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A general theory of worldviews based on Mdhyamika and process philosophies

By Peter Kakol

Doctoral Candidate at Deakin University Geelong Australia

Philosophy East and West Vol. 52 No. 2 April 2002 pp. 207-223 Copyright 2002 by University of Hawaii Press p. 207 The aim of this essay is to make a contribution to the emerging field of "cross-cultural analysis of worldviews" by showing how the basic insights of process philosophy and Mdhyamika Buddhism can be combined into a comprehensive theory of worldviews that is both developmental and typological (or diachronic and synchronic). It is hoped that this theory of worldviews will enable cross-cultural analyses of worldviews to go beyond mere comparison of similarities and differences between worldviews by showing how worldviews can mutually transform one another through dialogue. I will begin by outlining the basic ideas of both process thought and Mdhyamika Buddhism, their respective theories of worldviews, and how these relate to contemporary thought. I will then argue that these two theories are compatible with one another and that their combination can contribute to the development of a general theory of worldviews. Finally, I will show how such a general theory of worldviews -- which is also necessarily a general theory of values-can be used in the evaluative analysis of worldviews. Process Philosophy The idea that reality is a cumulative process of perspectival and experiential events has been advocated by philosophers and religious thinkers in various places around the world since people first started writing down their thoughts on the nature of reality. Some examples of individuals and schools of thought who can be described as subscribing to the process view are: Heraclitus, the Stoics, early Buddhism, Leibniz, Hegel, Nietzsche, Bergson, William James, Gilles Deleuze, and Wilfrid Sellars. However, it is in the thought of Alfred North Whitehead and his student Charles Hartshorne that the argument for a process view of reality has been put in its most coherent and systematic form to date. My use of the term "process philosophy" in this essay refers primarily to the WhiteheadianHartshornean variety and secondarily to process thought in its widest and most general sense as the idea of the perspectival event. The process view of reality is based on the recognition of the asymmetrical relation between ultimate conceptual contrasts such as becoming and being, process and thing, and event and structure, in that becomings include beings, processes include things, and events include structures, but not vice versa. The reason for this is that beings, things, and structures are special cases of, respectively, becomings, processes, and events. For example, being, or that which does not become, can be understood as a special case of becoming, in the sense of being the extreme limit, or

p. 208 zero point, of becoming. But there is no way of understanding becoming in a similar way as being derivable from being. Hence, becoming includes being as whole includes part. That becoming is more basic than being can be seen in the fact that becomings exist that are not "owned" by beings-like the raining of rain or the flashing of lightningwhereas it is difficult to understand beings apart from what they do, for the question of what beings are over and above what they do is both nonsensical and unfalsifiable. Furthermore, this fact is also supported by the basic axiom of modal logic that the conjunction of necessity and contingency is itself contingent. For example, when the statement "two plus two is four," which is a necessary truth, is conjoined with the statement "it will rain tomorrow," which is contingently true, the resulting statement "two plus two is four and it will rain tomorrow" has contingent truth status-in logical formalism, N.C C, which implies that the contingent can include necessary aspects. Also, while necessary statements can be constructed out of contingent statements, contingent statements cannot be constructed out of purely necessary statements; so contingency has primacy over, and is inclusive of, necessity.

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Likewise, the relative has primacy over, and is inclusive of, the absolute or nonrelative. The common mistake of confusing the absolute with the inclusive-or even the all-inclusive-is most likely based on the assumption that the independent includes the dependent. However, it is really the dependent that includes the independent, just as the whole is dependent on its independent parts. It is a basic insight of process thought that "dependent on" is not the same as "included in"-rather, the dependent is the inclusive and the independent is the included.1 To understand this is to understand the central core of the process dialectic. The event is the dependent, concrete, and particular becoming that includes within itself the independent, abstract, and universal being. But since being is only an abstraction from becoming, it turns out that the independent and included term is itself an abstraction from events that have become past. So ultimately there is nothing but actual events (which are inclusive of the structures they constitute, so this event reductionism is non-eliminative). But every event is inclusive of past events and will be included by future events; hence, subsequent includes antecedent, or, effects include their causes (as their necessary, but not sufficient, conditions). Every event is internally related to every other event that "exists" or has being-that is, an event includes all events in its past only, for events in its future do not yet exist for it, and those in its present are still in the process of becoming. Thus, events are perspectives or "views" of their past, which they express or "feel." Ultimately, then, there exists nothing but views of views, or feelings of feelings, iterated recursively. Thus every event is a view that synthesizes past events in a unique perspective; but as there are more ways than one to synthesize many events into one perspective, there is necessarily an element of creative contingency in all events. And just as the event is a creative synthesis of events, so the view is a creative synthesis of views.2 The primacy of events, processes, and becomings over structures, things, and beings means that intrinsic value is located in the former, whereas the latter have

