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Quote by David E. Cooper

“It is indeed impossible to describe reality 'in itself', but that does not mean that our lives are answerable to nothing but our own conventions and commitments. They are answerable to a way of things that transcends the reach of our conceptual schemes.”

Quote by David E. Cooper

Author

David E. Cooper

David E. Cooper, born in 1942, is a renowned author whose works span across philosophy, religion, and science, enjoying widespread popularity among readers. more

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“I think that Asian versions of 'ineffabilism' have an advantage over the best-known Western ones, like Schopenhauer's. They are free from the dualistic image of the world of experience as the joint product of mind and reality.”

Thinking World Mind Reality Known Products Advantage Western Versions Asian Joints

Author:David E. Cooper

“It's as if, for Schopenhauer and perhaps Kant, the mind is there up and running, equipped with its categories and concepts that it then projects or smears, as it were, over what impinges upon it from the outside. This is not the image you find in, for example, Chuang Tzu: minds and nature are inseparably fused in an ever-changing whole of experience that, so to speak, constantly wells up from an indescribable source in a process that Daoists call 'the way' or 'the course'.”

Ifs Way Mind Wells Whole Running Courses Speak Process Example Source Projects Concepts Categories Indescribable

Author:David E. Cooper

“Things only 'show up' for us as they do, as Heidegger would put, in and through practical engagements with the world that enable objects to have significance and salience - as hammers, pots, trees or whatever.”

World Shows Tree Objects Practicals Significance Pot Engagement Hammers Heidegger

Author:David E. Cooper

“The main objection to the 'scientistic' claim that physics describes the world as it is in itself is that you 'can't weed out' the human contribution. That is, the scientific image of the world, like any other, is indelibly shaped by our interests, practices and prejudices.”

World Humans Interest Practice Claims Prejudice Physics Contribution Weed Objections

Author:David E. Cooper

“There is no reason at all to think that creatures with very different purposes and concerns would arrive at the scientific image, and no reason at all to accuse such creatures of getting the world wrong - a point that both Chuang Tzu and Nietzsche make when comparing human and animal perspectives.”

Thinking World Humans Different Reason Purpose Animal Perspective Creatures Concern Compare No Reason Humans And Animals

Author:David E. Cooper

“I was keen to dispel a familiar misunderstanding: that existentialists somehow relish the alienation of human beings from the world. This may have been Camus's attitude, but it was certainly not that of Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, each of whom tried to show that we can only experience the world in relation to our own projects and purposes. The world is initially one of 'equipment', said Heidegger: it is a world of 'tasks', said Sartre.”

World Humans May Has Beens Said Shows Purpose Human Beings Attitude Projects Tasks Relation Familiar Equipment Misunderstanding Alienation Relish Existentialist Heidegger

Author:David E. Cooper

“For me, the existentialists are important critics of 'absolutist' claims, and Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are, at least in their later writings, also exponents of a doctrine of mystery: Being or the 'well-spring' of everything is, for Heidegger, ineffable, just as what Merleau-Ponty called 'Flesh' is for him.”

Writing Wells Important Mystery Spring Claims Critics Flesh Doctrine Ineffable Existentialist Heidegger Exponents

Author:David E. Cooper

“I think it's true that for existentialist thinkers, appreciation of what we are - free, makers of meaning, 'issues' for ourselves, and so on - is at the same time a recognition of how we should try to live.”

Thinking Should Trying Issues Appreciation Recognition Makers Thinker Existentialist

Author:David E. Cooper

“To recognize that you are radically free, in Sartre's sense, but then to live as if you weren't, is to live in bad faith, in denial of what you know to be true. And that's not something anyone can sensibly want to do.”

Ifs Knows Want Being True Denial

Author:David E. Cooper

“The dis-incumbenced stance is the one people should cultivate, we are told, once they recognize that there is no world beyond the human world. They will, indeed must, have their beliefs and values, but they will recognize that these 'lean upon' - and are answerable to - nothing other than human commitments and purposes. The only fidelity, Rorty remarked, can be to our own conventions.”

People World Should Humans Purpose Values Belief Commitment Conventions Fidelity Stance Beliefs And Values

Author:David E. Cooper