Talk:Absolute (philosophy)/Archive 1

The First Section

It appears to me the first section here, where it talks about the three conceptions of the Absolute and then starts interpreting the Tao Te Ching, is entirely personal supposition. Ought it be removed? Or, at least, cited and reworded.

Should this article be merged with the Ultimate?

We have articles on both The Absolute and The Ultimate. Are they the same, different, partially overlapping, or different aspects of the same thing? Should these articles be merged? -- Karada 22:04, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As purposed, and there was no opposition until now, and due to the similiarity of conceptions, I've merged the articles The Ultimate and The Ultimate Oneness. There is no necessity of having lots of minor articles scattered, when the contents make more sense to the user's understanding if put together. --Rosaecruz 17:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Disputed

Um.. Buddhism can be seen to have an Ultimate (Nirvana), but Buddhist nirvana is not that of the traditional soul/infinity/essence/spirit/rejoining/returning to be part of the universe nor is it trancending them. There are some infos to read on understanding buddhist views on Ultimate. Shunyata(emptiness or voidness), Anicca (Impermanence), Anatta (No-Self or Non-Self). These will clear out the misunderstanding views on the Ultimate in Buddhism. Buddhism sees reality as non-absolute or changing. Any thoughts before I remove the reference? Monkey Brain 02:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

How easily I had forgotten about how easily I can change the words to fit the right view. Monkey Brain 05:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Similar Concepts

Hegel's Absolute Geist (Spirit/Mind) is very reminiscent of Berkeley's God.66.82.9.54 18:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Hegel himself doesn't believe God and the Absolute to be the same thing. And at any rate, Hegel doesn't define the Absolute as being anything, as the article seems to suggest; to him its a tautology... the Absolute is just what the word says by its definition, the absolute (ultimate, total reality), and he doesn't define it any more than that... so he isn't necessarily in contradiction with Buddhism.. its just a turn of language he uses as an instrument to critique Kant's idea that the ultimate reality is a thing-in-itself that's beyond our perception. To Hegel that lends itself to absurdity, because referring to a thing-in-itself, as an act, is by nature referring to something you're perceiving (and pointing out as a thing-in-itself). If there were a thing-in-itself completely beyond perception you wouldn't even able to refer to it. The ultimate (i.e., absolute) reality to Hegel, is not something beyond our perception, like Kant seems to argue, but something that's reflected in our perception. Hegel believed that Kant's thinking became distorted when assuming that the object all of our reasoning is independent of subjectivity. What is the 'Absolute' (ultimate, total reality), by definition of the word, is both subjective and objective. Brianshapiro

"the Absolute" v "the Ultimate"

I believe this is an entirely arbitrary distinction that is only liable to confuse readers. The qualities attributed to "the Ultimate" here are the same qualities generally attributed to "the Absolute" - which is to say, they are essentially different names for the same concept. So having a separate section for each is only going to confuse people.

Furthermore, the term "Ultimate" is much less common than "Absolute", so much so that I'd say it's bordering on original research to employ it here. I suggest then, that the word "Ultimate" be struck from this article and replace with "Absolute". At most, it should be presented as an alternative term for "Absolute", but even then I think it might be stretching things a bit. Gatoclass (talk) 06:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I've done that, and additionally tried to clean up the article a bit, but it's still a mess and could really do with a total rewrite - preferably by someone who has actually done some serious study in this area. Gatoclass (talk) 07:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Another definition of absolute

Absolute can also mean "without exception," as in the case of an absolute ruler, a.k.a. a tyrant. I want to create an article for this definition, but what can I name the article so that the title is appropriate but it cannot be confused with this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dstebbins (talk • contribs) 00:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Buddhism

As someone said above, Buddhism doesn't subscribe to a doctrine of this sort. Mitsube (talk) 04:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Buddhas students may not. But the Buddha himself did. It's no more a theory than 2+2=4. The Absolute is a fact. And like 2+2=4, it is a truth whether we believe in it or not. Yourliver (talk) 02:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Those with PhDs in Buddhist studies state otherwise. Mitsube (talk) 05:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Absolute as human perception

The world which humans see, touch and perceive through their senses is relative. 'Absolute' is simply a human invented tool of measure to compare one with another. In this way, absolute is what humans perceive to be absolute. Relativity is reality of the world.

