Chapter III - Disvaluation Re-Examined

A Transcendental-Phenomenological Reinterpretation

	The informal phenomenological interpretation of the disvaluational process associated with metaphors of illusion, depreciation and magic as developed in the previous chapter allowed me to view such a process as a distinctive type of textual phenomenon. On examination it was discovered that not only could this textual component be subjected to investigation along general phenomenological lines of reference, but, that it could also be interpreted as an indication that the associated religious tradition was also involved in phenomenological processes of investigation (through their treatment of the phenomenal dimension as phenomenal).
	Although this analysis can account for a generally adequate description of/prescription for this type of textual phenomenon I believe various minor criticisms could be leveled at this interpretation to suggest collectively that this level of analysis has not been able to grasp essentially the full significance of this type of textual phenomenon. In our hermeneutical examinations of this type of metaphorical treatment we should perhaps ask ourselves what are the real consequences in doing this type of philosophical process? Noting that this type of process is phenomenological in scope (i.e., certain regions of experience are noted as intentional in their psychic presentation; as possessing an internal structure and an externally orientated function of some form or other) are we entitled to ask if this phenomenological approach has a transcendental type of format, or programme, for its primary focus? However, first let me collect some of the criticisms that, I perceive, could be leveled at my previous analysis.
	On the assumption that two philosophic structures are isomorphic differences of less than a superficial nature must be hermeneutically accounted for. In a hermeneutics of apparent disconformity various stratagems must be invoked in order to explain that this apparent disconformity is neither fundamentally structural nor fundamentally functional otherwise the thesis of an isomorphism must be considerably discounted. In the previous chapter it was noted that processes of disvaluation were essentially depreciatory in nature. However, in an examination of our Buddhist text it was surprisingly discovered (in the light of previous Buddhist traditions and their meditative tendencies to depreciate potential objects of human desire, etc.,) that disvaluation was not overtly accompanied by a depreciatory attitude although such an attitude could be argued for on implicit grounds. It was also noted, although not quite so important an anomaly, that, while both traditions used metaphors of illusion, the Neoplatonic tradition also used metaphors of depreciation whereas the Buddhist-Wisdom tradition used metaphors of magic. It was argued that all three types of metaphorical treatment had the same disvaluational type of structural-function. However, that accepted, we must somehow account for this observation that disvaluation did not necessarily imply a parallel overt form of depreciatory treatment.
	In this examination of this potential anomaly let us carefully ask ourselves the question what was the object that was subjected to this process of disvaluational treatment? We might consider that the obvious candidate for this attack would be the world, and therein all phenomenal existence subsumed under such an appellation, but, in giving this question some deeper thought I came to realize that in accepting such a choice we would miss the entire point of such transformational treatment! Correctly, the object subjected to this process of disvaluational treatment is not the world per se but the natural attitude itself that allows us to entertain a natural (and absolutist) vision of the world in the first place. It is quite obvious that no degree of depreciation, or disvaluation, is going to alter the nature of the world one iota. However, on the other hand, the way we entertain the world could be so treated. In systematically undermining the powerful attraction that the world naturally has for us day by day the net result would be to introduce an element of suspension into our reflective appreciation of this world entailed in the natural attitude. As a consequence, it became clear to me, that this type of process initiates, and introduces us to, a transcendental-phenomenology along with an transcendental-absolute vision of philosophy necessarily entailed in such a pursuit! In this transition from a phenomenology to a transcendental-phenomenology a change of philosophical state takes place that broadly speaking is, I believe, in complete overall agreement with that type of philosophy currently described as phenomenological, or more correctly as a transcendental-phenomenology.
	Other counter-arguments, or objections, that could possibly be raised in a critique of this phenomenological-hermeneutical examination might be, for example, the question as to whether stylistic differences might reflect a more fundamental disconformity than that implicitly attested; whether similar processes of argumentation in their respective environments actually had the same functional consequences; and lastly, whether those functional consequences ostensively isomorphic actually devolve from similar processes of structural construction and associated argumentation? Questions that essentially investigate the degree of isomorphic coincidence between these traditional contexts, or cultural environments, their processes of structural argumentation, and the functional consequences that devolve from those processes of intellectual resolution articulated by those traditions.
	In this chapter, and in the following chapter, let me demonstrate that the primary focus of disvaluation appears to be centered on a transcendental transformation of a collective phenomenological treatment of experience, in a religious frame of reference, that seeks to re-define its traditional basis (in the light of the consequences that flow from various negative theological processes that attempt to re-interpret that traditional basis). 
	First, let me discuss the nature of a transcendental suspension. In the process, through defining it, let me differentiate it from both other forms of suspension, and, a variety of other transcendental-phenomenological forms of treatment.
	Second, let me demonstrate that in their own way both traditions seek to establish, and emphasize, the incorporation of a transcendental suspension. 
	Third, let me demonstrate that a transcendental dimension is, indeed, being introduced and acted upon.
	Lastly, let me briefly defend the apparent implication of transcendental-absolute style of religious discourse associated with this genre of exposition that entails the adoption of disvaluational processes of philosophical transformation.

1.	On The Nature Of The Transcendental Suspension

	Recently it has come to my attention that one should not confuse a transcendental suspension with a transcendental reduction! Recognition of this elementary distinction allowed be to rewrite this entire thesis along phenomenological lines and use the language and conceptual basis of this type of philosophy to mediate, and make commensurable, these two traditions of the Neoplatonic and the Buddhist Perfection of Wisdom. As a keystone it also allowed me to re-analyze the relationship between synthesis and analysis and, in the process, establish more orthodox grounds for my own intuitive understanding of the negative theological process. However, in this chapter let me concentrate on the topic of a transcendental suspension and its intimate relationship with metaphorical processes associated with disvaluational treatment as discussed in the previous chapter.  
	In the earlier writings of Edmund Husserl that concentrate on a phenomenologically orientated theme, or framework, it would appear that a clear cut differentiation between a transcendental suspension (epoché) and a transcendental reduction were neither explicitly drawn nor intended to be distinctly separated. However, Husserl appears to have increasingly made a differentiation between the same by clarifying the different roles these two important processes involve when examined either theoretically or practically. To start with a transcendental suspension is perceived to be logically prior to the exercise of a transcendental reduction. Indeed, its invocation establishes the very transcendental nature of those investigations. Without this type of suspension being first properly put in place those prior investigations, which may or may not be phenomenological in type, would most certainly not be transcendental in scope. 
	I have a confirmation of my reading of Husserl on this point of differentiation, and clarification, in an article written by Richard Schmitt:

Husserl also uses the term "epoché." At first it appears as a synonym for "reduction." In his last writings he differentiates between the two terms: the change of attitude, i.e., the suspension of all natural belief in the objects of experience is called the "epoché"; it, in turn, is the precondition for reducing the natural world to a world of phenomena (Krisis, p. 155.). The term "transcen-dental-phenomenological reduction" covers both the epoché and the reduction in the narrower sense of Husserl's last writings.
	In introducing the sense of the epoché, or transcendental suspension, Husserl must define what is to be suspended. In the Cartesian Meditations he tells us:

