[Buddha-l] What is direct experience?

[Stefan Detrez]

>
> I probably think of the disregard for me and mine not as some Kantian moral
> principle but more as a practical code that helps. Neither have I gone any
> way to denying that there is a self as in conventional knowledge about the
> world; though it seems somewhat strange to call all that "me".
>
> I see the denial of the self as the way to achieve 'a view from nowhere' as
postmodern philosophers like to say, but it can also be taken normatively,
as you imply, as a stimulant for altruism and unbiased moral reasoning. I
think both fail a methods to handle the world and to act well. A sense of
self is useful (to empathize, for instance) and in some moral situation,
like in a life threatening situation of self defense, beit in the street or
as a life threatening pregnancy ex utero, altruism is not an option.


> But now I don't know what you mean by existential de-selfing, because you
> seem in your last email to be just denying the self certain ontological
> states not a role in existential projects.
>
> To rid oneself of one's psychological characteristics that make one
recognizable as a human being. I deny that there is an ens called the self,
but as a necessary illusion it performs well. This illusion, as a paradigm,
facilitates our dealings with existential projects.

Cheers,

Stefan