In religion and Philiosophy especially Hinduism GOD is considered the Truth, infinity, 'sat chit ananda' ..that which never changes...is truth, is happiness, is God. God is never considered an absolute concept in Hinduism. The assertions in the Article are doubtful.202.138.120.65 (talk) 10:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Metaphysical concept

The article begins by defining "Absolute" in vague, metaphysical terms. In common language, however, "Absolute" is a word that designates the concept of " a known object that is not related to a knowing subject." As such, it is self–contradictory and senseless. However, it has proved very useful in metaphysical discussions.Lestrade (talk) 16:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)Lestrade

Move Buddhist section to different article

I think the section on Buddhism in this article is good and I don't challenge its contents, but I think it would be much better suited in a different article. It should be one entirely about Buddhism; probably the Annatta article, or maybe Sunyata or Atman (Buddhism) articles. Moving the content would make it easier for people to find if they were looking for that specific information. I know I would have loved to have found this long ago on the Buddhist pages rather than stumbling across it here by accident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.76.19 (talk) 16:07, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Dogshit

This article is truly terrible. I occasionally use Wikipedia as a quick reference, and used to edit it regularly before the cranks and the trolls drove me away. So I know how it works.

But this is really shocking. It is incoherent, like a quasi-intellectual collage. The term it is trying to define is used in many different ways, sometimes in the same paragraph, without the article making it clear that this is happening.

Perhaps someone has the time and the patience to fix it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.23.99 (talk) 00:07, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Scrapped and Started over

Many thanks to the original poster, but this article was terminally ill and needed to be put down. As per the previous talk contributor, the article wasn't smelling good.

Accordingly, *be bold*! -- I started from scratch, preserving what I could from the old article. I got rid of the awful swastika, added links, and organized it more simply:

1 Lead
2 Basic conceptions of the Absolute
3 Human relation to the Absolute
4 References, etc. 

I added a bunch of references to perennialists (the original article was basically perennialist propoganda) but also cited critiques from philosophy of religion and atheism. The atheism bits could use quite a bit more revision, as could the scientific pantheism sections.

Please let me know here whether you like it, or go ahead and make changes, revisions, improvements, etc. Thanks, CircularReason (talk) 08:49, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Disputed content

Hi all,

An anonymous editor and myself disagree about the inclusion of the following material:

In religious philosophy, the Absolute is the concept of a form Being which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. The manifestation of the Absolute has been described as the Logos, Word, the Ṛta or Ratio (Latin for "reason").

Related concepts are the Source, Fountain or Well, the Centre, the Monad or One, the All or Whole, the Origin (Arche) or Principle or Primordial Cause, the Sacred or Holy or Utterly Other (Otto), the Form of the Good (Plato), the Mystery, Nirvana, the Will, the Ultimate, the Ground or Urground (Original Ground).[citation needed] It is sometimes used as an alternate term for the more commonly used God of the Universe, the Divine or the Supreme Being (Utmost Being), especially, but by no means exclusively, to express it in less personal and more impersonal representations. The concept of the Absolute may or may not (depending on one's specific doctrine) possess discrete will, intelligence, awareness, or a personal nature. It is sometimes conceived of as the source through which all being emanates. It contrasts with finite things, considered individually, and known collectively as the relative. This is reflected in the name's Latin etymology absolūtus which means "loosened from" or "unattached" (from a subject-object dualism).

I'm a philosopher so I'm coming at this from an academic angle. Here's my thoughts:

'Arguments against'.

1. The absolute is not just a concept in "religious philosophy" but in religion, and philosophy.
2. "the Absolute is the concept of a form Being" is grammatically incorrect
3. "which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence" is not correct. The Absolute ALSO transcends conditional existence, but so do other non-absolute entitities, like angels, Platonic forms, souls, etc. But these are not the Absolute.
4. "The manifestation of the Absolute has been described..." is not correct. It is also not POV-neutral. This sentence provides a strong interpretation of "THE" Absolute (as if there is only one such thing) as being "described" differently by different cultures. This sentence further suggests that all these "descriptions" are descriptions of one reality. Can a Wikipedia article establish such a profound statement? I don't think so.
5. I'm not sure who or what counts as "related concepts." The citation needed tag had been there for years. I think that is original research.
6. "It is sometimes used" is weasel words.
7. "more commonly used God of the Universe" again suggests that the Absolute is "really" God. That's what some pantheists and perennialists argue, but it should not be assumed in the article.

