scratch, engrave probably from a base meaning ‘scratch’. I’m inclined to think that this may be related to the craftsman’s scribe or gauge defining width or thickness. The block or board thus defined limits what what can be done with it. It’s a fixed given, or a character.
Friday 14 August 2020
Karma, Janma and Apurva in the Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya of Shankaracarya
If you can look into the seeds of time(Banquo addressing the Weird Sisters Macbeth Act 1 Scene III)
And say which will grow and which will not
Speak them to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours, nor your fate.
The concept of karma/janma, of desserts and birth is well established in the religious systems of India. In Vedanta in particular the metaphysical underpinning of the doctrine is given close study. The satkaryavada theory of the non-difference between cause and effect is an important theory first introduced by the Sankhya. If interested there is no reason to repeat myself. Like the detectorist said - check it out! enter ‘satkaryavada in the search box.
satkaryavada
I
Naturally the attraction of puzzle cases that appear to explode this theory are examined by Shankaracarya in his Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya. We can accept the flow of the universe and the causal process which is timely or immediate -
But it does not stand to reason that fruits can come at some future time from actions which get destroyed the next moment; because something cannot come out of nothing.(Bhb. III.ii.38)
What is in question here is the efficacy of ritual. Nothing seems to come of it. Is it a waste of good ghee?
Vedantin:That too does not remove the difficulty; for there can be no such thing as a result till the agent of the act comes to possess it, inasmuch as any happiness or sorrow experienced by any soul at any time is recognised in the world to be such a result relatively to that very time. ..........Again if it be maintained that though the result may not issue just after the action, it can issue (in the future) out of the unseen potency emerging out of the act, that too is unjustifiable, for potency, which is inert like stocks and stones, cannot act unless stimulated by some conscious agent. Besides, such an unseen potency lacks any valid proof.
Shankara means here by potency and act material causation. Unseen potency cannot work like milk being turned into curds. No causal path can be discerned for it. Therefore its efficacy can only be accepted on the basis of faith in divine energy.
In Bhb. III.ii.40 Shankara in his account of the Mimansaka maintains that they accept the ‘unseen potency’ idea. This is referred to as apurva or the unprecedented in the special sense of an occurence that has no immediately preceding cause.
Mimamsaka: If the Vedic authority is accepted, one has to think in the way that would justify the kind of relation between action and the result of action that is mentioned in the Vedas. Unless the action, while undergoing destruction, produces some unseen potency, it cannot produce its result after an interval. Hence the inference to be drawn is that there is such a thing called unseen potency which may be either some subtle state of the action itself or some previous (seed) state of the result. In this way the position stated earlier becomes logical. But the theory that God ordains the results is illogical. For one uniform cause cannot produce variegated results; that will lead to partiality and cruelty on God’s part and the performance of action will be useless. Hence the conclusion is that results are produced by virtuous deeds alone.
Is this conflict an aporia generated by the accepted efficacy of ritual. Shankara does not admit this impasse:
And God’s bestowing of results consists precisely in His creating the creatures according to individual merits. The defects of the impossibility of the emergence of variegated results from the very same cause, and so on, do not arise since God acts by taking into account the efforts made by his creatures (Bhb. III.ii.41)
Labels:
apurva,
Brahma Sutra Bhasya,
Satkaryavada,
Shankaracarya
Wednesday 5 August 2020
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant based on De Quincey's essay
last days
as you probably know.
It’s good and and the element of slapstick is mild and kind. I particularly liked the moment when his discharged manservant came back to him for a reference and Kant had to try hard to find a truth not altogether damming. If you first read the De Quincey translation and amalgamation of various accounts of his last days the events portrayed in the film will be clearer.
De Quincey last days
Amusingly De Quincey offers a simple of his own for the stomach problems of the philosopher:
[Footnote: For Kant’s particular complaint, as described by other biographers, a quarter of a grain of opium, every twelve hours, would have been the best remedy, perhaps a perfect remedy.]
Monday 3 August 2020
Mrs Humphry Ward meets Karen
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