p. 209 value in the derivative or instrumental sense. But this should not be taken to mean that instrumental value is second-rate and always less valuable than intrinsic value. For there are degrees of both instrumental value and intrinsic value, depending on the width (or "power") of experience and the depth of inclusive transcendence, so it is possible that something of great instrumental worth may be of greater value than a community of minor intrinsic values. This is especially the case when the community of intrinsic values is dependent for its very existence on the instrumentally valuable-- such as humanity's dependence on the earth's ecosystem, or a cell's dependence on the existence of molecules. The asymmetrical and cumulative nature of events described above precludes the possibility both of independent entities that stand outside the process of events and of mutual dependence between events (whether spatially or temporally understood). Independence and interdependence are derivative from the asymmetrical events, and only exist as abstractions inscribed within the nexus of events. Hence there cannot be an ultimate reality that is "wholly other," transcending the process of events. If there is a divinity, it cannot be an exception to process metaphysics and must therefore be either an everlasting event or (probably more likely) an inclusively transcending series of events, each viewing reality from the perspective of the universe itself rather than being a "view from nowhere"-that is, God's relation to the universe would be analogous to the relation between mind and body (which is itself a relation between an event and an organized grouping of events). Nevertheless, as the divine perspective is nonlocal and all-inclusive, it can be considered to be an "objective" view of things despite the fact that it is itself subjective. This means that God's grading of both the intrinsic values of events and the instrumental values of derivative structures relative to one another represents an axiological standpoint for the universe that can guide events toward acting in such a way that the result will be the maximization of value in the universe. Differences of value (intrinsic and instrumental) arise from the process of inclusive transcendence, where the more inclusive has greater value; thus, the all-inclusive (God) has unsurpassable value as it includes all other values. A theory of worldviews based on process philosophy can now be formulated. All worldviews are at the same time wholes that include but transcend antecedent worldviews, and parts that are (or will be) transcended but included within subsequent worldviews. Rival contemporary worldviews can be understood as being mutually compatible from the point of view of a subsequent worldview that inclusively transcends both. So, although "refutation has its legitimate place in philosophic discussion," says Whitehead, worldviews "advance by the introduction of new ideas, widening vision and adjusting clashes."3 Worldviews can be classified according to their approach toward the ultimate conceptual contrasts, such as being and becoming. The options are (1) mutual independence between contrasts (or dualism); (2) mutual dependence between contrasts (or monism); (3) dependence of the included on an independent and including whole (or inclusive absolutism); and (4) dependence of the included on independent parts (or inclusive relativism, which is the process view). The history of ideas in the West can largely be characterized as the alternation

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p. 210 between the first two (symmetrical) options, without an awareness of the other two (asymmetrical) options. The third option has been popular in the East, for example in Vednta and Yogcra Buddhism, but there has been little awareness of the fourth, which has the unique advantage over the other three in that it can understand the other three positions as partial truths that are abstractions from the fourth position.4 Process Philosophy Compared with Contemporary Western Philosophy This process theory of worldviews has some affinities with Hegel's philosophy of history. The inclusive transcendence of worldviews corresponds to the synthesis of thesis within antithesis. The contradictions inherent in every worldview generate an antithetical worldview that has the potential to include the original worldview within itself as a sublated part; however, until it does so, thesis and antithesis stand in an incommensurable and external relation to one another, one being "full" of previously sublated views and the other being "empty" but having the potential of being the next inclusive level.5 But the contradiction inherent in the empty antithesis leads it to seek fulfillment by including the thesis in a synthesis, which becomes a new thesis, and so the process continues. William James is essentially in agreement with this when he says that "owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one. Every one is insufficient and off its balance, and responsible to later points of view than itself."6 Jrgen Habermas "universal pragmatics" is an example of a contemporary theory of worldviews that has affinities with process thought. His theory of the evolution of social systems-which is designed to mirror Piaget's developmental psychology in the social sphere-outlines the development of four social formations: primitive, traditional, rational, and post-rational. Each stage arises from the previous stage by contradiction; but a further contradiction leads to its inclusion of the previous stage within itself. Hence, like psychological development, social development is cumulative.7 Generalizing from Habermas and including developments in physics, general systems theory, sociology, cultural theory, and psychology, Ken Wilber has formulated a theory of cosmic evolution along two axes: individual-social and subjective-objective. In his view, reality consists of nothing but "holons" (a term borrowed from Arthur Koestler). Every holon is both a part of a larger whole and a whole containing parts; there are no parts that are not also wholes and no wholes that are not also parts. Hence there is a "holarchy" that extends from the smallest subatomic particles to the universe itself and that both increases in depth (as more levels are sublated) and decreases in span (as each level becomes more localized than previous levels). Holons have both inner (or subjective) and outer (or objective) aspects and can take individual and collective forms. So worldviews, which are the subjective aspect of a holon, have both individual and collective aspects. Human cultural worldviews, according to Wilber, have passed through archaicsymbolic, magical-conceptual, mythical-concrete-operational, and rational-formal-operational stages, and are now entering an existential-vision-logic stage. However, each subsequent stage does not merely transcend antecedent stages; rather, each stage (ideally) includes and tran-

p. 211 scends all previous stages.8 When inclusion fails to occur it is due to repression, which results in mere antithesis instead of synthesis. The process theory of worldviews is essentially compatible with Wilber's and the latter has much to offer toward the development of a general theory of worldviews. However, process philosophy supplements the views of Hegel, Habermas, Piaget, and Wilber with the observation that reality is pluralistic and far more messy, contingent, and unpredictable than these authors generally acknowledge. Furthermore, these systems fail to ground adequately the development of worldviews in concrete events, for these alone are capable of sustaining and creating value in their evaluative acts of creative synthesis. Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutical theory is also based on an understanding of worldviews along the lines of that of process thought. He argues:
There is no more an isolated horizon of the present in itself than there are historical horizons.... Rather, understanding is always the fusion of these horizons supposedly existing by themselves.... In a tradition this process of fusion is continually going on, for there old and new are always combining into something of living value, without either being explicitly foregrounded from the other.9