I think this whole paragraph is the original research of someone who wants to get their viewpoint "out there" on the web. That's not Wikipedia's purpose.

'Arguments for'.  ?

Your move, friend.

CircularReason (talk) 01:47, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

You are completely right, this page is a textbook example of a rambling {{Essay-entry}}. It needs to be based on relevant philosophical literature which actually discusses the term "The Absolute". The only source cited at this point which actually deals with the term is the CathEnc entry.

Apparently, this is a term introduced in modern philosophy, and notably discussed by Hegel and Spencer. If this page can be rewritten to be about this debate, based on actual references to Hegel, Spencer, et al., it may be salvageable. As it stands, it is just unencyclopedic meandering on the general topic of God and transcendence open to the WP:TNT treatment. --dab (𒁳) 09:15, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

This ambitious article necessitates discipline through linguistic sophistication.

From what I have glanced, this article started out as a succinct exposition of a specific concept in philosophy, from Hegelian thought in particular, and then, being merged with another article titled "The Ultimate" & "The Ultimate Oneness" there was a resultant explosion in scope: that this article should address every fundamental ontological conceptualization from every species of philosophy and religion, where such coherent or semi-coherent conceptualization can hypothetically be found, along with the varying cases that would argue for, or against, the presence of commonalities between these differing conceptualizations, all at the same time whilst, in a deeply paradoxical and self-referential way, outlining the positions from philosophy and religion that would advocate or criticise such a unifying project, typically on epistemological grounds.

My friends, that is, such an absurdly ambitious goal to aim for, on a humble Wikipedia article of all things, that I couldn't help but chuckle to myself as I wrote the above paragraph explaining the implicit scope of this article. Considering this then, it is no mystery at all, why for over a decade, this article has continued to struggle for adequately informed and unbiased contributors, to write sufficiently comprehensive and understandable material for the lay reader. I commend the author "CircularReason" for implementing a new, coherent and lightweight structure to this article back in 2016; a great deal of beneficial growth can take place under this revised skeleton over the next so-many years. Alas however, I do not believe this will prove sufficient to prevent the addition of further counter-productive contributions, even and especially those dangerously pernicious contributions which don't seem to be problematic at the time, but do ultimately emerge to be so, in hindsight, down the line; too much of this is always what ultimately causes a Wikipedia article to be scrapped and then restarted or abandoned.

And now this is where I elaborate on the title of this talk section: for this article to survive the threat of another inevitable WP:TNT and then perhaps headlong into a tragic WP:AFD debate, we need to carefully discipline the vocabulary being used in this article. This won't be easy; it's not merely a matter of defining our terms because the terms being used here are some of the most fundamental to language itself, due to the nature of the subject at hand. Take for example the word "being" - so often, defining it comes down to a tautological statement: being is what is, being is to exist; to exist is to be, beings have the property of reality; reality is that in which beings consist, beings are entities; entities are beings etc. None of this explains anything at all, unless you put forward a more contentious metaphysical definition: beings are those entities which have clear borders, are composed of matter, and can be located within space and time. You see: there is a tradeoff between that which is clear, but contested, and that which is universally accepted, but vague; which should we prioritise?

Well of course, it would be foolish to make universal-acceptance the priority, as then the article text will be scattered with common sense, but ultimately dangerously vague, ideas of "being" within differing contexts of the varying metaphysical schemas; those metaphysical schemas being explicitly discussed in the article, or worst still, those schemas being only implicitly adhered to in the private mind of the contributor. Thus we shall have many different contributors working at cross-purposes to each other; and therefore hopelessly muddled, nonsensical, confusing material for the lay reader, which will ultimately have to be scrapped. We cannot leave this stuff up to people's intuitions; if this principle isn't obvious to you with regards to a relatively dry and subtle word like "being" then instead, ponder for a moment how people tend to have differing intuitions on what the word "god" means. The fact that so many people tend to ignore this in the most heated theological debates concerning what someone else hypothetically ought to believe, is a powerful testament to how we as a species are so easily fooled by our naive faith in the communicative power of language. My fellow Wikipedians, let us not be naive: let us be as clear with our language as we can reasonably afford to be.

