Uploaded May 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
The belief that you have a universal position (the ‘truth’, ‘knowledge’, ‘metaphysics’) can easily be dogmatic, not taking your limiting assumptions into account. However, the Middle Way is not just a relativist position in which we deny the possibility or meaningfulness of universality. Rather, we need to maintain an aspiration to universality to keep motivating us to try to see a bigger picture than our current one, whilst also recalling that we don’t have the total picture. Keeping those two things in tension is central to the Middle Way, and any approach that fails to maintain it won’t be a Middle Way approach, even if it uses related language.
This talk by Robert M. Ellis is the second in a series of short stimulus talks given over Zoom to the Middle Way Network. It was recorded on 31sy May 2020, and is followed by questions from Network participants. For more information about the Middle Way Network please go to middlewaysociety.org/events/middle-way-network
The belief that you have a universal position (the ‘truth’, ‘knowledge’, ‘metaphysics’) can easily be dogmatic, not taking your limiting assumptions into account. However, the Middle Way is not just a relativist position in which we deny the possibility or meaningfulness of universality. Rather, we need to maintain an aspiration to universality to keep motivating us to try to see a bigger picture than our current one, whilst also recalling that we don’t have the total picture. Keeping those two things in tension is central to the Middle Way, and any approach that fails to maintain it won’t be a Middle Way approach, even if it uses related language.
This talk by Robert M. Ellis is the second in a series of short stimulus talks given over Zoom to the Middle Way Network. It was recorded on 31sy May 2020, and is followed by questions from Network participants. For more information about the Middle Way Network please go to middlewaysociety.org/events/middle-way-network
