accentuate the counterpositive

[Guest guest]

Hello Advaitins,

 

No matter how bizarre the theory you postulate you may

be sure someone has offered it and a host of smart

people support it. Take the possible worlds theory

which accounts for the curious persuaviveness of

counterfactual conditionals e.g. 'If I hadn't crashed

my little old Ford Fiesta I'd still be driving it

today'. This gains its force from the fact that

though I am not driving it, in the nearest possible

world which is most like unto this one I am driving

it. 'If Hitler had invaded England after Dunkirk he

would have conquered it', etc.

 

What has this to do with Advaita. Well, view the

counterpositive (pratiyoga) as the real counterpart of

the present silver which is actually nacre. The

counterpositive has as its substratum silverhood. The

illusory silver refers to that. Thus it may be seen

that the counterpositive is an inversion of the

counterfactual. Real being is denied to the

nacre/silver and it is referred to silver which has

silverhood as its substratum.

 

The alternative to this is the acceptance of

appearance as ontological (ontos/being Gk.) and thus

we would get what for Advaita was a bad result viz.

that for the duration of the appearance this is

'silver' or what you see is what it is and then after

our bemusement is lifted it *is* nacre. Reality is

referenced to a substratum but sometimes that

connection can be uncoupled.

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

[Guest guest]

Namaste Michaelji,

 

advaitin, ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva@e...> wrote:

 

> The alternative to this is the acceptance of

> appearance as ontological (ontos/being Gk.) and thus

> we would get what for Advaita was a bad result viz.

> that for the duration of the appearance this is

> 'silver' or what you see is what it is and then after

> our bemusement is lifted it *is* nacre. Reality is

> referenced to a substratum but sometimes that

> connection can be uncoupled.

>

> Best Wishes, Michael.

 

 

Why would the ontological assertion of a perceived object be a bad

result for Advaita? My understanding of Advaita is like this.....

 

The appearance of silver is indeed ontological for the duration of

the appearance of silver. It is the sublation of this perception by a

new perception that reveals the unreality of silver. This fits in

with the order of pramanas stating that:

 

1) The object seen in pratyaksha is valid unless the object is

sublated by another superseding pratyaksha.

 

2) The fact of pratyaksha cannot be overruled by anumana

 

3) Agama is the highest pramana

 

The new perception takes the form "the silver is unreal, it is only

nacre", and since the validity of this perception is not superseded

by another pramana, it is asserted that the silver is unreal and the

nacre is real. One may be easily led to believe from this position

that Advaita is a doctrine of "esse est percepi" (or idealism), but

that would be a mistake. In Advaita, it is not merely the appearance

that is ontological, but the object of perception that is

ontological. It would need some further consideration to see how this

is possible.

 

The ontology of Advaita has to be conceived within the two layers of

vyavaharika and paramarthika. The entire argument about the silver

and nacre is applicable only in vyavaharika sathya where the sakshi,

or witness, appears localised in space and the object is grasped by

spatially-residing senses reaching out to make contact with the

object. The unreality of silver here is attributed to a defect in the

organ of perception because the silver is now revealed to be not

present (from the vyavaharika ontological position). This attribution

of the defect to the organ of sense would not have arisen if Advaita

was idealism. Yet, the vyavaharika process of sense-contact

perception is not valid in paramarthika sathya because in the

ultimate revelation of truth there is non-difference of the perceiver-

percept. In paramarthika sathya, both the silver and nacre are

eternally present in Brahman because Brahman is their material cause.

Since the truth of paramarthika sathya is eternally true, it is true

that the silver and nacre are both existing always, but only appear

to be non-persisting and ephemeral in the "coupling-uncoupling"

changes wrought by Maya. The eternal is made manifest through

vikshepa coupled with the concealing power of avarana.

 

I do not believe that the meaning of "ontos", or being, is fixed in

Greek philosophy. For Heraclites, it is the tension of unity in the

flux of opposites. For the Eleatics, "being" is everything that is

spoken of. In Plato, it goes right through appearance to the ideal

form that partakes of the appearance, and which is recovered by a

process of recollection of the knowledge that is within oneself. It

was in scholastic philosophy, with the theological idea of an ex-

nihilo creation, that the meaning of being seems to have come close

to appearance, and made the idea of essence necessary – the idea that

essence is eternal whereas existence is contingent upon causes. Thus

essence precedes existence. In twentieth-century idealism (or

existentialism), the position is reversed and it is existence that

precedes essence.

 

In the ultimate conception of Advaita, essence and existence coincide

like in the Platonic ideal, but this has created problems for

contemporary philosophers who take the Platonic realism to be a mere

hypostatization of abstract ideas. But in Advaita, they are not

abstract ideas, they are objects themselves. One reason for the

miscomprehension is the implicit assumption of the sense-reference

theory of meaning that modern philosophers impose upon the Advaitic

conception. In Advaita, words and objects have a direct relation

without the need of a mediate "meaning". I suspect that it is the

same in Plato.

 

I am of course open to correction in all this that I say.

 

With regards,

Chittaranjan