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So the fusion of horizons between worldviews is possible because every worldview has a history of development whereby past worldviews have been inclusively transcended in a nested series. In other words, the synchronic synthesis of two worldviews is made possible by their being diachronically included within a third worldview that inclusively transcends them both. There are a few deficiencies, though, in Gadamer's theory of worldviews. He fails to account for the creative discontinuities that emerge when worldviews deconstruct themselves under the weight of their contradictions, thus giving way to radically new worldviews that resolve the contradiction from the point of view of a wider and more inclusive context. In other words, Gadamer focuses too much on tradition and not enough on novelty. Although so-called postmodernists continually reiterate the claim that worldviews are incommensurable and cannot be fused, there is a growing realization that this is not so. Even Jacques Derrida, of whom these postmodernists claim to be disciples, agrees that worldviews develop by nested inclusion. The entire thrust of deconstruction is, after all, intended to show both that the truth of a text is dependent on its context and that every context is itself a text requiring a context for its validity. Hence, text and context are relativized and stand to each other as whole to part, because every text "drags" its context along with itself. (This is similar to the correlation between dependence and inclusion in process thought, mentioned earlier.) Derrida develops this idea in terms of various "transcendental" words such as "supplement," which is a subsequent addition that swallows up and supersedes that which it supplements, diff rance, which inscribes identity within itself, and releve, which is Derrida's version of Hegel's Aufhebung (sublation), to name a few. Two other thinkers who have influenced postmodernists-Thomas Kuhn and Ludwig Wittgenstein-likewise affirm the inclusive and cumulative development of worldviews. It is important to realize that when they speak of the "incommensur-

p. 212 ability" of paradigms and language-games, they mean this in the asymmetrical sense that the incommensurability is only from the point of view of the antecedent that is (inclusively) superseded by the subsequent. This is because although the movement from part to whole is discontinuous, the movement from whole back to included part is continuous. Kuhn did not dispute that a superseded paradigm can be seen as a special case of the superseding paradigm-he was merely concerned with pointing out the difference between the pre- and post-superseded forms of the paradigm. For example, Newtonian physics lives on in Relativity physics, but in a restricted and modified form.10 As for Wittgenstein, he believed that language-games can be parts of language-games that include them and that language-games can gradually evolve, which implies that there can be progress in the form of inclusive transcendence of language-games. (More on this later.) Mdhyamika Philosophy The basic teaching of the Mdhyamika school of Buddhism is that enlightenment consists of navigating a middle path between extremes-whether they be the extremes of nihilism and eternalism, existence and nonexistence, sa sra and nirv a, or any other extremes that are invented by the conceptualizing mind. This teaching is not restricted to Mdhyamika it can be found in other varieties of Buddhism and even in other religions and philosophies around the world. But, as far as I am aware, it exists in its most consistent and logically developed form in Mdhyamika Buddhism. Taking cognizance of the history of divergent interpretations of Mdhyamika Buddhism and how these are often based on Western thought forms (as Andrew Tuck has shown),11 I will cautiously attempt a brief summary of the Mdhyamika's main ideas. The Mdhyamika believe that the concepts we use to characterize reality, although conventionally valid, reduce to absurdity when subjected to logical analysis. The reason for this is that all views, when analyzed, imply their own negation, which means that they are logically dependent on opposing views that contradict them. The consequence of this is that all views are ultimately empty of independent existence (svabhva) that is, they depend on other views for their existence and thus cannot stand alone. To this fundamental observation (which is based on introspective awareness) that all views are empty, the Mdhyamika add that even this observation itself-if put forth as a view in itself is also empty. This teaching, which is born out of a desire to be logically consistent, is called the "emptiness of emptiness."12 The basic procedure of the Mdhyamika is to subject all views to "bi-negation." That is, views are negated by the use of reductio ad absurdum arguments (or, sometimes, provisionally valid syllogisms), and then the opposing views that arise by this negation are themselves negated in the same way. This is usually sufficient for liberation. However, the

