[Buddha-l] Moment of individuation, moment of truth

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sun, 2005-04-24 at 07:57 +0800, John Whalen-Bridge wrote:

> I take it Richard Hayes is distinguishing between "true" and "truth"?

I hope not, except to say that one is an adjective and the other a noun.
Both words, as I understand it, derive from a Middle-English word
meaning "loyalty". 

> Agreeing with James that we can have an interpretation that is true
> while denying (in reference to Pope B.XVI) "that anyone can know what it
> is"...don't jive.

That is certainly not what I intended to say. What I intended to say was
that there may well be truth but that it could also be that no one knows
what that truth is. That is my position, and I think it comes close to
James's position. In his essay on truth in his book on Pragmatism, he
describes truth as something organic that changes with circumstances.
Among the circumstances that change are our own opinions about things,
which may have the potential to change realities.

> What point then is saying there is a truth but no one "knows what it is"? 

The point, I think, is to distinguish between those things for which
"there is no truth to the matter" and realities that we are not in a
position to know about. I would say there is no truth to the matter in
moral claims. They are pure opinion. Whether there is life on a planet
going around a star a million light years from here is an issue to which
there is a truth, but no one here is currently in a psoition to know
what it is. I find that a useful distinction. 

> The omniscience of the totally enlightened chap would be one solution,
> but I'm still waiting to meet one.

Don't hold your breath. 

> Epistemological humility fits well with both Buddhism and pragmatism,
> but most Buddhisms do hold out for the possibility of knowing both kinds
> of truth, relative and absolute, no?

Therein, in my opinion, lies the deficiency of Buddhism and the
superiority of Pragmatism. Others, of course, would say just the
opposite.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico