A Philosopher's Ruminations

Relativism is the idea that there can be two incommensurable realities, each equally valid. So we have two simultaneous assertions: something is real, and it is real relative to me, and these assertions contradict each other. The underlying thought is this: to be finite is to be limited by another, and the other is the infinite. To be finite, then, is to be the negation of the infinite. Finitude, then, is to be understood only in reference to the infinite. If you sever this connection, then the finite in itself becomes the infinite. It comes to be considered as both finite and infinite at the same time. This is relativism. A finite perspective on reality is treated as both reality as such and as finite. If it were not finite, then an equally valid alternative reality would not be possible. But we have a reality which is valid-for-another. This shows the finitude of my own perspective because I am urging my perspective to be treated as absolute while at the same time I am limited by wha...

If nothing exists, then there is being, and if nothing does not exist, then by the law of double negation, something exists. This is the Parmenidean problem: what-is-not cannot be thought or spoken of because we can only think and speak of what is. So there is no absolute nothingness because the category contradicts itself. Parmenides used this insight to argue against the reality of motion. Advaita Vedanta believes that pure being has no opposite; it knows no non-being. But the world is negatable; hence, it cannot be pure being. It still appears as an object of consciousness, and so it is different from non-being. Being and Non-Being then are contraries whose negation can be found in one substratum. Dvaita Vedanta firmly advocated against this that Being and Non-Being are contradictories — the negation of Being is Non-Being, and the negation of Non-Being is Being. In this case, then the negation of Being is Absolute Non-Being, and they believe we can talk about what-is-not without mak...

The reason Kant made a distinction between two sources of knowledge — understanding and intuition was because we are finite beings who do not have an intellectual intuition. So, simply from our concepts we cannot draw any conclusions about existence (as we do in the Ontological Argument) without the aid of sensible intuition. The issue here is that this seems to saddle us with a new kind of dualism — of concepts and reality. Kant admits that these two apparently distinct sources of knowledge could have an identical root, but this root remains incomprehensible for us. So we have to accept this duality from our finite perspective. The Jewish philosopher Solomon Maimon argued that this duality is fatal to the prospects of Kant answering Hume. In principle, Hume would have no problem in conceding that there are a priori concepts of understanding that determine the possibility of experience by organising the sensible matter of cognition. The issue is that this matter itself does not have a ...