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tetralemma (sometimes even the hexalemma) is often used in order to avert misunderstanding. The first two lemmas correspond to the (above-

p. 213 stated) two negations of the bi-negation. The third lemma is the view that is formed from the conjunction of the two views that are bi-negated. It is invalid because it is contradictory and because the conjunction of two views that have absurd consequences is itself absurd. The fourth lemma is the postulation of the bi-negation as itself a view in its own right. It is invalid because there can be no third view between two contradictory views and because it is logically identical to the third lemma (since "V and ~V" is the same as "~V and ~~V"). This process can continue indefinitely-for instance, one can always form a new view that is a conjunction of the third and fourth lemmas, and so on; but the whole point of the Mdhyamika analysis is to arrest this process. Two observations arise from this discussion: first, the basic Mdhyamika procedure of bi-negation is not reducible to the fourth lemma, for it is not a view; and second, the Mdhyamika affirm neither an interessential coincidence of opposites nor a hyperessential absolute beyond oppositional dualities. The bi-negation is principally used to demonstrate the emptiness of four kinds of views: views about phenomena (such as causes, objects, things, and so on), views about the self (particularly its relation to the mind-body aggregate), views on the relation between phenomena and self (including dependent origination), and views about ultimate things (such as emptiness, nirva, the Tathgata, and so on). In all cases the question is asked whether we can conceive of the relation between a concept and its opposite in terms of identity or difference, and the consequences of either are shown to be absurd. For example, the self is either identified with the mind-body or differentiated from it. But if the relation is one of identity there would be as many selves as there are bodily and mental parts; and if the relation is one of difference then the self and mind-body would be unrelated. The conclusion is that the self is empty. Although some Tibetan Mdhyamika Buddhists do not believe that all views are empty, but that only views affirming independent existence are, the texts of Ngrjuna and Candrakrti disclose that even views not postulating independent existence are only relatively or conventionally valid, and are ultimately invalid. This is the teaching known as the "two truths," which states that there is conventional truth and ultimate truth, corresponding to sasra and nirva, respectively. But these truths are only two from the perspective (d i) of conventional truth; from the "perspective" (dar ana) of nirva, the two truths are one sasra is nirva and nirva is sasra. (These are, respectively, indirect/cognitive/dualistic and direct/noncognitive/nondual modes of experiencing.) This is because nirva is inclusive of sasra as whole is inclusive of part-so, from the perspective of the part, the whole is (mostly) other, but from the perspective of the whole, the part is not other (because the part is not outside the whole). Hence, we could say that nirva, like emptiness, "symbolizes non-system, a surd within the system of constructs."13 But it is important to remember that both the conventional truth and the ultimate truth are true, real, and valuable. From the preceding exposition it is pretty clear what a Mdhyamika theory of worldviews would be like, and it can be summed up in Ngrjuna's statement that

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The victorious ones have said That emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. For whomever emptiness is a view, That one has accomplished nothing.14

In other words, all views are to be overcome, including this view that all views are to be overcome. This means that we cannot simply say that the Mdhyamika view on views is that they're empty and must be abandoned; but what we can say is that the Mdhyamika neither affirm nor deny that "all views are empty." This is the ultimate truth, but the conventional truth is that some views can have more efficacy than others in leading people to a realization of this ultimate truth. According to Ngrjuna, the graded teaching of the Buddha was that the positive form of the tetralemma is a classification of conventionally valid views organized progressively.15 The most important division of conventional views is between those views according to which things have an independent existence (svabhva) and those views that deny that things have independent existence, and are instead dependent on other things. Let's call these "closed" and "open" views, respectively.16 The constantly deferred dependence of things affirmed by open views means that they can never be complete, whereas the self-contained independent existences of closed views can

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be shown to be self-contradictory. Since consistent incompleteness is better than inconsistent completeness, open views are preferable to, and have more truth than, closed ones. But, in the final analysis, from the point of view of ultimate truth, both are unsatisfactory and absurd. I have deliberately framed the discussion above using terms from Gdel's Incompleteness Theorem-which states that an algorithm is either complete or consistent, but not both-in order to demonstrate the parallels between Mdhyamika and the deconstructionism of Derrida, who adapts Gdel's theorem to his "diagonal" analysis of texts in order to show that texts cannot be totalized as they contain multiple indeterminacies.17 The similarities between Mdhyamika and deconstruction have been pointed out by Ian Mabbett, Robert Magliola, David Loy, and others.18 Particularly striking are the similarities between the Mdhyamika bi-negation and Derrida's "dnegation"-the non-reduction of the bi-negation to the fourth lemma is mirrored by Derrida's denial that the denegation is the same as the via negativa of a hyperessentialist negative theology.19 Also, Derrida's insistence that deconstruction must itself be deconstructed has obvious parallels to the emptiness of emptiness.20 Process and Mdhyamika Philosophies as Complementary Aspects of the General Theory of Worldviews It is my contention that the process and Mdhyamika theories of worldviews are not incompatible with one another, but are rather two complementary aspects of the same theory. I believe that this can be illustrated by way of Derrida's reformulation of Hegelian sublation. As we have seen, Hegel's theory that views are superseded by more inclusive views is essentially a process theory of inclusive transcendence.

