User:Kukkurovaca/SandBox

I'm not really presenting arguments here, I'm questioning yours. That's the role of the devil's advocate; obviously, of course, one's critiques can be expected to be coherent, and I believe mine are. Your second point was, "Secondly, would we would be reading about (the US Supreme Court ruling at) Guantanamo Bay, or (the US transfer of power in) Iraq, even if the US hadn't shoved its foot down a few thousand throats in those places?", and this is clearly a comment on US foreign policy, not on news coverage! Then you segue onto another point with a "That reminds me of". And a Marine being killed, unlike the supreme court ruling on US treatment of prisoners, is clearly not news to everyone, I'm with you on that.

What about my point about organic measures being more meaningful than artificial ones? Any thoughts on recruiting a more international user base? Because I think that, unlike what I still regard as a primarily cosmetic tweak to the front page, might actually help Wikipedia be less Americocentric rather than merely appearing so. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 01:14, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ghāndhārī

blechalech

Mahāyāna

Mahāyāna

Blah

22:46, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Sikh ^{#1 22:45, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Hinduism 22:45, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Wicca 22:44, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Islam 22:44, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Acid chloride 22:44, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Croatian literature 22:44, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) List of historians 22:43, 6 Apr 2004 (hist) Buddhism}

Blah2

I can't find a page explaining these, though it there was a tip of the day related to interwiki links. Wikibooks and Wiktionary can be linked to via shortcuts like [[wikibooks:page title]] and [[wiktionary:page title]]. There isn't a shortcut for wikisource yet. Angela. 07:40, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

See also

khl

Notes

khl

1

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• Sthaviravāda
  • Mahāsasubsṃghika (Majority) split from Sthaviravāda c. 380 BCE
    • Ekavyahārikas and Golulikas split from Mahāsaṃghika during reign of Aśoka
      • Lokottaravāda may be an offshoot of Ekavyahārikas
      • Bahuśrit
        ya and Prajñaptivāda split from Golulikas in late third century BCE
    • Caitika split from Mahāsaṃghika in the middle of the first century BCE
      • Apara Śaila and Uttara Śaila
  • Pudgalavāda (Personalist) split from Sthaviravāda c. 280 BCE
  • Sthaviravāda split into Sarvāstivāda and Vibhajyavāda c. 237 BCE
    • Theravāda split from Vibhajyavāda and move to Sri Lanka c. 240 BCE
      • Mah
        śāsakas, Kāśyap
        yas, Dharmaguptaka split from Theravāda sometime after Aśoka's death in 232 BCE
        • Chinese Vinaya School from Dharmaguptaka
          • Ritsu
    • Vats
      putr
      ya split from Vibhajyavāda during reign of Aśoka
      • Dharmottar
        ya, Bhadrayān
        ya, Sannāgarika, Saṃmit
        ya
    • Sautrāntikas split from Sarvāstivāda sometime between 50 BCE and c. 100 CE.
      • Jojitsu
    • Kusha from Sarvāstivāda
    • [[Mulasarvastivada|M[[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]]lasarvāstivādins]] split from Sarvāstivāda in the third and fourth centuries CE.
    • Sarvāstivādins known as Vaibhāṣikas after M[[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]]lasarvāstivāda split

Problems of pure relativism

Nick Shere

Pure Relativism

Normally, pure relativism occurs (or is attempted) in only a small number of situations, most of them anthropological. Anthropological relativism is a response to the kind of naïve Eurocentric accounts of history and culture that are exemplified by, say, Hegel—where there is a spectrum running from the pinnacle of history (the white European culture to which the author happens to belong—cf. Calvin and Hobbes) to the gutters (usually native, traditional societies). This assumed Manichean dualism is opposed by an equally assumed (though in many ways less offensive) form of pluralism, in which the value hierarchies of Eurocentric history and anthropology are absolutely rejected. All difference between groups is conceived of purely as such—pure otherness, without value. Thus no one group is superior to any other; all are equally discrete. Value systems are contained within cultural groups; thus, any action may be good or bad or neutral, but it is only any of these things within the cultural context that grants it value. An outside observer—the anthropologist—is not a participant in that cultural context; he or she is a pure observer.

This kind of ontology can be indefinitely sustained in theory. One can assume at all times that the value systems in which one lives are of only relative significance—but one cannot reflect this theoretical movement in practice. That is, one cannot escape ones value systems—or, if one can, it is only by means of transitioning to different value systems which, while different, are equally value systems.

One can never occupy the status of pure observer relative to oneself. We cannot avoid activity, choice, action. We can commit suicide, which ends our immersion in the world of action, but only through action—or through the choice not to “act,” which is itself an act. In reference to language, we are never outside language—by which I mean communication. If it were possible for a person never to have seen another human being, than perhaps we that person could be free of communication; otherwise, however, we are always constantly immersed in language. Speech is language; so is silence. Movement is language; so is stillness.

