[MD] Step One

[MarshaV]

dmb, 

Yawn...  Alan Wallace uses it.  He understand.  You, I don't expect to understand.  


Marsha





On Oct 23, 2010, at 2:38 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> Marsha said:
> ... Reification decontextualizes. [and] For me decontextualize means removing and isolating a process from it's interdependencies to make it an object of analysis. 
> 
> dmb says:
> Your use of these terms is very confusing. In fact, it seems you don't really understand what they mean or how they're used. There is a better word for the meaning you've assign to "decontextualization", for example. If we're talking about ideas, to remove and isolate for the purpose of analysis is what we call an "abstraction" or "generalization" or "conceptualization". And it's a very handy thing. Abstractions and concepts are not reifications. Reification is a fallacy, an error, the mistake of confusing abstract concepts with concrete realities. Reification is a matter of confusing thoughts and things, of mistaking ideas for actual, ontological realities.
> 
> And what does "decontextualize" actually mean? It depends on the context. (Mark's link was irrelevant. Different context, different meaning.) Sadly, you aren't using "decontextualize" properly even when we consider the original context from which you apparently took it.
> 
> Prof. B. Alan Wallace offers a Centrist view. "Not only does this view reject the notion that the mind is an inherently existent substance, or thing, but it similarly denies that physical phenomena as we experience them are things in themselves." That means he rejects the assumptions of subject-object metaphysics. Like the MOQ, there is no "substantial dualism between mind and matter" because "the ways in which we conceive of phenomena are inescapably related to our concepts and languages". Like James and Pirsig, Wallace "departs from both the substantial dualism of Descartes and the substantial monism that seems to be characteristic of modern Materialism, or Physicalism". The article continuest...
> 
> "...Much is made of this difference between appearances and reality. The Madhyamaka view also emphasizes the disparity between appearances and reality, but in a radically different way. All the mental and physical phenomena that we experience, it declares, appear as if they existed in and of themselves, utterly independent of our modes of perception and conception. They appear to be things in themselves, but in reality they exist as dependently related events. Their dependence is threefold: 1) phenomena arise in dependence upon preceding causal influences, 2) they exist in dependence upon their own parts and/or attributes, and 3) the phenomena that make up the world of our experience are dependent upon our verbal and conceptual designation of them.
> This threefold dependence is not intuitively obvious, for it is concealed by the appearance of phenomena as being self-sufficient and independent of conceptual designation. On the basis of these misleading appearances it is quite natural to think of, or conceptually apprehend, phenomena as self-defining things in themselves. This tendency is known as reification, and according to the Madhyamaka view, this is an inborn delusion that provides the basis for a host of mental afflictions. Reification decontextualizes. It views phenomena without regard to the causal nexus in which they arise, and without regard to the specific means of observation and conceptualization by which they are known. The Madhyamaka, or Centrist, view is so called because it seeks to avoid the two extremes of reifying phenomena on the one hand, and of denying the existence of phenomena on the other."
> 
> 
> And here are some ordinary definitions of the key terms....
> 
> 
> reify |ˈrēəˌfī|verb ( -fies, -fied) [ trans. ] formal, make (something abstract) more concrete or real : 
> 
> Reification (also known as hypostatisation, concretism, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea. For example: if the phrase "holds another's affection", is taken literally, affection would be reified.
> Note that reification is generally accepted in literature and other forms of discourse where reified abstractions are understood to be intended metaphorically, but the use of reification in logical arguments is usually regarded as a mistake (fallacy). For example, "Justice is blind; the blind cannot read printed laws; therefore, to print laws cannot serve justice." In rhetoric, it may be sometimes difficult to determine if reification was used correctly or incorrectly.
> Etymology
> From Latin res thing + facere to make, reification can be 'translated' as thing-making; the turning of something abstract into a concrete thing or object.
> 
> 
> abstraction |abˈstrak sh ən|noun1 the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events • something that exists only as an idea 
> 2 freedom from representational qualities in art 
> 3 a state of preoccupation
> 4 the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes, or concrete accompaniments
> 5 the process of removing something, esp. water from a river or other source 
> ORIGIN late Middle English : from Latin abstractio(n-), from the verb abstrahere ‘draw away’ (see abstract)
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