Talk:Dialectical monism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 Unsigned Criticism 2 Defence by Author 3 Advertising? 4 On Further Reflection 5 Some Misunderstandings? 6 Cleanup Tag

[edit] Unsigned Criticism

The author states: "As it is promoted today (chiefly on the Internet), dialectical monism refers to a worldview or ontology based in a framework of neutral monism, which attempts to synthesize Eastern mysticism with Western dialectics. In layman's terms, the basic idea is to outline a point of view which recognizes that all is one, but this oneness can only be experienced in terms of duality and creative opposition."

It appears anyone can create their own philosopy and then put it on Wikipedia to try to promote it.

[edit] Defence by Author

Check the IP on this user (User:Factchecker007). I am betting it is User:66.66.117.237, who has been vandalizing all pages related to me recently. The anonymous user at that IP is an individual who has a personal problem with me, and has been vandalizing other websites I own as well. --Nat 22:06, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising?

The last section in this entry looks to me like an advertisement for a particular school of thought. I think this should be discouraged, in the first place, because it is not an important or well-known one, and, more importantly, because this entry is on a general philosophical position and its historical locations and not a venue for promoting or discussing its socially-insignificant contemporary spiritual development online. I notice that the promoter, Nat, patrols this entry. I encourage him to defend reference to his philosophical system in a public encyclopedia article. A record of peer-reviewed articles or a list of mailing lists and websites not maintained by himself might convince me that this is other than advertising. Until then I've removed the final paragraph of this entry. I also removed the link, misleading titled "Dialectical Monism Overview", which refers to the promoter's website.

霊村 16:46, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not concerned that you edited the article to remove a section you found unnecessary. That happens on Wikipedia, and I'm not going to attempt to revert it. However, you refer to dialectical monism as "not important" and "not well-known." While either of these statements may apply to the term itself, I don't think that either is true of the philosophical position it decribes. The historical references given in the article should support my contention in this regard. I don't mind that you deleted references to the the term's development, as I agree that it is not particularly significant to the Wikipedia audience. As for external references, I can show instances of Sartre and several other notable individuals using the term, if necessary, although I would rather not go to the effort of doing so unless you plan to put the article up for deletion. However, please note that an associated article, Universal dialectic, has already survived one deletion attempt. Finally, the link entitled "Overview of Dialectical Monism" was not misleadingly titled. It pointed to an overview of dialectical monism, precisely as indicated. It's fine if you want to remove the link because it points to a resource on my website, but I'm hoping that someone else will recognize the value of the resource in the future and restore the link. I will not quibble over it, though. I am not here to "promote" dialectical monism on Wikipedia. That is not what Wikipedia is for. I created the article and maintain it because dialectical monism is a term for an important philosophical position which should be represented in this encyclopedia, and is not specifically represented in any other article. The fact that I maintain web pages addressing the topic should not be construed as automatically implying promotional motivations. Nat 03:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On Further Reflection

I'm happy with the recent edits, overall. The material that was removed was not necessary to the article. Thanks to Elfvillage for another perspective. Nat 07:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some Misunderstandings?

You misread my post. I referred to your particular development of dialectical monism as not important and not well known, not the term 'dialectical monism' itself -- though I must admit that I have never, to my knowledge, come across the term in the course of my philosophical reading. I believe my judgement is correct. Two additional comments. (1) My judgement is not meant to reflect the quality of your thinking but simply its standing within popular culture and professional philosophy -- which seem to me the two obvious avenues by which a school of thought may be recognised for inclusion in an encyclopedia. (2) As a student of comparative philosophy familiar with the traditions and texts you cite, may I suggest that dialectical monism misrepresents their insights?

