[MD] The tetra lemma

[Ian Glendinning]

DMB ... hold that thought ... "don't see anything I'd recognize as
logic in [the tetralemma]"

That's because you (we) are generally looking for a culturally
accepted kind of logic - in SOMist argumentation. I really like
Hofstader's quote about koans "designed to break the mind of [western]
logic".

DMB - I sincerely believe you (most of us) are using the wrong tools
to understand the problem - you understand it as well as anyone, no
doubt about it, but you seem to have a blind spot for this one point.
Am I making any sense yet ?

I don't believe it's possible to use traditional logic to "explain"
buddhist mahayanan "logic" ... only to break it, because it's not
logic as we know it Jim. It takes great writing (rhetoric) like Pirsig
or Garfield (or Turner) to describe and communicate it intelligibly.

Ian

On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 1:59 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Marsha said:
> ...While I wouldn't want you to leave the MOQ & American Pragmatists track, I  hope you'll keep Buddhism in mind for another decade.  The MOQ being a  synthesis of East and West, Buddhism has something very valuable to consider too.
>
> dmb says:
> No doubt. "Zen" is in the title and Northrop's East-West fusion is Pirsig's main inspiration. Scholars from the East find sanity in William James and I've been reading Western translators like Alan Watts since before I was born. Its not Buddhism that baffles in general but the tetralemma's math-like structure never worked for me. Seems like an overly complicated way to say a simple thing. Still don't see anything I'd recognize as logic in it.
>
>>
>> Marsha
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "david buchanan"
>> To:
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 10:09 PM
>> Subject: Re: [MD] The tetra lemma
>>
>>
>>
>> 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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