...that at first we shall put out of action all the convictions we have been accepting up till now, including all our sciences.
	This set of convictions collectively forms the natural attitude. This attitude is the manner we normally entertain the world as an objective fact or thesis. In applying the epoché the natural attitude is not denied, neither do we deny our current inventory of considered facts, acts, beliefs, etc., rather, more as disinterested observers this attitude and its panoply of positions are bracketed, entertained as mere phenomena - presentations to be accepted only at face value. As all consciousness is seen as intentional all acts of consciousness are treated in the epoché in such a manner that the intentional objectivity immanent to the intentional act is (re-)interpreted as an intentional object constituted in transcendental subjectivity by-that-person-for-that-person (noemata). Such intentional objectivity can be maintained in a period of time, or reproduced in some later period, through  constitutional retention (however, the original noetic acts that entertained their associated noemata cannot be reproduced). Under the transformation of this attitude the world is not touched one iota, however, our perspective has taken a transcendental turn in which the intentional constitution of our noesis (noetic acts)-noema (intentional objects) are to stand clearly revealed or disclosed (to some degree or other, and, as some sympathetic critics would also argue, be simultaneously concealed). In essence our empirical consciousness is now a transcendental consciousness in which the object of our focus is on the constitution of our intentional activity and not the end result of that process wherein the constituted intentional objectivity is interpreted merely in the light of the natural attitude. All prejudices prior to such activity, and discovered or realized in such activity, are not paralyzed or inhibited but the manner in which we naturally purport ourselves towards such pre-judgmental phenomenal constitution is paralyzed or inhibited. The world continues to unfold itself before us, but, a radical cleavage is introduced and entertained between these two perspectives that effectively represent the activity of constitution at the level of that constitutional formation and the end-product of that constitution as realized in, and through, the natural attitude, i.e., between the constitution of the phenomenon and the phenomenon as an appearance in the natural world. In this transcendental shift of our attention we no longer directly focus on matters characterized in terms of time and space, ego and causation, or science and culture, history, etc., and instead concentrate on the constitutional structure and function of what otherwise would have been entertained in the natural attitude.
	Husserl supplies a number of epithets to help describe this subtle process of suspension, e.g., abstention, inhibiting, putting out of play, parenthesizing, etc. Essentially we have two levels of conscious phenomenological functioning, namely, an ordinary level of consciousness where the natural attitude is in play and a higher order level of appreciation wherein, within its boundaries, the former is put out of play without disrupting the exercise of the former outside those higher order boundaries.
	Husserl, in his Ideen (Ideas), tells us in relation to the epoché that there is a certain refraining from judgment. Moreover, this trans-evaluation is a concern of our full freedom, and is opposed to all cognitive attitudes that would set themselves up as coordinate with the thesis (of an objective world as accepted in the natural attitude). Lastly, there is a metaphorical (and functional) disconnection between the thesis and the natural attitude, a process brought about through subjecting the thesis to doubt. This is accomplished, without destroying the thesis, through bringing the anti-thesis (or counter-thesis), in the form of a supposition, to the thesis without transforming the thesis into its anti-thesis. In this balancing act the thesis still unfolds in and through the natural attitude but that, as a thesis, it is bracketed and, in a higher order sense, is neutralized through also holding in parallel its tentative antithesis. 
	In my own reading of this process of suspension this act of refraining from judgment is radical and meant to apply to all forms of judgment and not merely to considerations of the factual history of that phenomenal state of affairs under investigation. In a transcendental-psychological appreciation of this process we can note two important points, namely, this dialectical balance merely reproduces, I believe, the manner in which consciousness is able to discriminate the meaning and meaningfulness of the thesis from its appropriate gestalt background through the contrast of the anti-thesis, and, also reproduces the manner in which judgment must take place through a freeing-up of judgmental possibilities. Pre-judgments, or prejudices, must be balanced in order for the act of judgment to unfold appropriately without the distortion of this prejudicial material. On the other hand the resolution of the question proposed by the thesis-antithesis juxtaposition must already meet with some form of interpretational expectation (protention). In a sense the judgment is also already pre-met allowing us to recognize the solution, or judgment proposed, as being an appropriate response (realized through resolution) to the implicit questioning put in place through that suspension.
	As noted Husserl tells us that the transcendental phenomenologist exercises this epoché through refraining from judgment. In my own research into the phenomenological nature of value I discern six interdependent fields of value-formation (although I also argue that the fundamental nature of evaluation, i.e., all applied forms of judgment, has the same a priori transcendental-psychological machinery). 			These six fields were seen to be thematical (involving processes of logic, perceptual identification, lexical determination, mathematical equivalence, scientific calculation, etc.), aesthetical (involving processes of harmonic/artistic appreciation), ethical (involving processes of personal and/or interpersonal harmonic interaction), pragmatical (involving matters of personal/social function in the world), trans-thematical (involving matters of how the world, as the horizon of all horizons, is hermeneutically experienced through its various modalities) and factual (involving considerations of potentiality-actuality). 
	I have noted these six fields of value to indicate in what other areas the transcendental-suspension can also be applied besides matters of a factual nature. Just as questions of existence and/or non-existence are effectively transcended in a like fashion questions of an ethical nature, e.g., etc., can also be subjected to transcendental-suspension and various forms of negative theological treatment. Moreover, this trans-phenomenal attitude is also applied to the phenomenal form these six cognitive fields take, subjecting such expression to transcendental de-phenomenalizational treatment (or purification) with respect to spatio-temporal considerations, and considerations of an egotistical and causal nature. Not that these four phenomenal forms of expression are denied, or destroyed, only neutralized or bracketed, i.e., suspended. Hence the transcendental nature of this suspension through the thorough suspension of the phenomenal qua phenomenal; and not the suspension of the phenomenon qua the limited treatment of that phenomenon in the terms of its religious or cultural expression, or, its social or scientific expression, etc.
	In our hermeneutical examination of these two texts how do we recognize that a transcendental-phenomenological suspension is, in some manner (explicitly/implicitly, directly/indirectly), actually in place? Let me briefly outline some rules for making this type of (thematical) judgment and then in the next section of this chapter demonstrate that both traditions utilize various argument-forms for establishing this transcendental suspension.
	Of course it is anachronistic to expect that these two texts actually announce an explicit use of the Husserlian transcendental-suspension, such a feature if present must be regarded as implicit. On the other hand, structural-functional statements that directly state the conditions that would guarantee the presence of a transcendental-suspension can be considered as direct evidence for this particular textual state of affairs. Statements to the effect, e.g., that ultimate reality, from a transcendental-constitutional point of view, transcends questions of existence/non-existence, moral considerations, aesthetical considerations, pragmatic questions of salvic usefulness, etc. Recognition that prejudices are not allowed to be prejudicial, i.e., pre-judgmental, in our transcendental-phenomenologically intuitive evaluation of the type of situation currently to hand. Recognition that some type of mental equilibrium is being sought with respect to mutually opposed cognitive terms of reference, etc. Acceptance that on a textual-hermeneutical level of interpretation a transcendental, pre-phenomenological, constitutional perspective is indicated as being currently in play. Lastly, we might note that indirect means might perhaps be adopted to achieve the same ends, through, namely, the unstated introduction and exercise of a transcendental dimension, or perspective. That this might be orchestrated, e.g., through the use of metaphorical means, analogical structures, allegorical devices, etc., that in juxtaposition with the natural attitude induce an effective transcendental suspension. 
	Put simply my argument is this that an apparent transcendental suspension is effectively put in play when, directly, the text tells us that correlative judgmental forms are declared to be equally transcended and/or traditional judgmental forms are declared to be transcended and/or, indirectly, the natural attitude itself is undermined and balanced through the careful use of doubt, or suspicion, induced through the qualified use of disvaluational treatment. With respect to direct forms of indication we find that this type of text tells us that x, where x is a name or denoting function, equally transcends positive and negative forms of judgmental evaluation, or, that certain judgmental epithets do not correctly apply to x even though it might be the normal habit in that natural-religious frame of reference to make traditionally that type of judgmental connection. With respect to indirect forms of indication we find that this type of text tells us, through various forms of disvaluational treatment, that the natural-phenomenal world, from a trans-phenomenal perspective, is not as it seems, and, that correctly absolute reality has a transcendental character that cannot be directly alluded to through discursive means and that, as a consequence, all language can only intimate a provisional appreciation of this transcendental-absolute dimension. However, be that as it may, this type of text usually indicates that through some form of transcendental consciousness this dimension can be experienced which, in turn, has the potential to transform our appreciation of the natural world. Under the heading of the Experiential I would like to note three factors that appear to be present, to some degree or other, in a text dealing with the instantiation and exercise of an apparent transcendental suspension. In order to demonstrate what this complex argument means let me examine texts from these two traditions that I believe illustrate these observations of mine.

2.	Demonstrating The Presence Of A Transcendental 												  Suspension

	First, let me tabulate the previous complex argument in the following schematic form adding three further features that might also act as an indication that a transcendental suspension is in effect intended. Then, let me systematically investigate if these eight features occur in our two main texts in order to ascertain what symmetry, if any, might be present between these two traditions in this regard.

Possible Textual Indications Of Transcendental Suspensions

1.	Explicit - Not applicable.

	Implicit - As noted below.

	i.	Direct.

			A.	Correlative Negation/Transcendence.
			B.	Terminological Negation/Transcendence.

	ii.	Indirect.

			Disvaluational Treatment via:

			C.	Metaphors of Illusion.
			D.	Metaphors of Depreciation.
			E.	Metaphors of Magic.

	iii.	Experiential.

			F.	Meditational Access.
			G.	Psychic Equilibrium.
			H.	Experiential Openness.

A.	Correlative Negation/Transcendence.

	In the Madhyamaka tradition, which based itself closely on texts from The Perfection of Wisdom tradition, we find a reassertion of the Middle Path between the extremes of existence and non-existence (hence the title Madhyamaka). This tradition would neither affirm the existence nor the non-existence of phenomenal reality stating that the affirmation of phenomena would only lead to an unedifying changeless eternalism and, even worse,  that a dis-affirmation of phenomena would only lead to a spiritually skeptical, relativist, and damaging nihilism. In neither affirming the existence nor the non-existence of phenomena in general, or some phenomenal presentation in particular, a direct transcendental suspension is effectively introduced. However, more often than not in both traditions, in pairs of correlative terms some positive theological-metaphysical bias re-surfaces to stress the religious relevance, importance, or positive connotation of one term over the other. In the maintaining of this balance between correlative terms of judgmental evaluation the Buddhist context is often more strict in this regard, whereas, in the Neoplatonic context this tendency to maintain a traditional differential in evaluation, and connotation, almost inevitably resurfaces. However, our next section (B) recognizes an overcoming of this apparent lack of balance through the observation that in the apparent negation of one term in a pair of correlative judgmental evaluational forms, e.g., existence/non-existence, moral goodness/badness, etc., the negation of that one term by itself does not automatically affirm its correlative partner, moreover, although negation is apparently in play the process is more correctly a transcendence of that category at the level of its correlative constitution. Implicit in this process of transcendence, or transcendental shift in our attention, as a direct consequence, is the imposition of a transcendental suspension (a state of psychic balance left in play through the transcendence of the thesis-antithesis entailed in that correlative-category).
	In the next four quotations, two from each tradition, observe the relative equality between the correlative parties:

But one must not have evil, or any good either, ready to hand, that the soul alone may receive it alone.
	It is at first unusual to note this practical equivalence between evil and good as spelt out in this quotation. It would appear, however, to be the intention of this sentence to suggest a transcendence of evil-good states of affairs in the world rather than their outright negation? Implicit in such a formula is the inapplicability of mundane terminology and language in dealing with the transcendental constitution of phenomena (whether in general terms of reference, or, individually specified and thematically focused upon). Thus this passage should not be read as a general prescription for the practice of an amoralism. In the next quotation we find the same type of correlative negation/transcendence at work but this time also extending beyond ethical considerations into an ontological, or factual, field of discernment:

But he is not even the "is"; for he has no need whatever even of this; for "he is good" is not applicable to him either, but to that which the "is" [, when said of him,] is not said as one thing of another, but as indicating what he is.
	As already noted the Buddhist tradition of the Madhyamaka takes a middle path between the extremes that affirm an eternalistic existence and a nihilistic non-existence. In the Verse Summary attached to The Perfection Of Wisdom In 8,000 Lines we read:

What exists not, that non-existent the foolish 			imagine;
Non-existence as well as existence they fashion.
As dharmic facts existence and non-existence are 			both not real.
A Bodhisattva goes forth when wisely he knows 			this.