Madhyamaka Buddhism does not advance an ontological position; Nagarjuna's views are better thought of as conventional and soteriological. His central work, The Root Stanzas on the Middle Way, begins with the negative claim that no thing arises from itself, from another, from both, or from neither. This claim opens the chapter on cause, which in this context is what Aristotle called material or substantial cause, i.e., the stuff out of which something is made: the marble which is shaped into a statue, the acorn which grows into a tree, the one which gives rises to two. It is intended to echo the Buddha's response to the metaphysical questions posed by the wandering ascetic Vacchagotta, which, when it was not silence, was a four-fold rejection of this sort, meant to show as mistaken the understanding which can ask such a question by denying all possible responses to it.

The text which you quote is largely concerned to systematise this response and make a way to the Buddha's silence; hence, for instance, its various claims to present no positive (metaphysical) view and my calling it soteriological, i.e., meant to an instrument of ameliorative transformation rather than a statement of a metaphysical doctrine. It is important not to misunderstand this aspect of the text and the central claim of all forms of Buddhism which base understand themselves in terms of the Madhyamika tradition (Tibetan, Chan/Zen/Seon) which originates with Nagarjuna. In that tradition, the fundamental dualism on which your position is based, between (what you call monistic) reality and (dualistic) appearance, is revealed as just another dualistic appearance and not fundamental at all (because everything or nothing is: unity is just one of the many things we have to do with), and moreover one which is considered an impediment to enlightenment -- even if it is occasionally useful in guiding aspirants past particular intellectual pitfalls. Indeed, much of the Nagarjuna's text and the subsequent commentarial tradition is intended to show that just something like dialectical monism is in fact in contrary with the basic aims of Buddhism if not simply incoherent on its own terms.

A similar line of argument can be advanced with regards to Daoism: the basic point is already clear enough in the quote you have given -- 'The Tao produced the One; One produced Two; ...' -- namely, that, as was later the case with Chan/Zen/Seon Buddhism, also with Daoism the point of interest not the relation between a real One and an apparent Two but identification with what precedes or produces them. This sort of identification can be described in metaphysical terms (as a primordial what over there with which an errant I over here might identify), but the tradition is usually interpreted as advancing not a metaphysical position but a manner of relating to discrimination which recognises attempts to formulate such a position as confused and so unhelpful and which frequently points out, bemoans, laughs at the limitations of language, how it points out this only to cover that, which might otherwise mistake its praise of an free and masterful relation to thinking for the service of this or that thought.

I am not sure what to recommend to help you out of your troubles other than further reading, but I do suggest, with regards to Wikipedia, that you drop most of the references in the current article as indications of your insufficient understanding of the traditions and texts you discuss and perhaps look instead to the pre-Madhyamaka schools of Buddhism now loosely considered together as the Abhidharmika, the Yogacara or Chittamatra school of Busddhist subjective realism, the various Vedic philosophies (something like dialectical monism can be found in the Samkhya notion of prakriti), the dual-aspect theory of Spinoza, and so forth.

霊村 03:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Two more things. (1) I think this article could benefit from reference to Hegel's dialectic and its concretisation in Marxism. There is a lot of good, clearly-relevant material there. (2) Please don't let my somewhat gruff manner get you down. From one point of view, all of the above is just more misundestanding, and Buddhism does indeed advocate a movement away from a perception of things as separate and self-identical towards a perception of things as interrelated. The trick, it seems to me, in representing this position accurately (to the extent that it permits of accurate representation and in the interests of remaining faithful to its self-understanding) is detaching the metaphysical dualism, which thinks in terms of firm substance and fleeting stuff, from the soteriological movement from pluralism (there are many firm, independent things), through dualism (some things are first and fixed and others fluid and dependent on them), to nondualism (all things are fleetingly interdependent). Because the nondual eye recognise all things as level, of equal ontological status or "one taste", it is not incorrect to describe them as one and not many; and yet at the same time it would be incorrect to claim that there is some one which has a status different from or prior to that of the many, much as it would be to relate to any of the many as though they were fixed and independent in the first place. Ick! This is sticky stuff! 霊村 04:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup Tag

May I ask why this article is tagged for cleanup? What issues need to be resolved? The spelling and grammar should be adequate, and recent edits have removed content that another user felt was unnecessary. I'd like to discuss any remaining issues. Nat 11:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)