How can we be clear with our language? Well by addressing the language being used itself, as I did just a moment ago in that second paragraph, for example. The language being principally used is of course English; I am a casual contributor to en.wikipedia.org exclusively, but we are also simultaneously borrowing a lot of vocabulary from other languages: languages that English academia is used to borrowing from, and is itself ultimately derived from; I'm of course speaking principally of French, German, Latin & Greek, and would cite words and phrases such as "Actus Purus" "Summum Bonum" "Logos" "Apeiron" "Arche" "Sein und Zeit" "Geist" "Le Mot" etc. Then, of course, there are the languages, principally Indian, that are more unfamiliar to english, even academic english philosophy and theology, but that we may still be able to establish a common indo-european etymological ancestor which might draw out some deep significance; words such as "Dharma" "Sunyata" "Rta" "Dhyana" etc. Then there are those languages, principally Chinese, to which English is completely foreign, and where there was virtually no cross-cultural contact before the Modern period; from this latter category we have very exotic words, that are nevertheless quite familiar and dear to me, "Tao" "Tien" "Li" "De" "Wuji" etc. There is no common etymological significance we can draw on from this last group, but it is nevertheless important to remember that much significance can be found by examining the iconicity, that is the evolution of the character of a Chinese symbol back to its original icon.

It's a common criticism made of Wikipedia that it is too Western-centric, too Anglo-centric, and even too American-centric, but this is entirely inevitable when the language being utilized is specific to common regions of the globe, with one particular shared history, and where the bulk of the population is found in one country: the USA. Nevertheless, we are committed to, as Wikipedians, especially with regards to this article, a truly global encyclopedic base of knowledge. This tension between what or who we are, and what we want to be, can lead to contradictions and imbalances. For example, while this article attempts to go into depth about how certain ideas and doctrines from Hinduism that might relate to the idea of "The Absolute" - we are nevertheless reminded at the top that "The term itself was not in use in ancient or medieval philosophy," - this "ancient or medieval philosophy" of course being naturally specific to the Anglo-west; we are not pondering as to whether or not "the term" is present in Ancient China or India; not that any English term was being used in Western Medieval or Ancient philosophy either, but I'm sure the author of that line was specifically referring to the absence of its Latin antecedent, "Ille Absolutus" in direct association with "Deus" or "Henosis" or anything such as that.

To be clear with our language, or language as such, we need to negotiate, accept, and make the best of, all these aforesaid cultural imbalances and biases of English, whilst at the same time using everything we have at hand to go beyond them; the many thesauruses and dictionaries from various times and places, exact native quotes from all manner of pinnacle theological & philosophical manuscripts, and don't neglect the work of etymologists, especially when navigating vast periods of time. And when all of that is not enough: place in your own improvised definitions, synonyms, metaphors and similes, and even elaborate analogies if necessary, to explain difficult, ancient & foreign concepts. Isolate and elucidate the subtle connotations of your words and phrases; great significance often lies there too, like say the organic motherly feeling of the word "Tao" versus the rugged and technical feel to the word "Maker." Examine as well whether or not it was any particular class of people that would use the words and concepts in question; priests, poets or technicians perhaps? It's always necessary to distinguish what is esoteric and elite, from what is common and everyday; that dynamic with vocabulary is present in virtually every place and time. Add in pictures if you must. Just do whatever you feel it takes to make it clear to your readers the full significance of the words you're using.

MAKE IT CLEAR!!! Rayner-hills (talk) 22:17, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Revamp?

