[MD] relative

[118]

Hi Marsha,

Good luck with your bridge, it is important.  I will watch for more
bridging on your part.  It appears to me that imposing the term
relative on Buddhism is imposing a Western cultural bias on the East.
But perhaps I do not know where you are going with this, so I can wait
for more explanations from you.  Hopefully you will demonstrate how
"relative" is distinct from Western Cultural bias.

Cheers,
Mark

On 1/10/12, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> My focus in the MD is on the Metaphysics of Quality as a bridge between the
> West's objective science and the East's introspective science of mind.  This
> is a very legitimate exploration, even if I am not fully up to the task.
> But what kind of dialogue, or investigation, can take place between East and
> West if the demand is to use the vernacular of the West's post-modern,
> academic philosophy departments?  That conventional truth is relative is an
> extremely common utterance within Buddhism.  And, I understand it as true.
> There are many types of relativism; to name some - epistemological
> relativism, cognitive relativism, conceptual relativism; not all types lead
> to the same consequence.  Some, but certainly not all, are associated with
> being 'culturally amoral', but to conflate all types of relativism with this
> particular type is illogical.  It would be like thinking Fido is a mean dog,
> therefore all dogs are mean.
>
> Neither the dictionary's general philosophic definition of 'relativism' that
> I presented nor the definition of 'relative' contained anything that would
> prevent assigning a value rating to a pattern or 'knowledge'.  In Buddhism,
> conventional (relative) truths can be ranked as skillful or unskillful
> towards alleviating suffering.  Within the MoQ, patterns may be ranked by
> their placement within evolutionary levels of inorganic, biological, social
> or intellectual.  Because the MoQ is not to be confined to any contemporary
> branch of Western philosophy, but represents a new and better 'world view',
> its presentation and language should be inclusive rather than exclusive. I
> still remember hearing of Khoo's concern, on the tape from the 2005
> Conference, that the great Asian intellectual tradition may be on the
> decline, with its underlying philosophy of harmony and unity lost.
> Demanding adherence to a Western philosophic cultural bias is wrong, just
> plain wrong.
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
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