Wayfarer

Besides, by that criteria, pragmatism would be self-defeating, because to judge whether you're leaving it behind would require appealing to 'the princ...

The answer is obviously blowin' in the wind.

Would make a great headline, though: POSTMODERNIST PHILOSOPHER SAYS GANDHI MORE VIOLENT THAN HITLER.

That is an interesting citation. It seems to put 'vajrayana' in the place of Yog?c?ra, which I think is dubious. It could be an example of Vajrayana s...

Well said Punshhh, and hear hear. There was a column recently on a similar theme, Donald Trump's Sad, Lonely Life, David Brooks.

'Qualia' are only ever discussed in the context of a particular clique of current American academic specialists. As such, I think the term deserves to...

Never mind, it's what forums are for. One of the things I've learned is to let some things go, though. When I first started posting I used to get invo...

The point is, as I'm trying to say, that many of the European post-modernists are conscientiously, avowedly securalists or a-theological and there's l...

As far as the 'three realms' are concerned, I think that is a version of the 'triple world' (trailokya) which is encountered in both Vedic and Buddhis...

If you mean the 'three turnings' - what was behind that was the requirement to introduce innovations into the core teachings of the Buddha. Even thoug...

I think you're talking about mok?a, spiritual liberation. That has never been much part of the Western intellectual tradition in my view. It is presen...

Good call. I take you to be - and this is a hack word, but I can't think of too many alternatives - a 'seeker' (rather like myself and Punshhh). I thi...

There's a passage in the text of Augustine's which is often quoted in debates about intelligent design, showing how Augustine would likely never have ...

Perhaps you should do some reading. The 'third turning'. Regarding the decline of Indian Buddhism there's quite a good wiki article on that too, http:...

'Maya' is not a Buddhist term at all. Sure there may be millions of un-informed Buddhists, but that doesn't justify relativism. Buddhism has a definit...

@Thorongil - There were indeed about 24 early schools. Many of them coalesced around particularly insightful or charismatic teachers. The names, and i...

Rather than 'a' meaning, the question might be better phrased, 'what is the basis for a meaningful life?' That may take any number of forms for differ...

The question that occurs to me is, if we live in a free society, as all the contributors here presumably do, then we are all free agents. So what kind...

What did your namesake say about that?

What is the difference between 'real' and 'absolute' here? If you're thirsty, a drink of water is a good, and examples of such utilitarian goods can b...

But ultimately it ends in nothing.

The alternative is, we reach a stage where the transcendent is discovered or realised. So it is not 'a creation' any more than the law of identity is ...

That is a very unfortunate analogy. Humans are not machines, and besides, which machines 'create value'?

That is the subject of the whole field of ethical philosophy. Suffice to say that 'pleasure = good, pain = bad' is insufficient in my view, because it...

@"mcdoodle" - what I meant was, any link to a story about the actual economic benefits of Brexit. So far all the stories I have seen have been about t...

So, I would suggest is that an important part of what constitutes 'the good' is the human ability to recognize what is good. Goodness exists on differ...

Doesn't it follow that 'what is good', is whatever works, whatever is instrumentally effective? There's no real good in the redemptive sense. So the g...

I would be obliged if a link could be provided showing indications of any positive consequences of the Brexit vote. So far all the news has been negat...

Good luck making a pile out of anything with no dimensions.

That excerpt from Barbarism interested me, because I have not previously seen that insight into how scientism negates life articulated. I think that i...

Michel Henry, abstract of his essay Barbarism: (Y) Incidentally, rather than 'post-modernism', per se, it's possible the actual issue is the technique...

Trump demonstrates no competence, while refusing to see that this is a problem. According to David Brooks, Trump exhibits alexithymia: the inability t...

I have run across all of them, often as a consequence of Forum interactions. I am aware of the influence of Heidegger on contemporary theology - the l...

Thanks, CS, very gracious of you. It is determinedly 'secularist', if I could put it like that. The main proponents of it are highly educated in the W...

Sorry, I misread your post., I was typing on an iPad and typeface was very small. You will have noticed I have deleted that remark. I know I have comp...

What I was attempting to do, was in the post about Romantic poets and Zen was to show some other renditions of 'the immanent and the transcendent', an...

I admit, I have no real interest in post-modernism, which is why I generally stay out of threads on the subject, like the one that is underway on Derr...

The reason I quoted that passage is because this kind of late-20th c philosophy of biology is in some sense 'post-modern' but can also accomodate the ...

The connection between aesthetics and religious experience is a strong element in Schopenhauer's writing; Schopenhauer evokes the experience of great ...

There is a 'triad' in traditional Buddhism, namely that of craving, hatred and stupidity, which are the 'three poisons' that drive the wheel of samsar...

I think that is what John was criticising, and I'm inclined to agree. (I was trying to be diplomatic before.) @punshhh - it is pointless discussing 't...

Well, many people ask the same of Daniel Dennett. After all, he has devoted his career to arguing that humans are moist robots and that there is no es...

In any case, back to the OP, I think 'the world' in many pre-modern traditions, simply denotes the domain of sensory perception - basically what is pe...

That is the precise attitude of 'science-as-religion', or scientism, that I was referring to. The Western scientific method was a development of the g...

Today's shocking revelations of the character of Clinton, based on a Kremlin troll's leaking of her emails: 'Take a deep dive into the more than 10,00...

I don't think there is a natural warrant for it. It seems natural to us, but it is a cultural standard, ultimately grounded in Christian ethical theor...

Seems pretty good. Glad I took acid when it was still legal. Dang. Where's that delete button?

Nothing the matter with that. Bottle of scotch, you might have a problem ;-)

They continue to believe because of what they believe is at stake. And what is at stake, they would say, is literally as dramatic as 'dying vs not dyi...

Every year I say 'that's it I'm not going to watch the league any more'. But I always fail to avoid it. And I must say the A-League is looking pretty ...