Western philosophy on Idealism & Realism topics

[Guest guest]

Miguel-Angel said "I must say that I feel very uncomfortable with the notion

of "revealed truth". From the context you seem to imply that while Western

philosophy is of human origin, Advaita is of divine origin. I can't take

this."

 

Sorry, Miguel, I did not mean revealed in the sense of apaurushheya, though

I admit this is a fairly obvious reading. What I meant was revealed by

having become enlightened. Once moksha has been obtained, the understanding

of the nature of things is direct rather than intellectually derived.

 

Dennis

[Guest guest]

Hi Dennis,

 

Yes, I agree, with your assessment of these monisms. They didn't mean to

say so much that the table *is* water. Rather, as you say, water can be

the single explanatory substance for the table and the rest of the world.

 

Actually you are not naive at all in Western philosophy. You are quite

acute, and in terms of your interests *and* abilities, I'd say you are a

crypto-philosopher yourself. I mean that as a compliment, not an

insult!!!! :-)

 

Another thing about monisms is that according to them, things are one. So

there's no free will at the same level at which the water or air exists,

plus no reincarnation, no jiva, etc. No paycheck or TV show, either.

But, among the philosophies that unify, how many go beyond the One that

they pivot the whole world on? How many say, "it's all water, but even

that is too much"?

 

Harih Om!

 

--Greg

 

At 03:11 PM 4/16/01 +0100, Dennis Waite wrote:

>>>>

Hi Greg,

 

I think we should probably stop there! My questions were based only upon

your original brief descriptions of the various categories of idealism etc.,

not upon any specific author (because I haven't really read any apart from

some of the 'Three Dialogues' of Berkeley that you once recommended). I was

interested only in what made sense (to me) in what you had said, not in what

any given philosopher meant by his particular brand of idealism/monism. It

seemed that some of the explanations that you gave were contradictory or

insufficiently clear. However, I accept your point that specific questions

can only be elucidated in respect of a specific philosopher.

 

I suppose I am being incredibly naïve in Western Philosophical terms. It

just seemed that, in essence, all these apparently different philosophies

(monisms and Absolute Idealisms) were claiming the same thing - namely that

everything is One. The fact that Anaximenes might have believed this One was

air, while Heraclitus thought it was fire and Hegel thought it was mind (?),

seems irrelevant. Presumably each thought that all apparent phenomena could

be adequately explained in terms of their chosen One so what difference does

it effectively make what you call it? I agree that there is a very

significant difference between water and idea, from the standpoint of

multiplicity, but there cannot be any distinction if there is only one

(thing), can there?

 

Sorry for waffling on after suggesting we stop!

 

Regards,

 

Dennis

 

 

 

Greg Goode (e-mail: goode)

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