Matt wrote :


> Eloquent and clear, as usual, Chris.  This discussion has appropriately
> incorporated an important philosophical criteria of argumentation - that
> one must employ common basic precepts and definitions in order to carry out
> a logical dialog (in other words, suspension of disbelief).  This is a
> relatively rare development among contemporary social theorists.  In the
> spirit of trying to get to the roots of the dispute, let me introduce an
> entirely unpopular notion which, in many ways, underpins a great deal of
> 18th and 17th century philosophy and natural philosophy argumentation.

Thank you for the kind remark, Matt. I shall have to remedy that indiscretion
here by demonstrating that I can be as oblique and opaque as any author in print.
I mean, what good is a facility for verbal agility, if you can't utilise it to mystify,
bewilder and confuse ? Like a Luddite throwing a sabot into a 19th. C milling
machine, I like to throw words like 'enantiodromized' at my innocent readers, just
to be able to imagine that smug smirk change into consternation, bafflement
and utter dismay.

> For the sake of argument, let me ask a few questions, rather than taking a
> firm position -
> 
> Many of the post-Baconian natural philosophers of the 17th and 18th
> centuries based their concept of the duality of human experience (i.e.
> spirit/body, mind/body, thought/reality, interpretation/truth) on the need
> to accept various religious dogmas about the perfection of one or another
> deity and its creations rather than rational or even logical interpretation
> of the world around them.  The dualistic ideas actually go back many more
> centuries than intellectual historians can account for, and arise in a
> variety of cultures at various times, but the context of the present
> argument seems more directly relevant to their reintroduction and
> application in 'western' culture just a few centuries back (Chris is likely
> to disagree with me on this, but let me suggest that I am interested in
> discovering what ideological, nationalistic, and economic purposes these
> ideas serve).   What if Descartes, Kant, Hume, Hobbes, Locke, and others of
> this ilk were simply wrong in constructing these dualisms and what if the
> ideologies they are partly responsible for introducing into our educational
> systems serve only to cloud and clutter the mind, and to distract people
> from the nature of a singular reality which can indeed be manipulated by
> the human mind/body?  
> 
> What if human dualistic concepts such as mind/body, thought/reality, are
> really nothing more than heuristics which demonstrate more about our lack
> of understanding the 'real' than our ability to discuss the 'real' in a
> meaningful way?
> 
> What if it IS actually possible to make philosophy useful by engaging it
> with this reality in beneficial ways?
> 
> And finally, what if such engagement CAN be conducted with an acceptance of
> the premise that there IS a Reality we are engaged with 'out there' and 'in
> here'?

I don't think I can answer your questions satisfactorily, but they stimulate
some lines of thought. For instance, there is also the time / space duality.
Einstein had some radical insights into that matter. I wonder what Kant,
Hume, Hobbes, Locke, and for that matter, Aristotle and Plato, would have
had to say to the established knowledge that space-time is a unity, and, weirder,
is kinda curved. Then we have the 'Death of God', the Big Bang, Darwinian evolution, 
Quantum Mechanics and Schroedinger's cat, etc, etc, to throw into the mix. 

( Incidentally, it might be amusing to deconstruct the project implicit in
archaeology, as giving primacy and privilege, a presumption of superiority, 
to 'time', thus marginalising  'space' ? I expect I'm poorly informed and some
intrepid pomoist has already devoted a book or MA dissertation to that 
very idea... whoops, I almost made a paralogical reference to humour, by
taking the mickey out of archaeol, pomoism, this list, and myself, all at once. 
Pardonnez-moi ! As the anarchist Zerzan has warned us, humour_is_reactionary, 
and therefore to be avoided at all costs...Write out one hundred times, ' I
must remember to keep a straight face or else people might think I'm not
a seriously grim and dedicated subversive revolutionary '....) 

I think that very much of what passes for serious scholarly thought is more
or less disguised rhetoric, the purpose of which, as we know, is to persuade,
not to pursue or establish truth. I too can use ideas as tools to bash the other
guy's ideology. But, primarily, I really am deeply curious about the fundamental
philosophical questions which we still cannot answer, e.g. why do I exist ?
why does anything exist ? what happened in the past ? does the universe
mean anything, and if so, what ? how best to go about asking these kind
of questions, and so on. Naive children can pose these questions. The most
sophisticated intelligences which the human species has produced have
difficulty answering them.....( unless you are prepared to settle for 42, - or
was it 43 ? - which I personally find wanting, a mere dispeptic Pythagorean
postulant, provided by an authority prone to panic in the face of a transitory
inspirational and narrational void, but what more could you expect from 
someone with a name like Douglas Beeblebrox, or whatever he was called ? ). 

As for what we laughingly call Reality, or, reality, (or even ytilaer....) probably, 
being very hungry, very cold, or very frightened - or all three together, 
teaches more about 'in here / out there ' than does 2500 years of accumulated 
rational discourse. But IMHO zazen trumps everything else, says he, banging his
favourite drum once again. You get to be cold, hungry, sore, and scared, and still
be unperturbed and serene. All for free.

Over to you folks, I'm going to retire into reality for a while to attend to business.
Perhaps you would be kind enough to debate 'reality' in my absence. I would be
most grateful. I've been offered a seriously embarrassing quantity of money
to devise a board game, in eight languages, the purpose of which is to get
eight human players drawn from far flung parts of the planet, to engage in
play, as a means to sublimate their separate and individual 'realities' and merge
into a unified organic 'reality', all to further a corporate ambition to dominate
a particular marketplace. Disgusting isn't it. They require something which
will provide ' a growth experience', 'contact the inner voice', 'share challenges 
and experiences with emotion', 'transcend egotistical reality', bla, bla, bla. 
This ludicrous drama to commence at the dawn of the millenium, Jan 2000.
Is this pomo, or what ? Well, it's a heap of money, so why should I care ?
A harsh lesson. If you flaunt your ego and soul on the internet, remember
the capitalist vultures are watching....if I survive, I'll be back someday.
Anybody with any very good suggestions please e-mail me privately. 

sois sage,

your sincere and grateful correspondent,

Chris.
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrislees/tao.index.html



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