DM> Though complicated by seeming self contradictions, and the trauma of
 DM> defeatism, the negative philosophies must not be denied, at very least,
 DM> as part of the universal equation.  We just don't know it all; and
 DM> choosing the better-to-feel, may be more genetic predisposition than
 DM> reasoned insight. Even Socrates showing that Protagoras' "all of
 DM> importance is relative" being self defeating, only illuminates that one
 DM> of "better words" might prevail over another.
   I think in this last exchange, David we HAVE achieved one thing to
admirable proportions - dialogue.  That is NOT easy to do and perhaps we 
oths
should extend ourselves some degree of congratulation for that attainment.
   I would like to suggest, relative to your comments above, that it is 
etter
not to speak of "negative philosophies."  I believe we should have enough
respect for history to acknowledge that there are not "philosophies" 
negative
OR positive).  What I take you to mean, rather, would be better termed
"opinions."  Of course I understand that you will have some objection because
the very term "philosophy" MEANS "opposition to opinions (philodoxy).  
   I have no argument at all against the assertion that we do not "know it
all."  That is what Voegelin meant when he observed that history has no eidos
(knowable meaning) and "history is not a stream of human beings and their
actions in time" (snails, horses and apes have THAT) but the process of man's
participation in "a flux of divine presence that has eschatological
direction."   
   I seem to be less attracted to relativism, however, than you are.  I see
the pursuit of philosophy as a movement toward counteracting the nihil that
you appear to celebrate - or if not celebrate at least to welcome some degree
of reality for it.
 DM> Of the "beyond", and mixed into "eschatology" we develop judgement
 DM> insight packages ...BUT!!! these candle flickers (so far) do not
 DM> translate beyond the "nihil". Myth and "positive-mind", separate, or in
 DM> combination, do not an understanding make. A fatalish mixing along
 DM> Protagoras, Gorgias, Dostievsky, and Nietzsche might well be a more
 DM> univrsally correct image of what _LITTLE_, reality can actually  mean
 DM> (beyond gravity and arithmetic)!  However we make of meanings,
 DM> consciousness itself is our only primal reference and ALL is relative
 DM> to it. The Sophists could yet win out!!!
   A second corrective I would offer would be that neither should we condemn
the Sophists in the Greek struggle for the nous nor should we follow the
"fundamentalists" in considering the Pharisees of the Judaic culture to have
been a band of "hypocrits" as their use in the symbolism would appear to have
them.  The sophists were recognized by Plato and all as the "educators of
Hellas" and praised for that endeavor.  In the recording of the experiences 
y
his disciples of Jesus as "the Christ" it is often overlooked that both Jesus
and Paul were "Pharisees" just as it would not be wrong to term Socrates a
sophist.  Convention dies hard but philosophers must attempt to keep history
in view and not to distort it by entering into the heated symbolisms of the
various epochs.  
 DM> Most move beyond the primitive "nihil" stages as perhaps one day I  will
 DM> also. It is essentially a base line camp that I move out from  in
 DM> exploration and quest. At worst it is a false premise, at best,  a clean
 DM> path to explore. Some of us (me) need a clean path. With the  exception
 DM> of atomic-ish "laws of the universe" and "numbers", nothing I've heard,
 DM> read or thought about, presents more than a mix  between a seeming
 DM> negative "nihility" and the positive confusion of consciousness. I'm
 DM> still unable to work out this awkward comraderie  between such yoked
 DM> enigmas. You might say I'm having some difficulty  moving past ground
 DM> zero on the more serious questions .
   I can fully understand.  The gnostic mass movements of the centuries since
"enlightenment" have filled the horizon massively and they are both political
and intellectual.  Renunciation of them was made intentionally difficult
because reality DOES clearly involve the desire to know and so it furnishes 
n
these confusions of symbolisms competing, attractive "totalities" or
"systems."  It is difficult to approach the conclusion that they may be, like
Nietzsche's "changing of masks" something of an invitation to turn from the
"disputing with shadows" toward the more uncertain realm in which 
ratefulness
is entertained for the blessing of science and faith (not as assurance)
permits an escape from the "institutions, secular or religious" and a search
for existential order beyond "mere opinion."  There is certainly no escape
from history for history is the reality which must be lived and died.  
   God has never spoken to me audibly either but I try to take the advice of
Martin Buber and keep my ears free of the wax that might be blocking SOME 
ind
of communication and I do not narrow "God" as a symbolism to the small
confines of the literalists and fundamentalists.
 DM> Philosophy and its many cousins of evaluation, have a good mind-feel;
 DM> and has been brightened by evolution into a hungry button in our nerve
 DM> system. Also?  the "nothing-ish" conclusions might be in error or partly
 DM> so. There are ever even third-ish possibilities that meanings may be
 DM> other than  "nothing" or the "somethings we have invented them to be,
   The epoch in ancient Egyptian history which produces "Song of the Harper"
or later the epoch in which Hesiod describes the "evils that flesh is heir 
o"
and the ruminations of the Hellenic Age Ecclesiastes or all well known.
Parmenides, however, experienced the IS with it's way of both truth and
delusion and opened the western discussion of being.  He discovered that NOT
IS is unthinkable.  
   Attunement to the order of being has, as far as I can ascertain, nothing
whatever to do with "mind-feel."  One thing I surely do NOT mean by "faith" 
s
the "dancing of any sugar-plums" in my head or the vision of a change of
"things" from the mystery of good and evil "here" to some kind of "streets
paved with gold" or a boring process of "bowing before a throne."  I hope 
hat
I can experience a bit of "immortlizing" without expecting to enter some
visualized "immortality."  I have no problem trusting in a reality that
provides through revelation, noetic or otherwise, paradigms of order which 
re
virtually self-validating.  
   Cheers
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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