: Sacred texts - 1. Impersonal authority

[Guest guest]

Namaste Ananda-ji, Sada-ji,

 

The thing is that even though Philosophy is a personally reasoned out truth you

just can't say any old thing and claim that's my philosophy, take it or leave

it. Many logical tests are available which are part of the general apparatus

which is also used in the ongoing project of scientific discovery. For instance

we may ask if positions are coherent or consistent. If we accept this position

must we deny another which seems to be firmly fixed, axiomatic or self-evident?

 

Shankara had a metaphysical system which is subject to the same scrutiny as any

other. It differs from other systems within the broad church of Sanatana Dharma.

Clearly then it is perfectly possible to be an enlightened person and have a

rational philosophy that has only a family resemblance to others within the same

general tradition. It has its own face but there is something about the nose and

that chin and gait.

 

Best Wishes and looking forward to further instalments,

 

Michael

 

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[Guest guest]

Michael - PraNams

 

You rise some interestng questions.

 

Since metaphsical word seems to one of your favourate I looked up on line to

find what it signifies - among several and sometimes confusing answers here is

an interesting account coming from philosophy dictionary:

 

According to Bradley, metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we

believe on instinct, although as Broad remarked, to find these reasons is no

less an instinct. Originally a title for those books of Aristotle that came

after the Physics, the term is now applied to any enquiry that raises questions

about reality that lie beyond or behind those capable of being tackled by the

methods of science. Naturally, an immediately contested issue is whether there

are any such questions, or whether any text of metaphysics should, in Hume's

words, be ‘committed to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry

and illusion’ (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. xii, Pt. 3). The

traditional examples will include questions of mind and body, substance and

accident, events, causation, and the categories of things that exist (see

ontology). The permanent complaint about metaphysics is that in so far as there

are real questions in these areas,

ordinary scientific method forms the only possible approach to them. Hostility

to metaphysics was one of the banners of logical positivism, and survives in a

different way in the scientific naturalism of writers such as Quine.

Metaphysics, then, tends to become concerned more with the presuppositions of

scientific thought, or of thought in general, although here, too, any suggestion

that there is one timeless way in which thought has to be conducted meets sharp

opposition. A useful distinction was drawn by Strawson, between descriptive

metaphysics, which contents itself with describing the basic framework of

concepts with which thought is (perhaps at a time) conducted, as opposed to

revisionary metaphysics, which aims for a criticism and revision of some hapless

way of thought. Although the possibility of revisionary metaphysics may be

doubted, it continues to the present time: eliminativism in the philosophy of

mind and postmodernist disenchantment

with objectivity and truth are conspicuous examples.

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The bottom line I gather from the above description is - There is no

understanding of what it really means! - I may be little sarcastic, but it could

also mean different from different perspectives.

 

In Indian Philosophy daarhanikaas use miimaamsa technique method - involving six

steps to extract taatparya or implied meaning. The problem is even dvaita and

vishiShTaadvaita also use the same techniques to arrive at different truths.

There may be axiomatic statements involved in order to establish the subsequent

self-consistency in their philosophies.

 

In Advaita – which is not considered as philosophy but the absolute truth is

“I am†alone is the self-existent self-conscious entity that does not depend

on any axioms and not even Vedas. Hence is called aprameyam – not an object

that can be known.  Vedas are pramANa not to know ‘I am’ but to know that

‘I am’ is all that is there– or aham brahmaasmi. Hence mahaavaakyaas are

rightly called ‘akhaaDaarthaka bhodaka vaakyams – statements that provide

the knowledge of indivisible nature of I am. – Naturally ‘this’ that ‘I

am not’ has to become mithyaa or just a superimposition for I am to be

akhanDaarthakam.

 

Anyway Anandaji is providing an interesting perspective that intrigues a

scientific mind.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda

 

 

--- On Wed, 4/15/09, ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva wrote:

 

 

 

The thing is that even though Philosophy is a personally reasoned out truth you

just can't say any old thing and claim that's my philosophy, take it or leave

it. Many logical tests are available which are part of the general apparatus

which is also used in the ongoing project of scientific discovery. For instance

we may ask if positions are coherent or consistent. If we accept this position

must we deny another which seems to be firmly fixed, axiomatic or self-evident?