Tangled Hierarchy There’s something of a tangled hierarchy between basic categories and the more nuanced insights that, down the road, they facilitate. A budding mathematician first learns algebra, then geometry, and then calculus – but many report that even though algebra was a necessary building-block for geometry and calculus, they “truly understood” algebra only after mastering the …
Western Philosophy
On Saying True Things About The Ineffable
How often does one find an essay penned by a western philosopher -- that opens with a quote by Nagarjuna? Graham Priest's fascinating Beyond true and false becomes one of very few, when it begins by citing the illustrious Buddhist philosopher-sage thusly: The nature of things is to have no nature; it is their non-nature that is their nature. For they have only one nature: no-nature. What …
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Revisiting The Tenets Of Valid Cognition: When Is Knowledge Reliable?
Seems like once a year or so that I feel drawn to reviewing – and hopefully in some manner clarifying – the tenets of valid cognition. And so it is, here on the cusp of June, that I embark once again on this journey … What Is Valid Cognition? The phrase “valid cognition” (Sanskrit: pramāṇa) is one that appears largely in Buddhist philosophy – though there are similar explorations within Yoga and …
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Equality, Justice, Fairness: Reflections on Sharing a Cake
The Scales of Justice: Dream-Like or Eternal? Are “equality” and “justice” and “fairness” archetypes that have some kind of actual (subtle transpersonal) existence, perhaps in the mode of Platonic Forms? Or are they bona fide attributes of the Divine: qualities that flow forth spontaneously via a bodymind that is fully transparent to its eternal Source? Or are they merely conceptual …
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Bachelors & Buddhas: On The Validation Of Scientific & Metaphysical Claims
If we define “bachelor” as “an unmarried man” – then the statement “Every bachelor is an unmarried man” is true by definition. Given how we’ve defined our terms, it simply cannot be false. It is necessarily un-falsifiable. Hence it really doesn’t make sense to call such a statement a “theory” or a “hypothesis.” It’s not something that can be proved or disproved empirically. It’s not a matter of …
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Freedom & Choice
Volition? Volition is as conditioned as any other factor in the performance of an action. - Wei Wu Wei (excerpted from Posthumous Pieces) Absolute Freedom The phrase “choice-less Awareness” is one that frequently is employed to point to the non-conceptual, non-phenomenal “space” of Pure Awareness. The implication is that ultimate freedom is choice-less: Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is …