Beyond true and false
Buddhist philosophy is full of contradictions. Now modern logic is learning why that might be a good thing
Graham Priest
Is it one thing to focus in on those things said to be beyond description, and another thing to imagine that your words do describe something you believe but you are not able to actually demonstrate it?
That depends on what you are attempting to describe and the context in which you attempt to situate it. The “soul” for example. We can imagine a part of ourselves that might be a soul if we assume the existence of a God capable of creating it. It can’t be pointed to or examined, but it must exist if there is to be an explanation for a body that disintegrates at death yet attains immortality and salvation on the other side.
You might even suggest that the existence of a soul is “logical”, once you assume the existence of God.
With Buddhism though all of this revolves around another set of assumptions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta
Is this an effable description of the soul? And what is their explanation for those things here that remain ineffable? How then do they account for that?
As for the parts that are not demonstrable how are not Buddhists in the same boat with Christians and all other religious denominations? Are the “contradictions” embedded in “talking about the ineffable” subsumed in the part that revolves around faith?
Only with Buddhism, all of this is that much more indescribable to many because there is no actual God to take all of your questions back to. What then? How does one wrap their head around, say, the universe itself as the transcending font? What can that possibly mean in a way that even comes close to the use of language?
Got that? Okay, if you think you do, bring the philosophy here out into the world of human interactions and make the proper distinction between biological imperatives, sense perception, rational thought, experiences and reacting to those experiences out in a particular world embedded – memetically? – in ever evolving historical, cultural and experiential contexts.
And then tie that into whatever you construe God and religion to be insofar as an afterlife – immortality, salvation – is applicable to you.
There you go…
Western or Eastern philosophy, God or No God, we all bump into the limitations that seem to be built right into the human condition in regard to making distinctions between the effable and the ineffable, the demonstrable and the leaps of faith.