	In a similar vein we can note the following:

If all dharmas are isolated and empty, how is defilement and purification of being conceivable? For what is isolated cannot be defiled or purified, what is empty cannot be defiled or purified.
	If purification and defilement are impossible from the point of view of this absolute-transcendental perspective then what role could an ethical philosophy have in operating under such circumstances? By asserting an apparent transcendence of the mundane ethical dimension, rather than a thorough negation of it, the way remains open for the person to discover a transcendental form of ethical involvement and we soon come across in this text indications to this effect (e.g., through skillful means, non-discursively exercised compassion, turning over spiritual merit, etc.).

B.	Terminological Negation/Transcendence

	In the negation and transcendence of correlative forms of judgment a state of balance is put in play between those two co-thematized poles of reference (entailed in that correlativity) that in effect simulates, and to all practical purposes instantiates, a transcendental suspension. In the negation and transcendence of terminological items because the negation does not establish the antithesis at the expense of the thesis, but, rather appears to neutralize the thesis, it would be my argument that the result of this process is to bring our awareness back to the constitutional structure, and function, of that correlative category and thereby assist us in transcending the spatio-temporal, egotistical and causal influences of that category. In effect a transcendental suspension is likewise put in place. 
	In the negation of positive theological terminology we would most likely be presented with a negative theology, a via negativa, and this will be dealt with in detail in the next chapter. At this point in time let me merely introduce this broad concept of a transcendental suspension and demonstrate on textual grounds that such a process is actually in place in the structural-functioning of this type of text.

...it [Soul] does not still perceive its body, that it is in it, and does not speak of itself as anything else, not man, or living thing, or being, or all (for the contemplation of these things would some how be disturbing)...
	This is an interesting quotation on a number of counts. First, if I am correct, this `transcendental' account is cast in experiential terms of reference. Second, although we are not presented with the equal negation and transcendence of correlatives the negation of the thesis is not seen to promote its antithesis. Not man does not imply the affirmation of something which is non-man, e.g., an animal, for the next negation makes this quite clear in stating in wider terms of reference not a living thing. Then again not man neither implies something mineral, e.g., for in the negation of the all that too would be ruled out. Third, negation is used as a form of transcendence, moreover, this transcendence is modeled on a hierarchy of transcendencies. Not man is followed by `not a living thing' which in turn is followed by not being to be surmounted in turn by the negation of the all. We have here an increasing emphasis on the abstraction of the object of this negational treatment reinforcing the implication that a process of transcendence is being promoted and not some form of mere negation per se. Mere negation would have us leaving the arena but instead, it would appear, we keep taking a higher seat, so to speak. Moreover, with the implicit presence of a natural-religious attitude, as a positive negative theological background, also being subjected to the same simultaneous attack, albeit indirectly, we are presented with an experiential state of suspension and balance, namely, a transcendental suspension (wherein the general thesis of the world, in part or in whole, is neutralized to reveal its constitutional structure and function; its meaning and meaningfulness). Considered in this light the phenomenon subjected to negative theological treatment is overcome, and looked into, but certainly not annihilated, or, merely negated. Under such circumstances the manner in which the phenomenon is located in the world of classifications, and other meaning structures, is subjected to a controlled degree of qualified doubt and the net effect of this is to place the phenomenon under review in a state of suspension. Because this suspension operates at the level of the phenomenal constitution, i.e., at the level of our intentional objectivity, a certain naïvity is left behind. This is a transformation in which the entire range of human experience is not lost but remains just as accessible to our powers of comprehension, albeit in a purified form, i.e., minus this naïvity that distinctively constitutes the natural attitude.
	A second quotation will re-illustrate this process of transcendence (or abstraction) and the simultaneously putting in place of an indirect transcendental suspension:

Therefore soul does not move then either, because that does not move. Nor, then, is it soul, because that does not live, but is above life. Nor is it intellect, because that does not think either; for one must be made like. It does not even think that it does not think.
	The soul is beyond movement does not imply that it has stopped because analogically it is considered to be beyond movement. By implication neither is it the inert non-substantiality of matter but at the same time it is equally not living or i.e., life. In passing beyond life it equally transcends the possibility of intellect. Lastly, it even transcends the thought of non-thought. 
	In regard to the last sentence I am reminded of the frequent comments made in the Perfection Of Wisdom literature as to the fact that a Buddha, or Bodhisattva, cannot entertain the thought of being a Buddha, or a Bodhisattva, without the automatic forfeiture of their being a Buddha, or Bodhisattva:

And why is it an unthinkable enterprise? Because unthinkable are Tathagatahood, Buddhahood, Self-existence, and the state of all-knowledge. And on these one cannot reflect with one's thought, since they cannot be an object of thought. 
	In our last quotation from Plotinus we see the same process of transcendence or abstraction. At the same time this ongoing process of transcendence, or abstraction, attacks the entire fabric of the natural attitude in such a qualified, and balanced, manner as to suspend the ontological and interpretive commitments in our entertainment of experience as phenomenal experience. Buddhist use of negation is also often entertained as a series of negations that progressively negate, suspend and transcend that type of experience under investigation. However, one notable difference can be observed, namely, in relative terms of reference the accumulative equality of Buddhist negations. This type of Buddhist dialectic is markedly non-hierarchical in it abstractions, or deconstructions, whereas the Neoplatonic dialectic is quite the opposite. I believe this difference in attitude can be traced to the fact that Neoplatonic metaphysical foundations are markedly hierarchical, or transcendent, in style, whereas, Buddhist dialectic is essentially immanent and de-constructive in tendency. In Buddhist abstraction there is relatively little progressive transcendence of the former transcendence, etc., although the net result in all other regards would appear to be essentially the same.

How does one apperceive such a series of thoughts (of perfect wisdom)?
Through a series of thoughts inclined towards space,... inclined to all-knowledge. And why? Because all-knowledge is immeasurable and unlimited. What is immeasurable, that is not form, or any other skandha. That is not attainment, or reunion, or getting there; not the path or its fruit; not cognition or consciousness; not genesis, or destruction, or production, or passing away, or stopping or development, or annihilation. It has not been made by anything, it has not come from anywhere, it does not stand in any place or spot.
	In this quotation much positive theological terminology is suspended. In fact under the negation of the path and its fruit the entire traditional Buddhist religion is called into question. Likewise, in comparison with Plotinus, there is a transcendence of movement; a negation that does not imply its antithesis in the form of a lack of movement, rather a transcendence of movement. On the other hand a sense of stillness is implicit with all the ramifications it has for meditational practices and experiences of revelation, or insight. Movement being an expression that is entailed in the idea of change along with all the negative connotations associated with both concepts.
	If the negations engaged in these textual arguments were true negations then a transcendental argument could not be argued for. The transcendental suspension of factual commitment neither affirms nor denies the imputed reality of a certain state of affairs. A series of real negations, of whatever form, would therefore destroy the transcendental nature of those arguments. In this regard the Perfection Of Wisdom establishes a transcendental-absolute philosophy whereas previous Buddhist traditions did not honour, or recognize, this transcendental-phenomenological requirement. E.g., the Sarvastivadins took their name from the fact that for them all (sarva) forms of phenomenal existence exist. On the other hand other traditions would assert that some forms of phenomena exist and other forms did not (whilst the nihilist would assert some form of denial). In the light of this observation we would place Plotinus, and the Neoplatonic School, likewise in this transcendental-absolute camp for even though Plotinus, e.g., stresses Being that Being is correctly beyond existence and non-existence, etc. In a similar fashion his vision of the Good is equally transcendental.
	In this Text of The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines we read:

In like manner all dharmas are unthinkable, incomparable, immeasurable, incalculable, equal to the unequaled... By the words `unthinkable' and `incomparable' are denoted all the objects which belong to consciousness.
	Although unthinkable, etc., this text tells us that that does not stop us from entertaining experiences from the mundane point of view. But then, at the same time, that experience being experienced, i.e., transcendentally appreciated, implies that transcendental appreciation can also be experience, albeit in a non-intentional (i.e., trans-intentional) non-cognitive form. Equally, essentials or dharmas are likewise neither denied nor affirmed, but, then, the implication follows that, a dharmic analysis cannot be a transcendental form of analysis if conducted in absolutist, non-transcendental terms of reference. From the transcendental-absolute point of view they can neither exist nor non-exist. However, in a philosophical-religious region of exposition, a different kind of consideration altogether, the `existence' of dharmas, or some other form of essential-reductive analysis, is necessary for the de-construction/re-construction of negative theological manoeuvres (or the putting in place of the essentially-reductive nature of the transcendental reduction that follows upon the imposition of the transcendental suspension).
	This process of transcendence, as a process of deconstruction and/or abstraction, rectifies and balances the reductive categorical tendencies of thought. In de-defining the nature of the thesis the anti-thesis is, by implication, equally exposed and transcended through the balance entailed between that thesis and its anti-thesis. It is my belief that processes of disvaluation, orchestrated through metaphors of illusion, depreciation and magic, effectively parallel those processes of transcendental suspension instigated through that type of process involving correlative negational-transcendence and terminological negational-transcendence.

C.	Metaphors of Illusion.

	In reconsidering metaphors of illusion, etc., it came to my attention that where the metaphor, analogy or allegory broke down had an equal importance in our understanding of the functioning of such devices. As previously noted all three metaphors were distinctly qualified by the observation that although it was suggested phenomenal reality was like x, or was x, this affirmation was not final, and, was not meant to be accepted as fixed, and taken as absolute, or ultimate. That at some point the metaphor would break down, would cease to operate and it is at this point of paralysis that, I believe, a transcendental suspension is effectively being put in place:

	So the phenomenal world is like an illusion but...
	So the phenomenal world is to be denigrated but...
	So the phenomenal world is like a magical apparition 											    but...

	On reflection, it seemed to me that the point of breakdown in the usage of these metaphorical devices had an equal importance to the manner in which these metaphors were intentionally set up to operate ostensively:

	So the phenomenal world is like an illusion but is also 		not absolutely like an illusion.
	So the phenomenal world is to be denigrated but is also 		not to be extremely denigrated.
	So the phenomenal world is like a magical apparition 				but is also not to be nihilistically dismissed as 		being just like a magical apparition.

