[MD] Radical Empiricism and Psychological Nominalism

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Mark,

Mark said:
Certainly any philosophy which attempts to rectify through a holistic 
approach through the rejection of the mind/matter dichotomy is not 
unusual.  Some philosophies do this by removing the subjective 
entirely (Buddhism), others remove the objective side (mystics such 
as Eckhart).  This of course becomes a frame of mind which has a 
hard time under rational inquiry.  This may indeed be a red herring, 
but I'll have to ponder that one.  The unification of one with all 
seems to be an endeavor coming from human experience.  It is 
hard to dismiss such attempts as meaningless.

Matt:
I guess I still do not agree to your sense of "holism": what I take to 
be philosophical holism embodies the removal of the dividing line 
between two things, not siding with or removing one side.

I also do not think that the notion of "rational inquiry" you use to say 
that holistic approaches have a hard time with it is the right way to 
take that notion, particularly if you want to talk about mysticism.  
Much like the vaunted Reason Versus Faith conundrum that vexes 
theology and popular religious debates, I think that it is misguided 
for both the religious and the non-religious to put the terms of the 
debate that way.  Unless one equates "rational" with "physics," 
which I don't think we should do, there isn't much need to say that 
Buddhists have a hard time under the scope of rational inquiry.  If 
some meaning-filled endeavor is coming from human experience, 
something tells me it will be as rational and reasonable as any 
other.  If, as Pirsig suggests in ZMM, science is basically souped up 
finding-your-keys-in-the-morning, then every activity humans 
engage in is more or less rational.

Matt