p. 215 However, the emphasis in Hegel and process thought is upon the sameness between the pre- and post-sublated forms of a view. But Derrida points out that this needs to be supplemented by an awareness of the (usually unconscious) irreducible difference between them. just as Kuhn argues that a superseded paradigm is not exactly the same when functioning as a part of a subsequent paradigm as compared to when it existed as a whole in its own right, so, too, Derrida argues that the difference between the sublated and pre-sublated forms of a view is a difference that cannot ever be sublated.21 So Derrida's response to Hegel is to point out that there is an irreducible or "unconditioned" aspect of reality that escapes social construction or sublation.22 What is sublated is the external or objective aspect of things and views, not their inner "creativity" (as process thinkers call it)-the very creativity that, in sublation, synthesizes the many into a unity. This unconditioned (or neither conditioned nor unconditioned) creativity is the unenclosable "open region" that Mdhyamika calls nyat (emptiness, openness). Hence the difference between the process and Mdhyamika theories of worldviews comes to this: while both accept that all valid views are open or dependent on other, more inclusive views, the process theory focuses on the positive or sublatable, whereas Mdhyamika focuses on that which resists sublation (the unconditioned). The difference between the sublatable and the unsublatable is neither sublatable nor unsublatable. The relation between the two can only be described as the mutual supplementarity of deconstruction and (re)construction, coexisting in an alternating and open-ended process.23 The fundamental compatibility between the process and Mdhyamika theories of worldviews can be seen in the fact that both agree that all views become contradictory if seen as independent and must therefore be constantly transcended in a process of gradual purification and de-reification (or nominalization), rather than a process that continues to perpetuate illusory views.24 Also, both agree that there is no such thing as a theory of everything that is both complete and self-consistent. This is because a theory is a view that of necessity excludes the viewer. One may try to include the viewer by synthesizing the view and the viewer in a wider view, but then the viewer of the wider view is excluded. Every view that attempts to include the viewer without jumping to a higher and more inclusive view is inconsistent. Hence, every view that claims to be all-inclusive is either consistent or complete, but not both. Since no one would want to be inconsistent, it is a requirement that all views be incomplete. Mdhyamika philosophy is a critique of all views that claim to be exhaustive descriptions of reality. It reduces such views to absurdity by pointing out that each view is either self-existent-that is, self-explanatory or self-knowing-- which is impossible, or it is dependent on other views, and thus not exhaustive after all. Process philosophy, on the other hand, describes the temporal process as itself a function of this incompleteness of views: the creative striving on the part of perspectival entities for both completeness and consistency leads to the never-satisfiable procession of perspectives that transcend and include all previous perspectives. So Mdhyamika and Process philosophies are, respectively, negative and positive aspects of reality-the former

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deconstructs all-inclusive or absolute views, while

p. 216 the latter describes the asymmetrical process of inclusive transcendence that results from the creative deconstructions that are constantly occurring everywhere.25 Both agree that the unsatisfied striving inherent in this process cannot be resolved by leaping into an "Absolute" that transcends the duality of completeness and consistency (or whole and part), but by understanding why the process is unsatisfactory and embracing the "creative advance into novelty" that results from it.26 The two are complementary because they are not two different worldviews, but positive and negative aspects of the one worldview (or view and non-view). The theory of worldviews that results from the discussion above is as follows. Diachronically, all worldviews are at the same time wholes including antecedent views and parts included in subsequent views. (However, some views may antithetically negate or repress their parts and/or thetically deny their own partness.) This allows for their classification in terms of developmental schemes such as those of Piaget and Habermas (individual and collective worldviews, respectively). Synchronically, I propose that in addition to Ninian Smart's useful seven-dimensional classification,27 views can be classified as either closed or open and as either negative or positive. Closed views are complete but inconsistent whereas open views are consistent but incomplete. Each of these can take positive or negative forms. Hence, open views are either positive process-like views (creative synthesis or inclusive transcendence) or negative Mdhyamika-like "views" (negative dialectics or athesis).28 Likewise for closed views, the positive ones affirming either symmetrical independence or symmetrical dependence, and the negative a hyperessential Absolute. Open and closed views are mutually incompatible, and the difference between them is thus unsublatable. Open and closed views can also be called, following Magliola, "differential" and "centric" views, respectively, and Dilworth's distinction between "dialectical" and "paradoxical" (or "agonistic") views is similar to positive and negative views, respectively.29 The open double-surface of view (process) and non-view (Mdhyamika) in a sense lies between the closed dualistic heights of idealism and the closed monistic depths of materialism (to use Deleuzean imagery). Hence, only open non-views recognize the two-way conditioning-conditioned relation between conceptual superstructure and social base (which includes such relations as gender, race, power, and class). (That is, world and worldview are co-creative.) Finally, I do not think that it is possible to use this classification of views to characterize and differentiate "Western" and "Eastern" worldviews. In my view, these tendencies can be found throughout the world, cutting across all cultures. In order to deflect the criticism of postmodernists such as Lyotard that this general theory of worldviews is a "grand narrative," I briefly make the following observations. That there can be no total view is obvious, because, as stated above, there is no whole that is not itself a part of a larger whole. The temporal and cumulative process whereby a whole becomes a part has no end, so there cannot be a final view of everything. Hence, a theory of worldviews is necessarily incomplete, as are all worldviews. But the theory of worldviews is not itself a worldview, but a view about worldviews (which are views about the world), so it is meant to be incomplete.30 The theory is "general" in the sense of a universal yet partial aspect of (or abstraction

