[MD] Language Games (was Theatre and Definitions)

[david buchanan]

Matt and all:

Abrief reply. I only have a few minutes...

Matt said to dmb:
...I can understand having different motivations, but a thorough rejection 
of Platonism would still look the same, wouldn't it?  That, whatever the 
reconstruction plan afterwards, we still need to avoid the same things.

dmb says:
No, I really don't think they look the same at all. Let's agree that this is 
where we disagree and take up Plato soon, proabaly is a different thread.

Matt said to dmb:
...That's why I need to know what the intuition/postulation distinction is 
for, how it functions, where it comes from, that kind of thing.    Prima 
facie, it looks like a typical Western distinction.  But that's why I'm 
asking what its doing, to make sure it stays away from all the Western 
things that are bad.  If it is intended to replace Western purposes with 
Eastern ones (replacement being what's involved if the Eastern stuff you 
have in mind has nothing to do with Western stuff), the Western mind 
certainly will be confused because it doesn't have Eastern purposes.  The 
trouble is: what are these purposes and why should I have them?

dmb says:
No time for the answer this needs, but basically Northrop, like Pirsig and 
Wilber, are doing a global philosophy, an East meets West kind of thing. And 
what I'm saying is that the West has that blindspot with respect to 
mysticism and that DQ is an Import from the East and is not to be confused 
with any of the Western postulations. Northrop was trying to find something 
like epistemic common ground between East and West and this was the purpose 
of intuition/postulation distinction. On the web you can find Kenneth K. 
Inada's NORTHROPIAN CATEGORIES OF EXPERIENCE REVISTED. I think most of your 
question will be answered in the first five pages, but its only 16 pages 
long anyway. I've been quoting from it.

Matt said:
Take another example of a prima facie red flag: Northrop says, "the mystical 
and the ineffable is not off in some far distant speculative heaven, but in 
immediately apprehended fact directly before our eyes."  Immediately 
apprehended fact?  My Western mind has been taught to treat such a thing as 
dirty, tainted with Platonism...

dmb says:
That's exactly what I've been saying. You've been treating the ineffable as 
if it were a dirty, tainted Platonism. I think that's not what the ineffable 
is at all, I think that's not what DQ is at all.

Matt said:
The question is: can I steer completely free of Platonism and still not 
believe in Brahman?  If the answer is yes (which is what it sounds like 
currently, given the irrelevancy of the two), then I
need to know why I need to believe in Brahman.

dmb says:
Believe in Brahman? No, I don't think I'm asking you to believe in anything, 
just to understand some concepts.

Matt asked:
Why should I become a Buddhist?

dmb says:
Because Buddhist chicks are smarter and hotter? Because the incense smells 
sweeter? Because you hate wearing pale blue suits on Sunday?

Later,
dmb

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