Friday, August 3, 2007
Anekantavada
from wikipedia:
Anekantavada is a basic principle of Jainism developed by Mahavira (599-527 BC) positing that reality is perceived differently from different points of view, and that no single point of view is completely true. Jain doctrine states that only Kevalis, those who have infinite knowledge, can know the true answer, and that all others would only know a part of the answer. Anekantavada is related to the Western philosophical doctrine of Subjectivism.'Ekanta' is one-sidedness. Anekantavada is literally the doctrine of non-onesidedness; it is often translated as "non-absolutism".Anekantvada encourages its adherents to consider others views or beliefs. They should not reject a view simply because it uses a different perspective. They should consider the fact there may be truth in others' views too.Many proponents of Anekantvada apply the principle to religion and philosophy themselves, reminding adherents that any religion or philosophy, even Jainism, that clings too dogmatically to its own tenets is committing an error based on its limited point of view. In this application, Anekantvada resembles the Western principles of cultural and moral relativism.
Anekantavada
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Joseph Margolis
Margolis is the current day champion of the ancient Protagoras in that he takes the latter’s dictum “Man the Measure” to its logical conclusions, showing how, strictly adhering to such a measure, all fixities and changeless first principles must give way to consensual, though not criterial, truth claims. Since “man”, the measure, is himself a creature of history, no modal claims of invariance can possibly be sustained. Margolis however avers that there need be no fixities either de re or de dicto or de cogitatione. The world is a flux and our thought about it is also in flux. Margolis sees the whole history of Western Philosophy as a struggle between the advocates of change and those who either, like Parmenides, deny that change is intelligible at all, or those, like Heraclitus, who find some logos or some law which allegedly governs whatever changes are admitted. Contrary to “postmodern” philosophers like Richard Rorty or Jean-François Lyotard, he shows that our lacking cognitive privilege means that the need for a philosophical justification of our choices and programs becomes more, not less, pressing now than at any previous time.
Joseph Margolis
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