	It then seemed obvious that at this point of breakdown a transcendental suspension was in effect being allowed to operate, and, that overall the natural attitude was under some form of religious-philosophical attack. Through the balance of the metaphor and its point of qualification we were effectively being introduced to an absolute style of  philosophy; its transcendental content and methods of operation. In the tentative light of this possible insight let me briefly re-investigate the structural-function of these three types of analogy and allow myself the opportunity to at least restate my case; a position that is now no longer being reported as being merely phenomenological in scope, finding transformation into a transcendental-phenomenological complexion through the entrance, and recognition, of a transcendental suspension.
	That the intention of using metaphors of illusion is primarily metaphorical and not literal is bourne out by the comments made C. W. Huntington in this regard:
	
It must constantly be bourne in mind that such examples [such as counterfeiting] are intended only as similes, for the world is never actually identified as an illusion per se; it is merely compared to an illusion (mayopamam lokam).

	The same author also notes that:

Early Madhyamaka explicitly claims to operate as a rejection, or deconstruction, of all attempts to create a value-free, objective view of truth or reality... The critical distinction here is between systematic philosophy, concerned with the presentation of a particular view or belief (drsti), and edifying philosophy, engaged in strictly deconstructive activity. The central concepts of an edifying philosophy must ultimately be abandoned when they have served their purpose for which they were designed. Such concepts are not used to express a view but to achieve an effect. They are means (upaya).
	I am in an essential agreement with this reading or interpretation of the Madhyamaka tradition (and its closely allied Perfection of Wisdom tradition) so what criticisms I offer are qualifications of this stance.
	Firstly, concepts can be seen in either a static mode (noema) or in a dynamic mode (noesis). Seen in the latter orientation as functional devices they can always be regarded as potentially being able to achieve an effect. But in this tradition the primary intention here is soteriological and not merely intellectual or practical, i.e. mundane in scope. The soteriological intent being primarily non-mundane is therefore transcendental in the sense that it is experienced at the level of the purified constitution of the former and to that degree can never be wholly other. Expression of the latter is achieved through a transcendental language which is conducted through the specialized philosophical transformation of natural language (which might include the use of negative theological processes, de-definitional or abstractional tendencies, the technical use of metaphor, etc.).
	Secondly, there is no reason why such a philosophy cannot also be systematic, but, systematically exercised in such a fashion that the emphasis is placed upon the functioning of that system. I.e., its emphasis on its critical functions are intended to be exercised in a systematic fashion.
	Thirdly, it is not possible to utilize conceptual material without propagating some view of the world. The very tools that occupy the center of our attention somehow find themselves reflecting through, some form or other, the very medium in which they were meant to operate within. The tools we use to dig the garden in an indirect fashion mirror the world of that garden with varying degree of successfulness in direct measure to the degrees of successfulness of our interaction in that metaphorical garden; the spade digs, the pitchfork forks through the soil, the edge-cutters cut edges, etc. Moreover, however, the mere looking at these implements will not tell us how they are meant to function although their observance in the world might be able, to a certain extent, do this for us. The point I wish to make here is that there is some form of connection or interrelationship between the world, the tool, and the nature of its appropriate function. The view of the world propagated by the Buddhist adherent of this tradition of The Perfection of Wisdom, and allied Buddhist traditions, is that the world is a web of interdependent non-self-existent phenomena and that the tools of the world are of the same nature, i.e., empty (sunya). One of the most important tools for the philosopher is metaphor (and that for this type of Buddhist philosopher just noted between the metaphorical and the literal there is, from the transcendental perspective, no difference).
	Fourthly, the analogy of the raft like all forms of metaphor has it limits. It may well be, and in keeping with the spirit of deconstruction, that even this abandoning itself has to be abandoned, perhaps returned to a state of transcendental suspension? Then this abandoning of abandoning returns us to where we started, albeit with all the richness of meaning and meaningfulness realized in this circuit. Then, if that is granted, can we interpret the expression of the emptiness of emptiness along the same lines?
	Fifthly, the experience of truth as insight is meant to be experienced and not thought about retrospectively. In some measure this experience is transcendental, spontaneous, perfect discrimination without intentionally setting out to discriminate; in essence almost a trans-intentional exercise of conscious-phenomenal being without escaping the conditional, and intentional, nature of the phenomenon of being a person-in-the-world.
	Sixthly, following on from my last comment, it would be my re-interpretation of this type of transcendental-process that value, or at least that authentic aspect of that phenomenal appearance of experienced-value,  is realized, or disclosed, through just such a transcendental transformation? Implicit in such authentic value would be the inherent appropriateness of that response as a response; this interpretation finding a direct comparison, e.g., in the concept of skillful means (upaya).
	Lastly, this author notes the denial of a value-free constructive approach to reality, to truth, etc. But the expression value-free can be seen (through deconstruction) as having two quite opposed meanings, namely, value-free in the sense of objective, real and as the Truth independent of the person in opposition to value-free as free of, or rather freed from, ontological and epistemological commitments being realized in and through a transcendental suspension? Indeed, it is my perception, or rather my interpretation, that the Madhyamakan enterprise straddles both senses. That the exercise of a transcendental perspective is both productive of a value-free value, transcendental truth (and its consequent sense of transcendental conviction) and also that which frees us, through the transcendental suspension, from (the non-existential distortion of) prejudices, pre-judgments, etc., already formulated, accumulated and sedimented in our psycho-social being as a person in some particular social context(s). It would be my argument, therefore, that it is through the value-free nature of the transcendental suspension that the truth, or transcendental-reality, of that phenomenal event can be known, or more correctly experienced, in the spontaneity of an act of non-discrimination? Value being lost in its post-intentional treatment (through conceptual reification, cognitive distortion, etc.). Such transcendental value also never being found in any a priori pre-considerations. Moreover, being mis-perceived in positions, or views (drsti), manufactured from the combination of these two tendencies (either to accept value already generally pre-formulated in a priori terms of reference or in the misplaced adoption of value post-situationally derived from previous, specific situations). In what other manner are we to explain the persistent sense of conviction running through the textual traces of both traditions? Mere deconstruction would seem to fail to account both for that irrepressible sense of positivity, and affirmation or re-affirmation, amidst such critical-negativity, and, the explicit, or implicit, openness to the suffering and being of others (and all the questions the religious person would wish to ask about the meaning of the human condition).
	I have made these comments as qualifications to a general modern approach that, I believe, as is the nature of fashion, has swung too far in the direction of deconstruction, e.g. Moreover, the Buddhist world then had a plurality of influences that were not necessarily as neatly packaged, and demarcated, as modern Buddhist scholarship might sometimes have us believe. E.g., it would be my contention that this text of The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines would have been read, amid a number of other attitudes, along intensely devotional lines (although not necessarily focused on some particular religious object) and that modern deconstructive analysis is not going to be able to integrate this, and other aspects, within the orbit of its technical application.
	In the Neoplatonic programme I perceive Plotinus commencing on the same type of transcendental-constitutional grounds as the Buddhist, namely, the exercise of a transcendental suspension, and, although thereafter seemingly taking different paths, at least in terms of direction and emphasis, he is constantly in the process of re-establishing the same type of transcendental format (through the thorough penetrating quality of his own deconstructive examination, and criticism, of this philosophical ground and its application). Let me now indicate the type of transcendental foundations Plotinus establishes for his style of philosophy when he examines the transcendental constitution of phenomena along the following lines:

It is like on the stage, when the actor who has been murdered changes his costume and comes on again in another character... We should be spectators of murders, and all deaths, and takings and sackings of cities, as if they were on the stages of theatres, all changes of scenery and costume and acted wailings and weepings.
	On a mundane level of experience we find the vicissitudes of existence distressing. Plotinus' advice here cast in a stoic mould seems to imply that the (transcendental) higher person, i.e., that part of the person perceived to be more spiritual, should be detached in the face of such adversity. Although the drama of mundane existence appears real we are told to qualify it as illusory from the perspective of this spiritual point of view. However, this qualification is not, nor meant to be perceived, in a fixed, definitive, logically clear cut fashion and, as a result, we should find ourselves entertaining, to some degree or other, a balance between both points of view, i.e., a position somewhere between the natural and the metaphorically illusory. That, for all practical purposes, as a consequence, a transcendental suspension was being entertained, or was meant to be entertained; an ambivalent state of affairs that undermined the apparent reality of the phenomenal world to expose through such a process a transcendental dimension. It would appear that Plotinus regards this dimension as the source of authenticity for that degree of reality, or validity, he believes we can re-find in mundane existence (as viewed through this review of the natural attitude). Such a dimension being seen to reveal that degree of authenticity resident in instances of evaluation, value, validity, meaning and meaningfulness revealed, or realized, in phenomenal existence. What would be the point of mundane existence if we were to dismiss it completely as an illusion, or similar, and, as a consequence of this belief, find ourselves quite happily going about the commission of some form of suicide either directly, by our own hand, or indirectly, through some form of self neglect? But, for Plotinus, personal existence must have some value, or a purpose, for he strongly counsels against suicide even though by rights, if we were to take him absolutely seriously, in line with the last quotation, we should regard that type of human action, along with all other possibilities in human performance, as nothing more than mere theatrical make believe, or similar, etc. In a similar vein the Buddhist emphasis on compassion, morality, etc., would seem to be a complete waste of time, albeit as an illusory waste of time, and thus we must reaffirm this qualification in both traditions to the effect that the world may be treated like an illusion it is not treated absolutely like an illusion. In other words the metaphorical sense of the metaphor is preserved and is not subjected to a completely literal interpretation.
	Not only are the lives of people to be lived out like theatre but the entire physical world, according to Plotinus, is to be treated in the same qualified manner as illusory:

