Re: Taoist and Buddhist texts (was Re: FANVA)

[Edward Cherlin <cherlin@CAUCE.ORG>]

At 1:27 PM -0700 10/27/97, Pycyn@aol.com wrote:
[snip]
>Buddhist logic is non-Aristotelian in the sense that it does not have the
>developed syllogism and the complex discussion of the argumentative origins.
> But it is not non-Aristotelian in the sense of not being bivalent.  Indeed,
>all the Indian logicians from the Nyaya school into the Buddhist forms of
>Dignaga and Dharmakirti and Dharmottara and then back to the New Nyaya make
>more or less explicit use of the two principles of bivalence,
>non-contradiction (not both 'tis and 'tain't) and tertium no datur (either
>'tis or 'tain't).
>
>The so-called Four-Cornered Negation of the Buddha applies
>not to truth but to what the Arrived has NOT taught: all of 'tis, 'tain't,
>both and neither. That is, he has taken NO STAND on the issues at hand, not a
>logically tricky stand.  Nagarjuna is true to this dominical rule by showing
>only that all the other positions are ultimately incoherent and not then
>going on to one claimed to work.  In so doing, he shows that the both and the
>neither positions are incoherent essentially because they violate bivalence.
>
> As not unusually, the Great Wisdom Gone Beyond went too far, in this case by
>coming down to a definitely asserted not.

You fail to observe that the 'na' is also self-referential, and does not
represent a final position. By the way, that's Going Beyond, not Gone. "The
journey is hindered by arrival."

>(By the way and to Lojban -- as
>against Loglan --'s credit, a large part of the Awakened's -- and certainly
>Nagarjuna's -- point is probably that the apparent positions or questions are
>ill-formed, since they refer to things in worlds where such things do not
>occur (Siddy G in Blownout, for example).

He described them as vain and useless, and as a distraction from what is
edifying and valuable. Formedness did not come into it. It is equally
incorrect to say that they do not occur, as well as to say that they do
occur, or both, or neither.

>And Lojban has a form for
>rejecting such sentences with unfulfilled presuppositions without violating
>bivalence or, indeed, getting bogged down in truth at all.  Anybody got the
>form handy?  Aristotle, by the way, does use this move occasionally, but I
>can't remember anywhere in the Organon).  Indian Logic, in its developed
>form, is also non-Aristotelian in having an intensional metatheory (works
>with properties rather than classes), though the intensions can be treate a
>la Montague as functions from worlds to classes ( but, since in Nyaya
>properties are fundamental, it is better to treat classes as the images of
>properties in worlds  -- and more natural, too).
>
>Buddhism is generally not non-dualist, nor monist, or dualist.

There's that 'na' again. For example:

"What is the difference between the enlightened and the unenlightened man?"
"The enlightened man sees no difference."

So is that a difference?

Or as we say in America, "There are two kinds of people, those who divide
people into two kinds and those who don't."

>The
>classification is based on an inapplicable supposition (that there are
>substantial things -- at least one anyhow).

Or, equally, that there aren't.

>Later Madhyamika and Vijnanavada
>and some of the Chinese off-shoots do get pretty close to Shankar Vedanta on
>this, though -- to the point where Sh's opponents (including some Buddhists
>of these schools) could not tell the difference.

Yes, they were all raising clouds of dust on the ocean bottom.

>One of the reasons that
>Buddhism died out where Vedanta came in.

Besides being done in by invaders (Huns and later Muslims). Buddhism had a
similar problem later in China. It went into a decline there after
neo-Confucianism stole enough of its good ideas.

>But then, I am an Anglo-Catholic, which often means I do assert both 'tis and
>'tain't in at least rapid succession, if not simultaneously (positions 3 and
>4 of the Jain saptabhangi -- again not a non-bivalent position).
>>|83

"Yet are there not three eternals, but one eternal." Our Abbess always
thought the Athanasian Creed was one of the best parts of Catholicism. She
taught us St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and Rabbi Nachman of
Bratzlav, besides Dogen and Keizan and the rest.

--
Edward Cherlin, President      <http://www.cauce.org/>
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