mike,
well I guess that is the BIG question and certainly the one that separates
buddhist from western dialectics. although the Buddha did propose a chain
of causality this was not so much connected with the way "things" develop as
with the way attachment, sensation, consciousness, and suffering come about.
Hegel spoke almost directly to your concern (section 166 of the shorter
Logic):
"Thus, for example, as we remarked before, the germ of a plant contains its
particular, such as root, branches, leaves, etc., but these details are at
first present only potentially, and are not realized to the germ uncloses.
This unclosing is, as it were, the jedgement of the plant. The illustration
may also serve to show how neither the notion nor the judgement are found in
our head, or merely framed by us. The notion is the very heart of things,
and makes them what they are. To form a notion of an objkect means
therefore to become aware of its notion; and when we proceed to a criticism
or judgement of the object, we are not performing a subjective act, and
merely ascribing this or that predicate to the object. We are, on the
contrary, observing the object in the specific character imposed by its
notion."
Pretty good description of a chromosone for someone who lived about 100 yrs
before Mendel ever planted a pea!
Inverting the Hegelian idealism we of course come back to the idea that the
ideal (concrete universals) generated in human practice unfolds materially,
historically, not just going round and round. On the other hand, to mix
jokes metaphorically, a buddhist might say that the chicken laid the egg to
avoid the recognition of its own groundlessness and hence precisely to keep
from getting to the other side -- whereas the Hegelian (sorry but can't
think of any other word) tradition would hold the opposite.
Or so I'm seeing it today.
Paul
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