Whatever announcement it (matter) makes, therefore, is a lie, and if it appears great, it is small, if more, it is less; its apparent being is not real, but a sort of fleeting frivolity; hence the things which seem to come to be in it are frivolities, nothing but phantoms in a phantom...
	Plotinus, in continuing from where the above passage leaves off, invokes a miscellany of images, e.g., mirrors, reflections, imitations, ghosts, voidness, etc., in order to impress upon the reader how wrong we are to accept the natural attitude at face value. In carefully undermining this faith in the natural world a point of balance is reached that in essence, for all practical purposes, is a transcendental suspension. It is my belief, from a serious consideration of this question, that in engineering beyond this point of balance a process of deconstruction would effectively be put in place that must further undermine our original faith in the natural world, yet, to what ever degree an attack is mounted, e.g., through a negative theological process, our having to be in the natural world in order to live out our existence must, in the final analysis, restore the sense of transcendental suspension initially arrived at and moved through. Moreover, on the assumption that not one of these terms can find either a pure structural-meaning or a pure functional-meaningfulness it follows that a sense of suspension is correctly defined as a balance between analysis and synthesis, between structure and function, between the parts and the whole, between the structural-reductions and the functional-reconstructions or simulated reconstitutions (arrived at through processes of transcendental deconstruction or abstraction).
	In our Buddhist text we find the repetitive exercise of numerous metaphors of illusion and magic:

A fully enlightened Buddha also, you say, is like a magical illusion, like a dream? Buddhahood also, you say, is like a magical illusion, like a dream.
Even Nirvana, I say, is like a magical illusion, is like a dream... For not two different things are illusion and Nirvana, are dreams and Nirvana.
	At a number of points in our text a series of negations are entered into that apply to a miscellany of topics, e.g., the skandhas. The five parties of this classification (forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousnesses) are declared to be the world (loka). Because each one of these parties is declared to be empty it follows that the world is treated in the same manner. In this regard we find a parallel to the way Plotinus treats the natural world. Further, in similar fashion, both traditions continue this type of attack into a religious sphere to treat religious terminology and imagery. In the quotation above we find this same type of attack even extended to the nature of both Buddhahood and Nirvana.
	If I may be allowed to offer my interpretation, with the emphasis on interpretation, of this previous passage just quoted, using a phenomenological frame of reference, then I would like to paraphrase it roughly in the following format - that transcendental consciousness (nirvana) is a purified empirical consciousness (samsara) and that as there can be neither without the other it follows from the transcendental point of view their non-difference (samata). That being the case the way is then left open for the person (buddha/bodhisattva) to experience an enlightened consciousness through their putting into place this implicit purification. Entailed in the denotation of the concept purification (visuddhi) would be, I believe, a thorough transcendental suspension of all ontological commitments as revealed through the natural use of language. Entailed in the connotation of the concept of purification (visuddhi) would also be, I believe, the net accumulation of religious practice inherited from previous Buddhist Traditions, pre-Buddhist traditions and contemporaneous non-Buddhist Traditions, albeit, systematized and harmonized to some degree through the lens of this tradition of the Perfection Of Wisdom.
	Suspension necessitates the entertained balance of a thesis and its anti-thesis (and not their complete mutual cancellation or incomplete and unequal non-mutual cancellation). However, in the balance of this state of affairs, an affirmation of the thesis is canceled by the counter-affirmation of the anti-thesis and, as a result, we are thus confronted with a transcendental purification of mundane consciousness; a phenomenal state of affairs that through its own self-clarification should allow the person, it would seem, to rediscover for themselves an authenticity of being. An authenticity of self-evaluation discovered through a non-distorted, or minimally distorted and rectified, consciousness that can spontaneously and appropriately function as its own source of value.
	However, at this point in this thesis I don't believe it would be appropriate for me to interpret further, and examine, the significance of this transcendental suspension, questions of authenticity, creation of value, etc., from the apparent testimony presented by these two texts in this regard. However, I would like to alert the reader to this experiential aspect of transcendental consciousness that appears to be presented, through various forms of testimony, in this type of text.
	Of course there is no reason why metaphors of a particular type might not work overtime and have other functions besides those aspects ostensively in play, or operating, in the manner suggested by some particular interpretation. Indeed, the putting in place of a transcendental suspension is, I believe, only one type of transcendental procedure and this very act itself is produced from, and productive of, various forms of reduction and/or deconstruction, etc., besides fulfilling an infinite number of other possible motivations. E.g., this act of disvaluational qualification of the phenomenal, performed by this process of metaphorical disvaluation, is practically a process of negation. In qualifying some process of analogy, metaphor or allegory limits are imposed that to that extent negate the apparent range of that device, closing off the unlimited application of this procedure. If this negational process of closure proceeds beyond that necessary to establish an adequate transcendental suspension the character of the text moves into a negative theological phase with all the ramifications attendant upon such an apparent transition. This complex topic will be taken up in the next chapter.
	In this Buddhist text the apparent functioning of an apparition, puppet, etc., is often dismissed as empty, used as an illustration e.g., of the non-discrimination of the Bodhisattva:

A fictitious creature [who has been conjured up by the Tathagata] to do a certain work [in converting beings], performs that work, but remains without discrimination. Just because it is so constituted that it lacks all discrimination. Just so a Bodhisattva performs the work for the sake of which he develops the perfection of wisdom, but the perfection of wisdom remains without discrimination. Because it is so constituted that it lacks all discrimination. An expert mason, or mason's apprentice, might make of wood an automatic man or woman, a puppet which could be moved by pulling the strings. Whatever action it were to perform, that action it would perform. And yet that wooden machine would have no discrimination. Because it is so constituted that it lacks all discrimination. Just so a Bodhisattva performs the work for the sake of which he develops the perfection of wisdom, but the perfection of wisdom remains without discrimination. Because that perfection of wisdom is so constituted that it lacks all discrimination.
	In this quotation the limitations imposed by the qualifications outlined by the text appear to go beyond the mere instantiation of a transcendental suspension and in the process we are introduced to additional material, namely, in this instance, the (transcendental) concept of non-discrimination. However, a transcendental suspension can still be interpreted as being textually presented on a structural level of interpretation (and trans-textually indicated in functional terms of reference through this trans-intentional concept of non-discrimination). On one hand we have in this text the appearance of a real life-like creature. On the other hand we have a recognition that this life-like phenomenon is actually a fictitious creature conjured up by the Tathagata. Hence the structural presence of a transcendental suspension. But the metaphor is to be functionally extended to the Bodhisattva's way of seeing the world, and, by implication, to our way of seeing the world (in so far as we each have the potentiality to become a Bodhisattva). As a consequence we have this state of paralysis induced wherein the relative safety of the natural attitude is undermined, put in question, made a subject of religious suspicion. But the attack continues and takes a transcendental-psychological turn in that it questions the appropriateness of intentional cognitive thinking in our understanding and functioning in this natural world of phenomenal experience. The suggestion is that we should open ourselves up to that discrimination that is a non-discrimination (i.e., that act conducted in the free spontaneity of an act of discrimination that is intentionally non-deliberate in its gestation, an act of discrimination that is without the intentional activity of discrimination yet completely appropriate to the phenomenal terms of reference apparently to hand).
	It would seem to be the nature of all forms of metaphor that their use is exercised in a delicate ballet of ambivalency on a stage bathed in the light of a negative criticism. Metaphorical expressions are critical, in a transcendental direction, as a direct result of their inherent ambivalency. The state of affairs x is like y but is not-y. Simultaneously we have both is and is not. Limits are automatically set, and revealed, at this point of potential paralysis, or suspension. The metaphor refuses to be merely literal and yet at the same time cannot be purely metaphorical by virtue of their reference to this being like a literal state of affairs. Then, if we sharpen our gaze towards the nature of the literal we also discover the metaphorical nature that, I believe, must also underline the expression of that which is ostensively non-metaphorical. The named is not purely named, it is a named something. That something is discovered metaphorically through a function that brings us towards the intentional object being named by virtue of the fact that it is neither the mere name nor that apart from the being named. Moving into, or rather towards, an object-language, or a Fregean referential-mode, we treat the name as that `named', as the intentional object or noemata, but, moving away from the former into an meta-object-language, or sense-mode, we treat the name as an act of intentionality, or, as a noetic act, i.e., as a process of naming. Usually the interpreted context declares in which orientation the greater degree of meaningfulness is intended. However, in the ostensive use of metaphor this noetic-noematic correlation is left ambiguous and suspended, or, on a more practical level of analysis the metaphorical finds an incomplete, or semi-complete, fulfillment in the superficial expectations of that function. So the world in this type of tradition is treated, e.g:
	
	as both like an illusion and as not like an illusion...
	The word like suggests similarity but not equivalence. So it would seem that the metaphor is discovered through a suspension of the metaphorical device. On the other hand the use of the metaphorical device suggests a pre-suspensional directedness of intentionality that sets up the frame of reference that allows us to read the metaphor as a metaphor in the first place. The critical dimensions of the metaphor being discovered through its apparently intended application, in its appropriateness and to what degree the metaphor can be applied without its complete collapse. Suffice to say that the use of metaphor, e.g., in the form of an analogy, allegory, or similar, has some important ramifications for the exercise of a negative theology, and, that its critical dimensions are complex and not restricted entirely to that ambivalency found at the center of its apparent operation and re-introduced through the re-imposition of this transcendental suspension waiting within the metaphor. 
	The dialectical, critical and negative nature of the metaphor has been noted by Paul Ricoeur and discussed by him under the concept which he has called split reference (référence dédoublée). In a discussion of this subject James DiCenso writes:

This critical dimension, which subverts closed frameworks of disclosure, is operative in metaphor by virtue of what Ricoeur calls split reference (référence dédoublée). This expresses metaphorical reference as including a negative or critical element in its disclosure. "The paradox consists in the fact that there is no other way to do justice to the notion of metaphorical truth than to include the critical incision of the (literal) `is not' within the ontological vehemence of the (metaphorical) `is'. Because metaphor subverts the literal and the familiar, it reflects critically upon these ontic "givens" concurrently with its disclosure of new meaning. 
	However, a discussion of this critical-negative aspect to the metaphor will be best continued in the next chapter. At this point in time let me again ask, instead, what might be the object of this critical-negative treatment exercised through metaphor? In the general use of the disvaluational metaphor of illusion (illusionism) let us ask what exactly is under attack? What exactly is being subjected to the transformational scrutiny of this type of metaphorical critique that appears to operate in the same, or similar, manner in both traditions? 	The simple answer to this question is, I believe, nothing else other than the natural attitude itself! Just as the transcendental suspension applies only to our natural attitude towards the  world, or some phenomenal aspect within that natural attitude, in a like fashion any critical-negative contributions derived through the use of such metaphors also appear to circumscribe the same intentional entity, namely, the natural attitude, or some part there of. Neither suspension nor some form of critique could directly alter the nature of the world, however, our attitude towards the same is the now obvious target of these forms of treatments. The rigorous non-literal treatment of the metaphor strongly suggesting that this treatment is transcendental in its orientation.

