Re: Sankara

From the Bhakti List Archives

• July 7, 1999


In the past few days I received some interesting views of many members. The 
most interesting one was this one and it may be of some interest to others 
on the list too:

>
>Dear Sriman Sudarshan :
>
>Adiyen saw your postings on LNKS and the following mail.
>You have put ...what Thomas Kuhn argues in
>his seminal book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
>(pages 14 and 15 and continued for a few pages
>thereafter). I would like to quote the entire chapter but
>the following may do :
>
>'... No natural history can be interpreted in the absence
>of at least some implicit body of intertwined theoretical
>and methodological belief that permits selection,
>evaluation, and criticism. If that body of belief is not
>already implicit in the collection of facts - in which
>case more than "mere facts" are at hand --  it must be
>externally supplied, perhaps by a current metaphysic, by
>another science, or by personal and historical accident.
>No wonder then, that in the early stages of the
>development of any science different men confronting the
>same range of phenomena, describe and interpret them in
>different ways. What is surprising, and perhaps also
>unique in its degree to the fields we call science, is
>that such initial divergences should ever largely
>disappear....'
>
>
>In some respects, (with some reservation) this statement
>can be applied to evolution of philosophy as well. I
>think time and again, discussions on this list have
>pondered over the differences in interpretations,
>premises and axioms of different schools of thought.
>

Sudarshan


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