[MD] subject / object logic

[David M]

Hi DMB

Nice to hear from you. I am surprised that you do not get my point. In the 
context of the philosophy
of language developed from Saussure onwards and all the way up to Derrida 
I'd see this as a basic tenet of
the workings of language. But of course you can challenge this view. But to 
elaborate a bit. My emphasis
is on the word 'all'. If we use any word, whether 'real' or 'illusion', 
about the 'all' we are failing to make
any distinction and therefore using a different word either 'x' or 'y' to 
refer to this all makes no difference.
If we say it is all 'black' or it is all 'white', then is not black and 
white just a different name for the same thing?
In contrast we might say that experienced reality can be divided into 
complimentary aspects such as
static/dynamic.Where we can understand that what is dynamic is in contrast 
to what is static, so that there
is a genuine distinction and the contrasted terms have meaning in contrast 
to each other. I am saying that if
you say 'it is all illusion' or 'it is all real' you are doing nothing to 
create a distinction between different types
of experience that can be contrasted.

Of course, when people say it is all illusion, they are often referring to 
experience as an illusion and
contrasting it with something transcendingexperience that is more real than 
experience. This is the dualism
that has been developed from Plato to Descartes to Kant. The suggestion that 
experience is an illusion
and a mere appearance and mere flux compared to the certainties of 
trannscendental things-in-themselves,
or transcendental ideas, is a way to de-value experience and our common 
life. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida,
James, Dewey, Rorty, Taylor, Pirsig, DMB and I, of course, reject this 
dualism. So yes, where DMB, considers
that the dualistic use of the term illusion to de-value experience he is 
right that this could have a serious impact
on our behaviour. Buit the impact is quite odd. I doubt thinking that 
experience is an illusion would result in
many people sticking pins into their flesh. Yet people with religious 
outlooks that de-value the actual world
have used this attitude to ignore worldly pleasures and achieve amazing 
things. Nonetheless, I'd contrast the
dualistic notion of illusion with a non-dualistic and preferable notion that 
all experience is real, which of course,
has no clear meaning as there is no illusion to contrast it to. But 
experience is always a matter of value,
what we experience can clearly be divided into good and bad experiences.

Of course, eastern thinkers talk alot about illusion. But they are not 
dualists. What they are trying to say is that
life and experience have very few constants, all is change and flux, in the 
end, SQ is an illusion created by DQ.
And they do not live in Platonic fear of change, they do not think that the 
truly real must be unchanging. They
accept change and recognise its positive value. But perhaps they undervalue 
order, the threat of disorder
and destruction, and the opportunities to improve out powers of control. I 
had the eastern in mind when I
suggested my: it is all real is little different from it is all illusion.

Anyone interest in how SOM banished values from western discourse should see 
Charles Taylor's
'Sources of the Self'. DMB you should read this, ask your tutor if he has 
read it.

Any help.

David M













 9/22/07, David M wrote:
Is there any difference between: it is all real [and] it is all illusion? 
I'd suggest not.

dmb says:
What?! Of course there's a difference. Think for a while about all the many 
ways one would act if they believed its all real. Then think about what kind 
of life that same person would have if they believed the second one. Now 
preform that same exercise on the total population instead of one person. 
I'd suggest those are two very, very different worlds. In other words, the 
practical consequences of holding one beleif or the other is enormous.

The way in which we can say there is no difference is if we're only talking 
about a guy sitting there and doing nothing except believing in one or the 
other. In that case  no belief in the world makes any difference, but this 
hypothetical inert armchair guy is an unrealistic and trivial way to measure 
the value of an idea. Don't you think?
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