Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 75, 2018

Theories of Knowledge and Epistemology

Edification a Way to Liberation

We know that Hans. George Gadamer, in his book Truth and Method substitutes the word ‘Bildung’ (education, self-formation) for ‘knowledge’. Our attempt to edify ourselves or to edify other persons may refer to the hermeneutic activity or to the inverse of hermeneutic activity, or, it may refer to activity of self-formation (Bildung). The basic formulation of the question may be expressed in this way: whether there is one way or many ways in which we might be edified. Broadly speaking, different approaches to this basic issue have been formulated differently. But there is an attempt to re-orient the notion of truth as a property of the propositional content to an event or phenomenon with ‘temporal specificity’ which is the result of accepting truth as that which occurs when the interaction between knower and the known object creates a fusion (Gadamer). Hence there is a possibility to reorient the conception of truth as that which occurs when the interaction between knower and the known object creates a fusion two of the achievement of mental pacification. (Buddhism) Buddhists tend to see truths (ultimate) as nirvāna. Hence from the perspective of the Pudgalavadin the status of emptiness as a prajnapti would not have hindered it from the category of an ultimate truth.