Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
Hi again aflatun. Apologies for the long delay. The Bradley stuff remains beyond my ken for the moment (I think one actually needs to read it, or at least be more familiar with Nanavira...)
No worries, and I apologize, I can't seem to avoid thinking in three directions at once sometimes. The reader's digest on what I was getting at with Bradley (and no need to reply to or address these points any further):
1) Restricting things to the "given" is simply not going to work, in principle leaving the door open for Self, which is a logically defensible approach. (Nevertheless Bradley rejects self, but has no problem replacing it with another higher order unity, the Absolute).
2) What we
do take as self is actually something that does appear, albeit not in the same way that my tasty cup of french press appears to me when I turn to my left right now and reach for a sip, but more akin to the vague and peripheral sense of irritation I feel right now at the fact that my pager went off early this morning for no good reason
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
Yes, I'm wary, but only if the perception and consciousness, etc. are actually the Buddha's
khandas. There may be no reason why sanna, vinnana, etc. should not arise independently, but...
I'm not sure what you were getting at here Sam, could you explain?
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
That is, that no conceivable experience like ours could be without transcendental unity.
I agree!
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
There can't be an experience without structure and "rules", so to speak.
I agree!
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
And, of course, that condition is a structural, atemporal condition, rather than a causal condition along the lines that some soul-like entity causes these things to come into being, or even causes them to manifest in particular ways. BV doesn't need a thing to exist independently of experience to make his case; merely that all possible experiences should conform in such a way that we could conceivably call it "our experience".
Thank you for clearly pointing out the difference between structural, atemporal conditions and efficient causes which is very important here! That said, this is where I run into trouble. If there is no entity that provides or is that condition, then what is it? Isn't the entire Kantian-Schopenhauerian enterprise built on the premise that there must be a mind with its categories and process of synthesis in place in order for there to be experience such as we have it?
"TUA is the condition of all possible experience" as I understand it posits a mind and synthetic process that is the effector of that unity. If we remove them, we have
"All experience by definition is unified."
What I've removed here is the transcendental condition. But all is not lost! Because we can set aside the reductionist/empiricist appeal to raw data, bundles, etc as fictions, because no one has ever experienced such a thing, and they never will.
I guess I don't find the transcendental move from the unity to a condition of that unity particularly convincing anymore (not to knock it, I've been a die hard transcendental idealist for most of my life!) I agree that there is no conceivable experience like ours without transcendental unity, 100%. What I am not so comfortable with, and this is why I'm a poor-or no longer-Kantian, is the inference from the unity of experience to a principle (the Mind with its categories, or an actual unitary self) or process (synthesis) that is the
condition of this unity. Experience always involves transcendental subjects as well as objects, no doubt, but I see these more as idealities than realities. (I don't mean they are any less real than the particulars they "unify", I wouldn't posit any ontological hierarchy here).
Please voice your objections!
aflatun wrote:I believe the Buddha taught the opposite, that consciousness, perception, etc are the transcendental conditions that make "I am" and that personal unity possible, not the other way around.
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
Yes, I think that's a good way of putting it, although I'm not sure whether the term "transcendental" applies here. I would be happier saying that he thought they were necessary conditions, but it might be that I'm just wary of the Kantian use of "transcendental".
You are right to be not sure because I'm abusing the word transcendental here, hah!
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:51 pm
The argument in DN 15 seems to go like this...
Thank you for the beautiful analysis. I might be wrong, but I do actually read the Buddha as more or less referring to " all possible experience" here, given that there is no (ordinary) experience without hedonic tone. What do you think?
And so the way I understand the argument would be something like: Without experience being there, given beforehand, the attribution of that experience to Self would not be possible. So rather than Self-the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, etc- being the condition of all possible experience, its the other way around. Experience is the condition that makes the conceit of an unseen seer, unheard hearer etc possible. And the fact that experience is unified, and by definition has a directionality, makes this conceit all the more compelling:
Self' as subject can be briefly discussed as follows. As pointed out in PHASSA (b), the puthujjana thinks 'things are mine (i.e. are my concern) because I am, because I exist'. He takes the subject ('I') for granted; and if things are appropriated, that is because he, the subject, exists. The ditthisampanna (or sotāpanna) sees, however, that this is the wrong way round. He sees that the notion 'I am' arises because things (so long as there is any trace of avijjā) present themselves as 'mine'. This significance (or intention, or determination), 'mine' or 'for me'—see A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA [e]—, is, in a sense, a void, a negative aspect of the present thing (or existing phenomenon), since it simply points to a subject; and the puthujjana, not seeing impermanence (or more specifically, not seeing the impermanence of this ubiquitous determination), deceives himself into supposing that there actually exists a subject—'self'—independent of the object (which latter, as the ditthisampanna well understands, is merely the positive aspect of the phenomenon—that which is 'for me').
Atta
Thank you for your time as always, Sam !
"People often get too quick to say 'there's no self. There's no self...no self...no self.' There is self, there is focal point, its not yours. That's what not self is."
Ninoslav Ñāṇamoli
Senses and the Thought-1, 42:53
"Those who create constructs about the Buddha,
Who is beyond construction and without exhaustion,
Are thereby damaged by their constructs;
They fail to see the Thus-Gone.
That which is the nature of the Thus-Gone
Is also the nature of this world.
There is no nature of the Thus-Gone.
There is no nature of the world."
Nagarjuna
MMK XXII.15-16