D.	Metaphors Of Depreciation

	Plotinus uses explicit metaphors of depreciation, or denigration. On the other hand this type of disvaluational metaphor in our Buddhist tradition could be argued for, I believe, on implicit grounds, or, at least on the grounds of connotation attached to certain key concepts. The emphasis on purification in both traditions, e.g., points to an element of disvaluation, implicit metaphors of depreciation, etc. However, in realizing that one of the prime purposes of metaphorical language of the type being discussed is the development of a state of transcendental suspension and not a state of disvaluation per se we should come to understand that metaphors of depreciation, or denigration, are neither necessary  nor, if present, intended to be taken literally.

	Plotinus uses imagery involving mud, darkness, etc:

no longer left in peace in itself because it keeps on being dragged out, and down, and to the dark... just as if anyone gets into mud or filth he does not show any more the beauty in which he had.

	And implicit in such language is a washing metaphor of 

purification:

if he is to be beautiful again, is to wash and clean himself and so be again what he was before.
	But the use of metaphors of mud, darkness, etc., are not to be taken too literally, are more correctly symbolic of an ugly soul:

Suppose, then, an ugly soul, dissolute and unjust, full of all lusts, and all disturbances, sunk in fears by its cowardice and jealousies...
	Metaphors of washing, being metaphorical, must not be taken too literally.

	In the Buddhist text we find:

Free from defilement is perfect wisdom.
From purity.
There is no attainment or reunion in 
					perfect wisdom.
From purity.
Perfect wisdom does not reproduce itself.
From purity...

	However in this same text we are also told that:

For what is isolated cannot be defiled or purified, what is empty cannot be defiled or purified, and what is isolated and empty cannot know full enlightenment.
	One way the text defuses this contradiction between the existence of purity and defilement, and, the non-existence of the same (and the `fact' that there is no one who is, was or will be enlightened, etc.,) is to make the observation that it is the preoccupation of beings to become involved in making the distinction between I and mine (and that which is not-I and not-mine). This introduces an element of the impure and constitutes a subject contaminated, or defiled, by this mis-interpretation of the former (the natural absolutized vision of a sense of self). It could also be argued that as mis-interpretation is also, to a certain extent, a partial recognition of the non-misinterpreted access is potentially open to a more successful re-interpretation of the prior mis-interpretation which is the implicit hermeneutical task that the following quotation has before it.

What do you think, Subhuti. Do beings course for a long time in I-making and mine-making?
So it is, Lord.
Are also I-making and mine-making empty?
They are, O Lord.
Is it just because of their I-making and mine-making that beings wander about in birth-and-death?
So it is, Lord.
	It would appear, therefore, that we can make the same distinction (as previously noted) to the extent that there can be no difference, from the transcendental perspective, between the transcendental (Absolute) and the phenomenal (Relative) and that only from the latter point of view can the mistaken exercise of natural discrimination appear to be valid.
	Interestingly, we could argue that on moral, or spiritual grounds, that a transcendental suspension in this regard is also in play. In neither affirming nor denying either purity, or defilement, a transcendental suspension, and perspective, is effectively introduced and maintained.
	Plotinus has a similar problem to the extent that if the One is the source of all phenomenal reality and the One is beyond such distinctions of good and evil, etc., then how is it that there is in the world evil, ugliness, contamination and other non-spiritual states of affairs. Plotinus adopts a number of stratagems, namely, e.g., emanation; declarations to the effect that the world is a reflection of a Beauty and Goodness that transcends earthly definitions of the same; declarations to the effect that there is really no evil, ugliness, etc., in the world, or, at least to the effect that there is no absolute evil, no absolute ugliness present, etc. The net result of these subtle manoeuvres is, I believe, a transcendental type of position similar to that maintained by the Perfection of Wisdom tradition, albeit, with  a number of different orientations in bias, or emphasis, in the manner of its textual expression.
	If one accepts that the subject of disvaluation is the natural attitude and not the nature of the world per se then it is but a short step away to realize that there need not be a symmetry between metaphors of disvaluation and depreciation, etc. Whilst metaphors of depreciation may or may not be used in a disvaluation of the natural attitude it does not follow from the use of disvaluation in general that metaphors of depreciation, etc., must directly or indirectly be in use at the same time (although there may be a high probability for the same in at least implicit terms of reference). Such an attitude of depreciation may or may not be implicated in disvaluational treatment. Given the latter it does not follow that the former need be explicit, or implicit for that matter. Moreover, as a transcendental philosophy would appear to involve a high metaphorical content in its structural-functioning the foundations established through the transcendental suspension would seem to ensure that for all this subtlety depreciation, denigration, etc., could never be argued for in absolute terms of reference either positively or negatively. That disvaluational treatment may include, or entails, depreciatory treatment but not vice versa. 
	On this understanding we can now treat the apparent anomaly between these two traditions in regard to the observation that metaphors of depreciation are used explicitly in the Neoplatonic tradition but not in the Buddhist Perfection of Wisdom. It has been already established that metaphors of disvaluation are used in both traditions but that this fact alone does not necessitate a symmetry in the usage of metaphorical disvaluation along the lines of depreciatory imagery, etc. This insight can also resolve a second anomaly, ostensively less serious than the first, to the effect that the Buddhist tradition uses metaphors of magic, whereas, the Neoplatonic tradition rarely uses the same; certainly not with the same critical and devotional intensity nor with the same additional conceptual baggage exercised in tandem.

E.	Metaphors Of Magic

	In this Buddhist text of The Perfection Of Wisdom In Eight Thousand Verses metaphors, instances, and examples of magic are used throughout. Indeed, this almost psychedelic use of the miraculous has a number of interrelated tasks to perform from the creation of religious awe for the Tathagatas, and the Bodhisattvas, to the installation of the idea that ontologically, from a transcendental perspective, there is no difference between the real and the illusory, that all phenomena are without self-existence (svabhava) (and that an enlightened being does not intentionally set out to discriminate one phenomenon as different from the next). Running throughout this miscellany of `wonderful' events lies the ever present transcendental suspension  and its access to a sense of the transcendental, or absolute dimension, entailed in such an attitude. In this latter regard metaphors of magic are little different from the structural-function of metaphors of illusion (or for that matter metaphors of depreciation).