p. 217 from) the whole, somewhat like a map (which can have different degrees of resolution). This is why it is still a worldview rather than a partial view or local narrative. In this way I avoid the charge of historicism because the general narrative is an abstraction, which needs to be supplemented by local narratives, rather than an all-inclusive grand narrative (or panopsis) from which all details can be deduced.31 Hence, the general theory avoids being totalistic, but it also avoids the opposite extreme of implausibly advocating the grand narrative that grand narratives are impossible. Values and the Evaluation of Worldviews I conclude by showing how this theory of worldviews makes possible an evaluative analysis of worldviews. Raimundo Panikkar argues that it is only through dialogue that worldviews can discover their weaknesses and thus undergo "mutual transformation" (in the words of the process thinker John B. Cobb, jr.).32 However, the prevailing mood in religious studies is that worldviews, or "language-games," are incommensurable and that dialogue (or "conversation"), although considered a good thing, cannot lead to a comparative evaluation of language-games because their relativity implies that they are equally "true."33 Since this idea originates with Wittgenstein, I will look at his views on this

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issue. Wittgenstein says that language-games can grow like suburbs and can contain sub-language-games within themselves.34 He also says that language-games can change and that this often happens gradually so that some parts change while other parts remain relatively "hardened," thus acting as a common frame of reference.35 Such change implies that parts of a language-game can be compared and evaluated against the background of the whole language-game. Furthermore, Wittgenstein says that he does not rule out the possibility of mutual understanding between language-games, only its necessity,36 and admits that language-games can be compared with one another,37 so that it is possible to determine which is the "poorer."38 It is true that Wittgenstein gives examples of mutually incommensurable paradigms, each of which interprets the world equally adequately, such as the duck-rabbit figure, but it is clear that he thought that such mutually incommensurable language-games can be evaluated from the points of view of other language-games that inclusively transcend them. When the duck-rabbit figure, for example, is seen from the point of view of a richer perspective that is less abstract and includes more detail, it becomes possible to decide which of its two aspects is more adequate to the data.39 It appears, then, that incommensurability is, for Wittgenstein, primarily an asymmetrical notion that applies only to the inability of lesser language-games to understand or acknowledge the superiority of those language-games that inclusively transcend them both. They can only be "converted" by the use of persuasion, rather than by being rationally coerced. This, as we have seen, is also the view of Thomas Kuhn with regard to scientific paradigms. Thus, the relativity or context-dependence of worldviews-which the general theory of worldviews acknowledges-does not imply that all worldviews are equally true, for a worldview can be evaluated against the background of worldviews within which it is subordinated. Furthermore, as

p. 218 W. V. Quine has convincingly shown, even within the confines of a relativistic ontology it is possible to evaluate theories from the standpoint of a background theory to which the former theories are subordinated.40 The idea that there can be relative degrees of relative truth even though there is no absolute truth, as embodied in the Mdhyamika teaching of the "two truths," led that school to formulate a graduated teaching based on the tetralemma, as explained earlier. Mdhyamika Buddhists used this teaching to evaluate other types of Buddhism and place them on a scale of varying degrees of insight into emptiness. As Frederick Streng writes, the Mdhyamika "denial of metaphysical propositions for expressing Ultimate Truth did not sanction the admission of any and every view as equally useful for release or a purely nonintellectual apprehension of the Truth. Ngrjuna's apprehension is definitely a perspective for interpreting and evaluating life."41 The fact that the conventional truth and the ultimate truth are both true and valuable means that the gradation of truths and values on the conventional level is important. For the emptiness of views means that they are relative and conditioned, but this does not imply that they are all equal in truth or value. All it means is that there are no views that are absolutely true and valuable outside context, which is not to deny that views can be more or less true and valuable than other views and thus organizable into a hierarchy of relative truths and values. From the Mdhyamika perspective, the more a worldview eliminates the internal contradictions created by grasping after being and nonbeing, the more true it is. Since Mdhyamika analysis is not an alternative system but an internal critique, argues John Keenan, "it avoids thereby the dubious role of performing a critique of religious language from a supposed objective, metareligious stance."42 Likewise, by using the principle of inclusive transcendence discussed above-- whereby one-sided worldviews are progressively sublated within relatively more comprehensive and less contradictory worldviews-process thinkers can also construct a graded scale of worldviews that makes evaluation possible. The fact that all views arise from different historico-cultural processes does not imply an axiological relativism, for just as it is possible for different processes of production to give rise to the same product, it is likewise possible for historically different processes of evaluation to give rise to the same ahistorical gradation of values. As we have seen, for process thought, gradation of values is grounded in the degrees of inclusiveness in both intrinsic value (which applies to events and becomings) and instrumental value (which applies to structures and beings), as well as in the inclusion of the latter in the former. For that which includes has more "power" (or "virtue") than the included. ("Power" here means both power to affect and power to be affected, although the former is derivative of the latter.) Worldviews and value systems are mutually dependent, which means that, as Clifford Geertz says, worldviews are models both of "reality" and for "reality" (ethos). But within this dialectical interdependence there is an asymmetry in that worldviews are abstractions within concrete intrinsic values. (Herein lies the truth in Marxist dialectical materialism.) Worldviews that recognize this, and thus ground intrinsic