Because we are constantly engaging in language-acts, we cannot in practice assume the status of pure observer in reference to language. Pure observation is predicated upon detachment from the action observed, and so is the relativism of pure observation. In practice, we must act and we must judge—and because we must judge, things are not value-neutral.

Speaking pragmatically, actions are always good or bad, or some combination. This does not exhaust action—action may also contain much that is meaningless and insignificant—and therefore neither good nor bad. But inasmuch as all actions have the potential to contribute to or detract from our goals and our lives, they are firmly situated within the field of value, and we as agents are responsible for judging their value and acting in accordance with our judgments.

Assuming—as is the case—that language changes over time, it is possible to take the state of language at one point, and the state of language at another point, and make comparisons of value. It may not be feasible to do so with any degree of accuracy, if evidence is lacking, but the possibility is there. Inasmuch as language serves one or more functions—survival of the species and the individual, at the most extreme level, often depend on language; our society largely consists of linguistic conventions and linguistically constituted ideas, so that any social projects—education, the arts, etc.—will depend on language as well—it can either succeed or fail, and it can either be more or less successful, contribute more or less to the quality and extent of human life. Given this potential for success or failure, language must be subject to value and open to value-comparisons, not ontologically, but for the human linguistic agent who is always already embedded in language and can never escape from it.

Naturalism and Linguistic Darwinism

Similarly, there is a problem with arguments that “natural” change in language will be superior to managed change. (As with arguments for capitalist as opposed to communist economies.) The very notion that there is a distinction between the natural and artificial orders of things posits either two or three spheres: one the sphere of nature, where things are what they are and do what they do, which is either praised or derided by a second sphere of observation. This sphere of observation either is or is joined by a sphere of intervention, in which plans are made and implemented to alter the sphere of nature. As soon as intervention occurs, the very notion of their being a separate sphere of observation collapses. Intervention—or even the choice not to intervene when intervention is possible—immediately embroils the observer in the observed sphere, and collapses the dualism of pure observation.

Darwinian selection is, by and large, the survival of what survives. More specifically, it is the continuation or reproduction of whatever qualities happen to match, at a particular moment, the circumstances in the sphere of nature. In Darwinian selection of species, the naturalist steps back from the sphere of nature in order to observe the process of selection—but this involves a false distinction between the kind of selection which results from human intervention and that which results from “natural” processes. In fact, because humans are themselves always part of the sphere of nature—things as they are—they are always either actually or potentially a player in any selection process occurring in their environment—the world. A selection process resulting from human “tampering”—i.e., the extinction of native species due to competition with imported species—is not something that can simply be studied through pure observation. Human beings are responsible for the changes in question; as humans, we must make judgments regarding whether and how to respond. Similarly, though to a different degree, we are responsible for cases in which no human action has changed the situation, but in which human action might have changed the situation. And we are responsible not because there is some ontological property of species which makes them responsible for one another—quite the contrary—but because as beings engaged in action, we are always already immersed in value systems; we must always act and judge.

Criteria for Value-Judgments about Language

Here is where things start getting hinky, and where the relatively strong arguments stop, and the weaker suggestions begin. It will be necessary to establish at least a quick and dirty definition of what language is, along with a clearer definition of what value means before proceeding to an account of linguistic value.

• What is language?
  • Language as communication, broadly construed?
  • Language as shared experience?
  • Language as the social network?
  • Language as experience as culture?
  • Deweyan-Malinowskyian “meaning”!
• What is value?
  • The pragmatic criterion
    • Success-failure
      • Intentionality—success at goals
      • Survival—the ultimate pragmatic criterion: work for the sake of my life, of human life, of life-at-large
      • Problem of scale—today’s success can be tomorrow’s failure
        • Problem of the tragic pragmatist
  • Value in terms of the pragmatic criterion
    • Direct contributions to success and failure
    • Contribution to the conditions for success and failure
• Intrinsic value?
  • What would it mean to have an intrinsic good?
  • Are there intrinsic goods?
  • How and for whom are there intrinsic goods?
  • What is the proper role of intrinsic goods in the social network, and in public action.
  • Is culture an intrinsic good?
    • Yes and no.
      • Inasmuch as culture is an intrinsic good, so what?
      • Inasmuch as it is not, so what?
        • What are the implications of this for linguistic value?
• Language and identity
  • Language and the subject
  • Language and group identity
  • Language and the formation or transformation of identity
  • Identity and survival
    • To what extent is survival the survival of the “I” or the “we” as opposed to any number of bodies.
  • Identity and value
  • Identity and intrinsic value?
• Linguistic Value
  • Language forms that contribute to success or failure of goals.
  • Language forms that contribute to the conditions for success or failure of goals.
  • Language forms that contribute to culture (as a condition for the success or failure of goals).
  • Language and survival.
    • Communication/Language and survival
    • Communication/Language and violence
• Conclusion/Summation: Language and the Maintenance of Possibilities
  • Survival as the maintenance of possibilities
  • Language forms and the maintenance of possibilities