Thereupon the thought came to Sakra: Let me now... conjure up some flowers, and scatter them over the Holy Subhuti. Sakra then conjured up some flowers, and scattered them over the venerable Subhuti... These flowers, which Sakra has scattered are magical creations... They have not issued from trees, shrubs, or creepers. These flowers did not issue forth at all. These flowers which Sakra has scattered are mind-made. Sakra replied: these flowers did not issue forth at all. For there are really no flowers, whether they issue forth form mind, trees, shrubs or creepers. Subhuti then said to him: As you say, Kausika, `these flowers did not issue forth at all, neither from mind, nor from trees, shrubs or creepers'-because that which has never issued forth is not a flower.
Then the thought came to Sakra, Chief of the Gods: Profoundly wise, surely, is the Holy Subhuti, in that he explains this merely nominal existence (of all separate things)... Then he said to the Venerable Subhuti: So it is. The Bodhisattva should train himself therein [in this insight]...
Subhuti: So he should. When he trains himself, he does not train himself in the fruits of a Streamwinner,... Thereby one trains oneself neither for the increase of form, feeling, etc., nor yet for their decrease, neither to appropriate form, etc., nor to let them go. Nor does one train oneself to get hold of any other dharma, even of all-knowledge, nor to produce one, or make one disappear. When he trains thus, a Bodhisattva trains in all-knowledge, and he shall go forth to all-knowledge... And when you ask, `Where should a Bodhisattva search for perfect wisdom?', the answer is: He should not search for it in form nor in any other skandha; nor in that which is other than form, or other than any other skandha. Because perfect wisdom is not one of the skandhas, nor yet other than they.
	This image of the conjured flowers is not just an exercise in extolling the power and glory of a buddha-figure, or bodhisattva, or some wise divinity, but a very complex skillful device for teaching this type of transcendental philosophy; a device that occurs in the literature of a number of other Mahayanic texts and traditions. Let me unravel some of the more relevant implications as they unfold in this dialogue.
	First, there is the image of the conjured flowers and their being scattered as a sign of respect over the Venerable Subhuti as a recognition for the excellence of his teaching.
	Then the observation is noted that these flowers did not issue forth from any tree, shrub or creeper. That they were mind-made. Added to this is the comment to the effect that no flowers ever issued forth whether they be from mind, trees, shrubs or creepers. This last statement is quite contrary to the natural attitude. And to qualify this statement an additional comment is added to the effect that that which has never issued forth is not a flower (which paraphrased might read - that which has issued forth might be a flower). So where do we stand, do flowers issue forth or not? 
	From the transcendental, or absolute, perspective both the Buddhist Perfection of Wisdom and the Neoplatonic traditions regard the absolute dimension as beyond production, movement, change, issuing forth, etc. In order to account for the phenomenal world of change Plotinus invokes an emanational model; each stage not actually producing its copy but creating it like a reflection in a mirror through the power of the higher to induce a trace of itself as an appearance issuing forth. In the Buddhist context there is neither creation nor destruction, etc., only the creations of mind that possess merely a nominal existence. Problem solved - or put another way, problems appear in phenomenal terms of reference if taken beyond their phenomenal terms of reference. Much along the lines of the Kantian transcendental illusion. For the Buddhist the reification of nominal existence is only productive of endless sorrow and misery hence the implicit soteriological consequences of training in this correct way of viewing all phenomena. For Plotinus, I suspect, the shoe is on the other foot so to speak: the phenomenalization of the absolute is productive of endless sorrow and misery resulting from this fall or falling away from the One. Now I accept I am entering controversial territory by proposing an essential congruity, or isomorphism, between these two traditions in this regard. In my hermeneutical treatment of their apparent non-conformity it would be my contention, e.g., that this Buddhist tradition has an implicit sense of the absolute, as defined by myself, whereas the Neoplatonic tradition as articulated by Plotinus has an implicit sense of the transcendental-deconstructive nominalism radically expressed by the former. Moreover, through the passage of time under the critical weight of scholarship, and through meditational-experiential reflection, what is relatively implicit would become increasingly explicated. An affirmation of isomorphism is not an affirmation of identity, rather, it is the acceptance of those systems, through the  greater conceptual proximity of their structural-functions, to naturally fall within a certain genre of classification. In this thesis this classificational genre is the transcendental-absolute style of philosophical-religious exposition, as exemplified by these two text chosen for this comparative examination, rather than some other genre, e.g., dualism, theism, absolutism, naïve realism, critical realism, idealism, empiricism, monism, gnosticism, nihilism, relativism, etc., etc.
	Between the apparent reality of the natural attitude and its being treated as magical, etc., a transcendental balance, or suspension, is effectively in operation. Further, through the extension of this qualificational treatment to not only apparitional illusions but also to factually entertained phenomenal states of affairs this transcendental attitude is extended to include the entire range of phenomenal existence as encompassed by the natural attitude. A transcendental suspension can be seen to be re-exercised in the lines that state to the effect that dharmas neither increase nor decrease, are neither appropriated nor non-appropriated, neither reduced nor destroyed.
	This transcendental turn is initiated, and developed, through the auspices of the transcendental suspension. As the suspension is developed on the grounds of a balance between all forms and counter-forms of value and the transcendental perspective is the appreciation of the constitution of the phenomenal presentation under review it follows that the existence, or the non-existence, of both the constitution of that phenomenal state of affairs and the transcendental dimension itself (without making an absolute distinction in this regard) are correctly not the concern of a transcendental(ly purified empirical) consciousness. To do otherwise would phenomenalize the sense, or meaning, of the absolute-transcendental dimension. To treat the transcendental on the same level of analysis, in the same terms of reference, is to make a mockery of this type of philosophy in all its subtlety, in spite of its warnings to the contrary. On the other hand, to introduce an absolute cleavage between these two perspectives is just as reprehensible. As the last lines of our previous quotation state: ...perfect wisdom is not one of the skandhas, nor yet other than they!

F,G,H.  Experiential Indication Of Transcendental Suspension

	Last, but not least, let us briefly investigate potential experientially orientated indications of a transcendental suspension that might be found in this type of text representative of this genre of philosophy?
	Under the provisional headings of Meditational Access, Psychic Equilibrium and Experiential Openness I have attempted to catalogue various experiential features that appear to theoretically, and practically, accompany the systematic exercise of a transcendental suspension in this style of absolute philosophy. An analysis of testimony in this regard further helps us to make some reasonably broad observations to this effect, albeit second hand both experientially and interpretively (through our being placed outside the original tradition and its sense of community).
	First, I would like to make the observation that on the whole the presence of a transcendental suspension is accompanied textually, either explicitly or implicitly, by some form of meditational practice. Traditionally, in the Buddhist world, one well established genre of meditation has been equally subdivided between analytical and stabilizing forms of practice, ultimately, through preparation and exercise being brought together; being seen to assist mutually the other in the final development of insight. With respect to the Perfection of Wisdom, and the Madhyamaka, it is difficult to establish retrospectively the precise nature of this relationship although it might be seen as falling somewhere between the early non-Mahayanic practice of mindfulness and vipasyana or `insight' meditation, and, the post-Dharmakirtian forms of psychological analysis, etc. I merely note these difficulties adding that much of the modern meditationally/experientially orientated commentary on the early Madhyamaka, e.g., is conducted through the somewhat non-contemporaneous lens of the latter. I would like to add here the comment that the metaphorical nature of calming meditation (samatha) is suggestive of a transcendental suspension conducted through equilibrium, balance, stability, etc. On the other hand analytical meditation (vicara) has, I believe, an apparent relationship with transcendental-reductive analysis and transcendental-reconstitutional deconstruction. This relationship will be examined in the next chapter.
	Plotinus, for his part, is continually introducing us to the idea that emanation is a type of quiet contemplation and that religious experience is realized through a return to, and re-orientation towards, the source of this type of activity:

But whoever has become at once contemplator of himself and all the rest and object of his contemplation, and, since he has become substance and intellect and "the complete living being", no longer looks at it from the outside.
	Moreover, Plotinus tells us that this type of contemplation is founded on a non-movement; a steadying, calming and stabilizing of our attention:

Therefore the soul does not move then either, because that does not move. Nor, then, is it soul, because that does not live, but is above life. Nor is it intellect, because that does not think either; for one must be made like. It does not even think it does not think.
	But for all that the attendant experience of revelation is recounted by Plotinus as being profoundly moving:

...but is carried out of it by the surge of the wave of Intellect itself and lifted on high by a kind of swell and sees suddenly, not seeing how, but the vision fills his eyes with light...
	By experiential openness is meant an existential suspension of all forms of pre-judgment (prejudice) in the hope that through this freeing up of judgmental expectations (processes of) revelation or disclosure or i.e., insight can be seen to manifest itself. That in effect a transcendental appreciation of the phenomenal world, as originally seen through the natural attitude, is put in place through a purification of the former.
	Both text seem to hint at a trans-intentional state of consciousness being `experienced' in a state of transcendental awareness? Through a transcendent, non-destructive collapse of noema and noesis, an identification of mind and world, an equivalence of the intentional self and object of thought, etc., this type of text, in its presentation of this style of absolute philosophical thought, appears to indicate the transcendental nature of its research, interest, ambitions, etc. What other textual grounds do have that might allow us to determine if a transcendental dimension is indeed intended in either of these two traditions?

3. 	Can A Transcendental Dimension Be Demonstrated?

	If I had to define my understanding of the absolute-transcendental dimension (e.g., as expressed in the Buddhist concepts of nirvana, dharmakaya, tathagata, etc., or the Neoplatonic concept of the One, etc., or the Husserlian term of the life-world, or the Heideggerian notion of dasein, etc.), one method I would adopt is to analyze these various expressions through the following grid, or schema. Taking a transcendental-phenomenological position as theoretically characterized by a series of terms, that represent a series of distinctive qualification of the empirical-phenomenal domain, and tabulating the same I would then, qualification by qualification, seek to elicit what correlation could be made between this classification and the term under investigation. Without elaborating further on the methodology behind this method let me list the following series of possible classificational qualifications that, I believe, can be used to distinguish the presence of an absolute philosophy (as defined by myself) and the trans-phenomenal nature of its transcendental discourse.

1.	Pre-phenomenological qualification, i.e., a consideration of pre-constitutional grounds and horizons for the examination and treatment of associated phenomenal presentations.
2.	Trans-phenomenal qualifications, i.e., that type of critical approach that attempts to overcome temporal, spatial, causal and/or egotistical determinations of phenomenological constitution.
3.	Pro-transcendental suspensional treatment, i.e., an investigation of those attempts that set out to establish a foundational transcendental suspension (as defined in this chapter). 
4.	Meta-structural-functional treatment, i.e., an investigation of those attempts that appear to transcend the terms of reference associated with structure-function, analysis-synthesis, reduction-reconstitution, essentialization-deconstruction, construction-reconstruction, etc., (which will be defined in the next chapter under the heading of the transcendental-reduction versus the transcendental-reconstitution).
5.	Trans-intentional qualification, i.e., a consideration of phenomenal intentionality from the meta-perspective of its intentionality qua intentionality.
6.	Trans-transcendent-immanent tensions, i.e., a recognition of those attempts to transcend transcendent and/or immanent terminology (and this aspect is examined in Chapter VII, under section Type V).

	This type of classificational scheme would correctly be examined under a pre-conditional investigation of the transcendental-phenomenological methodology adopted by a transcendental phenomenologist. However, the examination of this type of pursuit is not appropriate within the terms of reference set by this thesis. However, I have noted a second, over-lapping, list of such pre-conditional features in Chapters VI in an attempt to define the terms of reference necessary for an examination of this type of methodological examination in order to determine both similarities, and dis-similarities, in transcendental phenomenological style between various instances in this genre of philosophical-religious exposition.
	I have introduced this scheme at this point in order to indicate other aspects of a transcendental-absolute religious philosophy that could be used to demonstrate that this style of philosophy is being instantiated from a textual point of view. With this task in mind let me briefly examine the following quotations in the light of sections 2. and 5., i.e., with respect to considerations of a trans-phenomenal nature and trans-intentional nature.
	Plotinus is continuously attempting, through the use of a variety of metaphor, to construct a textual discourse that seeks to transcend phenomenal language as it relates to time, space, causation, ego and related phenomenal topics. Two metaphors he often uses are that of a container and the measure of all things. Other metaphors include the idea of the most powerful, an eternal generator (without the act of generation and which forms the basic mechanism for emanation), an a priori sense of a trans-temporal and trans-spatial priority, etc. Then, in the same vein, with respect to the nature of the relationship between beauty and shape Plotinus tells us:

