[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Platt Holden]

Hi Dan, Matt, All:

>RMP 
> "The confusion here seems to result from the two languages of
> Buddhism, the language of the Buddha’s world and language of
> everyday life. In the language of everyday life, reality and intellect
> are different. From the language of the Buddha’s world, they are the
> same, since there is no intellectual division that governs the Buddha’s
> world."
> 
> What Platt seems to  be pointing to with his "individual" level is from
> the language of everyday life. The "individual" is an intellectual
> division of reality, a concept, albeit a central concept of reality:

Exactly. Thanks, Dan. "Absolutes" are also from the language of 
everyday life as Matt pointed out recently. My question to all is, "Why 
shouldn't philosophy use the language of everyday life?" And another 
question: "By changing the meaning of moral from the language of 
everyday life so that it applied to atoms and ants, did Pirsig make a 
fatal mistake in preventing his philosophy from gaining wide 
acceptance?  

> >Having said this, Rahula (1959, p.55)  makes it very clear that it’s
> >not incorrect to ‘use such expressions in our daily life as ‘I’, ‘you’,
> > ‘being’, ‘individual’, etc’ as long as it is remembered that the self
> >(like anything else conceptualised) is just a useful convention.
> 
> So lets say it's okay to equate the intellectual level with the
> individual as long as it's remembered they are both just useful
> conventions.

Right on, Dan. I'll buy that! From now on, no matter what anybody says, 
remember it's all just "useful conventions." :-)

Platt