[Buddha-l] Victimized vegans
jkirk
jkirk at spro.net
Sat May 12 13:48:24 MDT 2007
"Before he lectured, he would pointedly shuffle the pages of the text and
then read them in whatever order they came out. In this way no two lectures
were the same."
Brilliant. Wish I had known about this tactic when I was teaching.
Joanna
=================================
-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com
[mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Richard Hayes
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2007 12:06 PM
To: Buddhist discussion forum
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Victimized vegans
On Saturday 12 May 2007 02:23, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
> You suggest that the value of a
> text depends solely on it's interpretation. So do you deny the relevance
> of historical data, like Richard Rorty ?
The answer to that depends on which pair of trousers I have on at the
moment.
When I'm wearing the trousers of an historian of philosophy (which is pretty
rare, since I have never been any good at all at thinking like a historian),
I try to pay some bit of detail to historicity. When I am wearing the
trousers of a philosopher, the only thing that interests me is ideas and
arguments. (Sorry, but all my training in philosophy was in analytic
philosophy, with a tiny sprinkling of Pragmatism.)
> If a text falls apart and
> children sample the pages which are not numbered and put them together
> in a new order, which allowes another consistent reading, would you
> consider this text or the voice in it an authority on the subject?
I would see no problem in that, provided that the rearrangement did not in
some way disturb the flow of ideas and arguments. It is said of Ralph Waldo
Emerson that he wrote all his lectures on individual sheets of paper in such
a way that no sentence began on one page and ended on another. Before he
lectured, he would pointedly shuffle the pages of the text and then read
them
in whatever order they came out. In this way no two lectures were the same.
But the underlying ideas were. It seems to me that a large percentage of
Buddhist literature could be approached in the same way, that is, quite
randomly, without being any less effective as Dharma teaching.
--
Richard
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