[MD] The tetra lemma

[david buchanan]

Thanks, Marsha.

I found this section especially helpful. It explains what an essence is and confirms my hunch that such an idea is "obviously false" and "a profound misconception of reality". Apparently, the metaphysics of substance is something even worse than materialism. Its downright crazy. Independent and immutable? Like what?!? Even a materialist will admit that stars are born and die, that mountains wash away, that even the universe has a life span. This nonsense has got to be the vestige of some forgotten religion. 

Emptiness and Lack of Substance
The doctrine of impermanence is intimately related to the doctrine that all things lack inherent substantiality. The Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna argued that things cannot have separate essences because this would result in an unchanging world: “If there is essence, the whole world will be unarising, unceasing, and static. The entire phenomenal world would be immutable” (FWMW, p. 72). In other words, if something has its own separate essence, then it is entirely separate and without dependence upon anything else for its existence. As a result, it can never be affected or changed. Thus, if things had essences, then the whole world would be immutable and static, which is obviously false. The conclusion is that all things are empty of any such essence. This doctrine of emptiness (sunyata) is fundamental to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Similarly, Whitehead states that “it is fundamental to the metaphysical doctrine of the philosophy of organism, that the notion of an actual entity as the unchanging subject of change is completely abandoned” (PR, p. 29). Process philosophy departs from substance philosophy by denying any isolated, individual essence to things. The idea that things have essences is at best a useful abstraction, and at worst a profound misconception of reality: “The simple notion of an enduring substance sustaining persistent qualities, either essentially or accidentally, expresses a useful abstract for many purposes in life. But whenever we try to use it as a fundamental statement of the nature of things, it proves itself mistaken” (PR, p. 79). ...An important instance of this mistake is the Cartesian assumption that the human subject is a fundamental essence prior to human thought....

[The whole article is at http://www.integralscience.org/whiteheadbuddhism.html ]


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