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p. 219 values in concrete events and in creative emptiness, can be called cosmological as they do not ground values in a transcendent absolute beyond the intersubjective cosmos as do the ontological worldviews, which tend toward an ideological and idealist "misplaced concreteness" in that they value the static and eternal over the dynamic and fleeting, being over becoming (and Being over beings), and the ontological over the cosmological (their so-called "ontological difference"). The dualism that is characteristic of ontological worldviews arises as an ideological justification of systems of domination-economic, political, social, cultural, sexual, and so on. I conclude, then, with the contention that any future cross-cultural study of worldviews must be evaluative and will have to combine the basic insights of Mdhyamika and process philosophies in an approach that is both diachronic and synchronic. In its diachronic aspect, it must be able to place worldviews within a developmental framework that progresses from lesser to greater degrees of (relative) truth and value, and synchronically it will have to place worldviews within a spectrum ranging from minimal to maximal degrees of openness (cosmology) and reification (ontology), showing that cosmological worldviews (such as process-like and Mdhyamika-like systems) are (relatively) more true and valuable than ontological ones (whether these be interessentialist or hyperessentialist). Notes This article is a revised version of a paper that I presented at the Australasian Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy Conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 30 September to 3 October 1998. 1 - Charles Hartshorne, Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers (New York: State University of New York Press, 1983), pp. 160-161. [back] 2 - Sources for this paragraph: Charles Hartshorne, "A Logic of Ultimate Contrasts" and "The Prejudice in Favour of Symmetry," in Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method (London: SCM Press, 1970); Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996). [back] 3 - A. N. Whitehead, Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 121. [back] 4 - T.R.V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A Study of the Mdhyamika System (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974), pp. 323-325. Murti argues that both Vednta and Yogcra see the absolute as being inclusive of the relative, which is an asymmetrical dependence that is the exact reverse of the one in process thought. [back] 5 - My use of the words "full" and "empty" here should not be taken as allusions to pler ma and here only as heuristic devices to explain the Hegelian dialectic. [back] nyat. I use them

p. 220 6 - William James, Selected Writings (London: Orion, 1995), p. 70. [back] 7 - Jrgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979). [back] 8 - Ken Wilber sets forth his system in A Brief History of Everything (Melbourne: Hill of Content, 1996) and in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1995). The former is for the general reader whereas the latter is for scholars. [back] 9 - Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Continuum, 1997), p. 306. [back] 10 - "Though an out-of-date theory can always be viewed as a special case of its up-to-date successor, it must be transformed for the purpose"; in other words, it must be sublated (canceled as whole and preserved as part). See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 103. See also pp. 77, 92-103, 149, 153, 169, 170172,205-206. [back] 11 - Andrew P. Tuck, Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Ngrjuna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). [back]

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12 - Although Mdhyamika is "analytic," this does not mean that it is reductionist in the sense that it reduces all wholes to parts, for its consequential analysis finds no simple and independent parts. That is, there are no absolute parts, just as there are no absolute wholes-very much like the holon theory, which relativizes the categories of part and whole. [back] 13 - Richard H. Robinson, Early Mdhyamika in India and China (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), p. 49. [back] 14 - Jay Garfield, trans., The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Ngrjuna's "M lamadhyamakakrik" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 36,13.8. [back] 15 - Ibid., p. 49, 18.8. Ngrjuna uses the word anu sana, which means "graded," "progressive," or "fitted." See D. Seyfort Ruegg, "The Uses of the Four Positions of the Catu ko i and the Problem of the Description of Reality in Mahyna Buddhism," Journal of Indian Philosophy 5 (1) (1977): 5-6. [back] 16- In the most recent study and translation of Ngrjuna that I am aware of-- Nancy McCagney, Ngrjuna and the Philosophy of Openness (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997)-it is convincingly argued that the best translation of nya(t) is "open(ness)" or "open-ended(ness)" rather than "empty"/"emptiness, " as this best conveys the space-like nature of dependent origination (prattya samutpda) as an endless or open-ended regress. Interestingly, McCagney argues that Mdhyamika is a process philosophy that affirms the open-endedness of becoming (prattya samutpda), but also warns (as a higher truth) that any attempts to express becoming in words leads to paradox. [back]

p. 221 17 - See Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign: Deconstruction, Theology and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 83-84, 154-155. [back] 18 - Ian W. Mabbett, "Ngrjuna and Deconstruction," Philosophy East and West 45 (2) (April 1995): 203-225; Robert Magliola, Derrida on the Mend (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1984); David Loy, "The Cloture of Deconstruction: A Mahyna Critique of Derrida," International Philosophical Quarterly 27 (1) (1987): 59-80; David Loy, "The Deconstruction of Buddhism," in H. Coward and T. Foshay, eds., Derrida and Negative Theology (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992). [back] 19 - Jacques Derrida, "How to Avoid Speaking: Denials," in Coward and Foshay, Derrida and Negative Theology.
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20 - Jacques Derrida, "Letter to a Japanese," in P. Kamuf, ed., A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991). [back] 21 - In other words, process thought and Hegel emphasize the aspect of the past that can be represented (the presence of the past), whereas Derrida and Mdhyamika emphasize the aspect of the past that cannot be represented (the "always already" that was never present). [back] 22 - Jacques Derrida, "Diffrance," in Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 19-20 n. 23; and "From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve," in Writing and Difference (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978). By "unconditioned" I mean the negation of "conditioned"; to be exact, it is neither conditioned nor unconditioned. [back] 23 - See Derrida, "Letter to a Japanese Friend," pp. 271-273, where it is pointed out that deconstruction does not exclude reconstruction. In fact, the French word "dconstruction" means both deconstruction and reconstruction.
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24 - See Peter Fenner, Reasoning into Reality: A Systems-Cybernetic Model and Therapeutic Interpretation of Buddhist Middle Path Analysis (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1995), which describes Mdhyamika analysis as the gradual removal of reified concepts from one's worldview. In my view, such change within a worldview can, due to the principle that quantitative change eventually issues in qualitative change, result in the arising of a new worldview that inclusively transcends the previous one. [back] 25 - Hence, process thought is "speculative" in the sense that it reflects or describes the dialectical nature of thought and reality that it experiences; however, unlike Hegel, process thinkers also engage in the dialectic and do not think