Surely this article is in sore need of a rewrite? -- SkandaPanda (talk) 20:33, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

As in 'remove anything unsourced'? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:52, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Just did diff. Note that the extensively long list of links (72,000 bytes!) is also covered by the categories given at the bottom. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:12, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Lead paragraph is a convoluted, run-on-sentence mess

It just lacks concision, pretty desperately. Listing and listing, seemingly without end. (At the very least, the boldface insanity has been toned down, so there's that.) I find the 2016 version of the lead paragraph, which I attempted to restore far superior. As well, there's the 2009 version, which is also cleaner and more elegant. How did we even arrive at such a mess as the current lead paragraph? Anyway, what do everyone think? El_C 03:54, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

See above. New Age nondualism potpourri. Strictly stick to WP:RS to keep it clean. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:13, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Lead

This edit replaced

In philosophy, metaphysics, religion, spirituality, and other contexts, the Absolute is a term for the most real being. The Absolute is conceived as being itself or perhaps the being that transcends and comprehends all other beings.

with

The concept of the Absolute, also known as God, The (Unconditioned) Ultimate, The Wholly Other, The Supreme Being, The Absolute/Ultimate Reality, The Ground of Being (or Urgrund), The Absolute Principle, The Source/Fountain/Foundation/Well(spring) of Reality, The Supreme Soul, The Supreme God of the Universe, and other names, titles, aliases, and epithets, is the thing, being, entity, power, force, reality, presence, law, principle, etc. that possesses maximal ontological status, existential ranking, existential greatness, or existentiality. In layman's terms, this is the greatest, highest, "truest", or most sublime being, existence, or reality.

The second text reads like New Age-limbo, not like a piece of informative text. It dies not summarize the article, and is unsourced. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:58, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

New approach by Joshua Jonathan

Bravo! El_C 03:40, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

To Joshua Jonathan

I am the one who put all that "New Age" stuff in the article header.

And because El C decided to contact me about this: No, I didn't (and still don't) consider either the (very relatively speaking) old "mass list" or the "mess of a lead" to actually negatively affect the quality of the article. In fact, I considered them to be very detailed, and I like the articles I read to be very thorough and detailed. This is why I considered your edits to the page to have made it "anemic" in nature, plus inaccurate, as Para Brahman, a single conception of the Absolute (which I bring up as an example), is defined as essentially "beyond being", meaning that "the sum of all being, actual and potential" does not apply to it.

I also wanted to know which parts of the "old" article were considered "original research".

172.112.98.179 (talk) 08:58, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

As mentioned, the article now is in better shape than it has been in years, perhaps ever. That mass list was original research and excessive, whereas that mess of a lead was highly non-standard to the point of being incomprehensible. El_C 09:02, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

77,000 bytes of links is unacceptable by any Wiki-standard. The article is quite clear now: "the Absolute" is a concept introduced into western philosophy by idealist philosophy, and seized upon by perennialists, who find their conception of ultimate reality in a mass of concepts. The categoriez at the bottom suffice of links to (supposedly) related articles. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:26, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

The problem see.s to be with the redirect of Ultimate reality to this article - and this problem has been noted several times before! Best thing to do would be to rewrite the Ur-article again, based on WP:RS. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 19:53, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

What pages redirect to this article, Joshua Jonathan? 2605:E000:4ECB:9E00:6426:2D28:DE38:1F73 (talk) 20:07, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Ultimate reality - but I've re-created that article. See also Talk:Absolute (philosophy)#Should this article be merged with the Ultimate?, and Talk:Absolute (philosophy)#This ambitious article necessitates discipline through linguistic sophistication.. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:47, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Maybe the mass of links can be converted to a footer-navbox? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:45, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

I am delighted that El_C and Joshua Jonathan have identified the problems and helped clean up this article. The old version was mostly a collection of links, which violated WP:WWIN and other content guidelines. The rest was mostly strange, unsourced essay-like OR. I added a few sources and sentences to improve the leaner, newer, better version. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:53, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Perennialism and psychedelic drugs

The link with perennialism (and nondualism et cetera) may be due to the usage of psychedelic drugs by people like Aldous Huxley. They sought a frame of reference for their experiences, and found it in eastern religions and universalism, claiming that all religions point to, and are based on, the same nondualistic experiences. Maybe that's a reason why Kabbat-Zin c.s. left most of Buddhist philosophy out of their mindfulness-therapies? Anyway, the nondualists ignored a basic aspect of religion, namely compassion:

In studying the Perennial Philosophy we can begin either at the bottom, with practice and morality (Huxley, "Perennial philosophy, p.7)

I think he's wrong there; unitive experiences may be nice, but if you're still a jerk afterwards, what's the value? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:15, 19 June 2019 (UTC)