Our reasoning insists that what has shape, and shape,  and form, all this is measured and limited, that is, it is not all or self-sufficient or beautiful of itself, but that too is mixed. These beautiful things, then, must be measured and limited, but not the really beautiful or rather the super-beautiful; but if this is so, it must not be shaped or be a form.
	Plotinus also spends some considerable time introducing us to the concept of a state of being beyond being, being beyond all things, that is also beyond the intentional nature of thought. Sometimes this is indicated through an equation between thinker and object of thought. On other occasions intentionality itself is deconstructed even further without at, the same time, creating an unconscious One on par with the material realm of the effectively non-existent. 
	Overall, this type of language, or rather a stretching and straining of language itself, is indicative, I believe, of an attempt to transcend phenomenal limitations in order to discuss trans-phenomenal and trans-intentional, i.e., transcendental, considerations. We are witnessing a transcendental-absolute style of discourse that is in the process of investigating the phenomenality of phenomena, or i.e., the phenomenal qua phenomenal; in essence a transcendental phenomenology. Such a procedure is not far removed from the putting in place of a transcendental suspension. In investigating the transcendental constitution of, e.g., the phenomenon of space, the subject matter is no longer the spatial per se but the phenomenal constitution of the experience of space. This type of investigation and its discourse is not anti-spatial but trans-spatial, or meta-spatial. Similarly, e.g., a phenomenal investigation of (the experience of) logic is not anti-logical but rather trans-logical (or dialectical in one of the senses I would give to this traditional term). Of course, in the light of this thesis, the nature of this type of phenomenal investigation, and its discourse, is transcendental once an explicit, or implicit, transcendental suspension is effectively put in place. As long as the nature of that discourse adopts higher terms of reference in its phenomenal appreciation of that particular phenomenon under review then the nature of that discourse must be transcendental in its orientation. E.g., with respect to an investigation of logical phenomena, if that exposition, and method of operation, is neither pro-logical or anti-logical in its treatment then in practical terms of reference a suspension of a transcendental nature is already effectively in place.
	In our Buddhist text we find the same type of preoccupation. One of the emphasized topics of this type of investigation deals with a transcendental interpretation of causal phenomena (as exercised through acts of will):

How then must a Bodhisattva course if he is to course in perfect wisdom?
He should not course in the skandhas, nor in their sign, nor in the idea that the `the skandhas are signs,' nor in the production of the skandhas, in their stopping or destruction, nor in the idea that `the skandhas are empty,' or `I course,' or `I am a Bodhisattva.' And it should not occur to him, `he who courses thus, courses in perfect wisdom and develops it.' He courses but does not entertain such ideas as `I course,' `I do not course,' `I course and I do not course,' `I neither course nor do I not course,' and the same [four] with `I will course.'
	This last quotation also demonstrates a trans-egotistical approach in its treatment of an act of willing.
	Similarly there is a trans-intentional attitude towards the phenomenal nature of thought. Intentionality is seen as being divided between an intentional subject and an intentional object. This division is seen as divisive, spiritually non-productive, etc., if we approach phenomenal reality (only) from a non-transcendental perspective. On the same type of topic we Plotinus states:

And the soul is so disposed then as even to despise intelligence, which at other times it welcomed, because intelligence is a kind of movement.
	
	And in a similar trans-intentional vein:

For there is not in that Good something seen and its light, nor intellect and object of intellect...
	Likewise the Perfection of Wisdom struggles with the same dilemma (as to whether the nature of thought is intentional, trans-intentional, both, neither, etc.):

Hard to understand, O Lord, is the perfection of 										wisdom.
Because nothing is fully known by the enlightened.
Unthinkable, O Lord, is the perfection of wisdom.
Because the perfection of wisdom in not something that thought ought to know, or that thought has access to.

4.	A Defense Of This Absolute Interpretation

	All philosophy is metaphor, conducted through the use of metaphorical language! How otherwise could we describe the nature and style of this type of non-empirical enterprise? Moreover, when we to that degree cease to be metaphorical then we cease in the same degree to be philosophical in our outlook!
	This absolute style of philosophy, I would argue, has a deconstructive respect for the metaphor. Metaphor is used on a number of levels. For instance, we have the use of metaphor in its normal metaphorical usage. Often this use is deconstructively analyzed when the dangerous situation of the literal mis-interpretation of the metaphor  is perceived as being about to entice us on this spiritually destructive non-transcendental course. Then, following upon such deconstructive treatment, the transcendental dimension itself is pointed to through the non-referential use of the metaphorical and more often than not named, or given a sense of being named, through a succession of such sense-like references.
	In dealing with phenomenal presentations, or appearances, both traditions use various metaphorical models to help establish for the reader of that textual discourse some idea of the nature of the relationship between the absolute dimension and the phenomenal dimension in keeping with the spirit or emphasis, or internal bias, of that discourse.
	In this Buddhist tradition of the Perfection of Wisdom, in keeping with their immanent and deconstructive emphases, we find the interminable expression of depth metaphors:

Deep is the essential original nature of the 										dharmas.
Because it isolated.
Deep is the essential nature of perfect wisdom.
Because its essential nature is pure and isolated, therefore has the perfection of wisdom a deep essential nature.
	On the other hand, in the Neoplatonic tradition, in keeping with its hierarchical, transcendent and essentialist emphases, we find a number of non-depth orientated expressions:

...for there was no movement in him and he had no emotion, no desire for anything else when he had made the ascent.
	Such language is not out of place in this style of absolute philosophy but these traditions would never sanction a literal interpretation of the same. Amid a sea of qualification one often finds paradoxical passages through the introduction of contrary metaphorical imagery. In our last quotation we find the coupling of no movement with the making of an ascent. Once more we are presented with a transcendental suspension, a profound form of transcendental balancing act that through its unsettling effects necessitates further qualificational treatment. It is my belief that this characteristic aspect of a transcendental suspension is the hallmark of this type of philosophy and that I am entitled to treat this style of philosophic enterprise as absolute in its orientation. Unfortunately, this expression has had a rather bad press and its connotation is often suggestive of quite the opposite, e.g., that reality literally hides behind appearances, etc., rather than the transcendental-phenomenological interpretation that sees reality as the constitution of those appearances and that from the transcendental-absolute perspective there is no real difference between either dimension. Both of these traditions can be found continually qualifying, balancing, canceling (existential and evaluative forms of affirmation), deconstructing and abandoning their ever present use of the metaphorical. The metaphorical is returned to its true center as a transcendental-like suspension between the senses of the metaphorical and the literal, and therein, a transcendence, or overcoming, of the metaphorical is instigated through a re-continuation of this process. In this style of philosophy all sources and kinds of value are potentially open to such a transcendental transformation. 
	In my defense of this interpretation let me reiterate the following definition of an absolute philosophy, as defined by myself, as the necessary presence of the thorough exercise of a centrally emphasized transcendental suspension in the investigational treatment of phenomenal reality.
	In the light of this definition we can see that the scholastic treatment of dharmas, e.g., as conducted by the Sarvastivadins, must fail as an instance of an absolute philosophy through the absence of a transcendental suspension as manifested through their conviction that all dharmas exist. Similarly, dualistic and gnostic forms of philosophical discourse must also fail if the presence of a transcendental suspension is also absent in their declaration that two, or more, realms of existence exist. Likewise, philosophical skepticism, relativism, and nihilism will all equally fail for the opposite reason, namely, that either the declaration of some form of  disbelief in the existence of reality, truth, etc., or, the belief of the non-reality of the phenomena in question is equally indicative of the absence of a transcendental suspension.
	On the other hand both the Neoplatonic and the Buddhist Wisdom traditions centrally emphasize a transcendental suspension through direct and indirect approaches, e.g., through process of disvaluation, negative theological processes of negation and transcendence (or abstraction), metaphor, deconstruction of metaphor, the use of paradox, etc. Thus I am forced to conclude, in these terms of reference, that both traditions are instances of absolute philosophy. However, both traditions naturally have a difference in style and, I admit, that in many ways this difference is just as profound as their absolute structural-functional similarities. In the use of the expression the sense of the absolute (or Absolute) I leave open potential differences and conflicts in order to concentrate on this common ground. However, to redress this balance, later in this thesis I shall briefly present, as a provisional hermeneutical-heuristic device, a Typological Classification of Absolute Philosophy that will focus on the apparent disconformity that must still exist between these two traditions in this regard.

Conclusion

	To conclude this chapter let me summarize the following points in relation to the concept of disvaluation.
	Firstly, as a process of devaluation disvaluation is applied to the natural attitude and not the phenomenal world per se. The natural attitude includes both the empirical world as naïvely perceived and any positive theological religious treatment of that everyday point of view.
	Secondly, this textual phenomenon of the application of disvaluation to the natural attitude is conducted in, and productive of, a transcendental phenomenological attitude instigating a transcendental turn or a process of transcendental transformation (or purification) of our phenomenological appreciation of that under investigation, or subject to speculation.
	Thirdly, this transcendental suspension is put in place either directly, through paradox, a negative theological process, or indirectly, through metaphor, deconstruction of metaphor, etc. Textual processes of disvaluation being constructed either directly or indirectly depending on the nature of their formulation. E.g., the paradoxical use of metaphor is more likely used in a direct fashion whereas, on the other hand, the metaphorical use of illusion (illusionism) is most likely to be used less directly by comparison.
	Lastly, I believe, I have adequately shown that my interpretations of these two traditions, from a textual perspective in accordance with the development of my own hermeneutics, to be instances of a transcendental-absolute orientated style of religious-philosophy. That through the centralization of processes of disvaluation and the consequent installation of a transcendental suspension both traditions reinterpret their phenomenological investigations from a transcendental perspective. However, I regard this creation, or induction, of a transcendental suspension as being the beginning of a process of transcendental transformation and not its immediate end. In a heuristic device I call a transcendental-phenomenological-hermeneutical-circle I perceive the presence of a transcendental suspension as only the first of three moments. In the next chapter I will investigate these two other moments of the transcendental reduction and the transcendental reconstitution and therein, more by implication, complete this analysis of disvaluation.

Endnotes III - Disvaluation Re-Examined