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that speculation can only arise, as Hegel thinks, at the end of the dialectical process of history. Indeed, for process thought, there is no end to the dialectic; rather, the speculative description of the dialectic of history is an ahistorical product that can in principle be accessed at any point in the historical process. [back] 26 - One difficulty in harmonizing process and Mdhyamika is in relation to the question of theism, for there seems to be a conflict between process pan-

p. 222 entheism and Mdhyamika a/theism. There is no space to deal with this here, so I will merely make the observation that panentheism functions on the conventional level and is thus similar to a Buddha-Bodhisattva, whereas a/theism functions on the ultimate level and is comparable to Whitehead's "creativity." [back] 27- His most recent formulation of these seven dimensions is found in Ninian Smart, Dimensions of the Sacred (London: Fontana Press, 1997). They are experiential/ emotional, material/artistic, mythic/narrative, doctrinal/philosophical, organizational/social, ethical/legal, and ritual/practical. In my view these reduce to the three aspects of the mind, namely sensible, mental, and intentional. There are other worldview "universals," according to Michael Kearney, such as self, other, relationship, classification, causality, time, space, etc. See his World View (Novato, California: Chandler and Sharp, 1984), p. 3. [back] 28 - Negative-open views are, strictly speaking, neither views nor non-views. I agree with Nolan Pliny Jacobson when he says that "Buddhism is not fundamentally another system of thought; it is a way of feeling that which holds the universe together, experiencing in the fleeting now the creativity that sustains a world." See Buddhism and the Contemporary World: Change and Self-Correction (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), p. 55. [back] 29 - See Magliola, Derrida on the Mend, and David A. Dilworth, Philosophy in World Perspective: A Comparative Hermeneutic of the Major Theories (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). However, Dilworth sees both the dialectical and paradoxical as views that are both sublated within the synoptic view. I think that the synoptic is not a view but the realization of the nondual complementarity between view (dialectic, which includes the logical sub-view) and non-view (paradox) somewhat like Ngrjuna's realization of the equivalence of nirv a and sa sra. [back] 30 - In Hegelian terms, it is a speculative view that is aware of the dialectic of views. However, it is not a meta-view above worldviews but a development in the history of worldviews that gives rise to dialectical worldviews that are conscious of the dialectic and their place in it. [back] 31 - See Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976), pp. 76-77, where Popper distinguishes between the totalistic holism of historicists and the gestalt-like holism of science. Popper defines a historicist as someone who claims to have discovered a deterministic law of historical evolution and uses this to predict, or even engineer, the future. My theory of worldviews, however, makes no such claims as it is based on the notion of "creative synthesis." [back] 32 - Raimundo Panikkar, "Aporias in the Comparative Philosophy of Religion," Man and World 13 (1980): 357-383. While Panikkar is skeptical of the possibility of a theory of worldviews and a philosophy of religion, he does believe that a "dialogal philosophy" can lead to the "mutual fecundation" (p. 375) of

p. 223 worldviews. Cf. John B. Cobb, Jr., Beyond Dialogue: Towards a Mutual Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982). [back] 33 - If this is so, then conversation becomes merely a tool for the imperialistic assimilation of other language-games. The American cultural imperialism implicit in Richard Rorty's views comes to mind in this connection. [back] 34- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), par. 18. [back] 35 - Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (Oxford: Blackwell, 1974), par. 96. [back] 36 - Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, pars. 200, 243. [back]

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37 - Ibid., par. 206. [back] 38 - Wittgenstein, On Certainty, par. 286. [back] 39 - This has important implications for Wilfred Cantwell Smith's theory that one's interpretation of a worldview is only valid if confirmed by adherents of the worldview itself. If someone who only sees a rabbit draws the duck-rabbit figure for me, I may see a duck and draw this for her; but she will see a rabbit and say, "yes, you see what I see." It seems that the issue can only be resolved from the point of view of someone who has inclusively transcended both. Dialogue between equals can solve nothing in this case. [back] 40 - W. V. Quine, "Ontological Relativity," in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), pp. 50-51. [back] 41 - Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967), pp. 162-163.
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42 - John P. Keenan, "Emptiness as a Paradigm for Understanding World Religions," Buddhist-Christian Studies 16 (1996): 60. [back]

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