[MD] The other side of reified

[david buchanan]

Ham said:
Zero or nothingness may be an "abstraction" in relational logic, but not in metaphysical reality.

Ron replied:
 ESPECIALLY in a Metaphysical construction of reality! it's not experienced! Essentialism all rests on a abstraction. You really can't deny this. ...Do realize that dualism and opposites result from the act of explanation and the use of language; to take them as actual constituants of reality is a reification of those relational concepts of meaning.


dmb says:

I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. 

"Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food."

"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions."