From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 26 2005 - 21:23:47 BST
Bo, Scott,
--- Bo said:
--- How do you, Scott, look upon Paul's claim that there was a
--- separate Oriental intellectual level (meaning non-subject/object
--- one). This does IMO go against the grain of both the MOQ and
--- Barfield's ideas. The S/O divide (in the MOQ) is the breakdown of
--- Original Participation and if the Orientals made a similar
--- philosophical breakthrough (as the Greeks) during the Upanishad
--- period it must necessarily be a SOM-like one. Maybe a short
--- sojourn - not like Westerns getting stuck - but nevertheless.
---
--- Scott:
--- As I see it, the Vedantists worked within a general population whose
--- consciousness gradually became S/O-like, same as with the Greeks. The
--- Vedantists, however, were more quick to warn that the S/O divide was
--- impermanent, so was not the basis of reality (not that there weren't
--- such
--- warners in the West, but their voice wasn't dominant). Hence they
--- avoided
--- turning the S/O divide into SOM. So intellect in the East was also
--- mainly
--- S/O, and the evidence for that is that the philosophers (and not all of
--- them) felt the need to warn against it.
Paul: From my reading, Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva seem to be the three
most influential Vedantic philosophers, each forwarding a different
conception of the nature of reality. Broadly speaking, Shankara emphasised
oneness and the identity between self and world. Ramanuja accepted this
ultimate identity but recognised the reality of "conditioned" difference.
Madhva emphasised ultimate and fundamental difference between self,
nothingness, and the world. So I would generally agree with Scott that the
S/O divide was of importance to eastern patterns of intellect but the
concept of nothingness was there from the beginning, so the S/O divide does
not suffice as a definition. Nor, of course, does it suffice for western
patterns.
Also, I would add that recognising a distinction between subjects and
objects is one thing, but talking about "objective knowledge" is another.
The eastern conception of "true knowledge," insofar as they recognise such a
thing, is something much more related to certain experiences than to logical
constructions.
Finally, Bo, to my knowledge you have never answered my claim that SOL rests
on faulty reasoning - i.e. "the first intellectual patterns were based on
the S/O distinction, therefore all intellectual patterns are based on the
S/O distinction." There are enough intellectual patterns (see e.g. Matt's
recent list) that aren't based on SOM to demonstrate that there must be
something more elementary to intellect. So saying that "because intellectual
patterns emerged with the S/O distinction of the Greeks, all intellectual
patterns must have the S/O distinction" is like saying that "because life
emerged with viruses, all forms of life are viruses."
Regards
Paul
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