Foreword

	In this pre-introduction I would like to give the reader an overall picture, or map, of what is entailed in this thesis - the primary objective of this enterprise, some directions on how I intend this ambition to be achieved, and the type of methodological ground upon which this task was commenced. 
	The primary objective of this thesis is, as my title states, a comparative examination of the contemporaneous Neoplatonic and Indian-Buddhist-Wisdom traditions. Both traditions are approximately contemporary and certainly overlap in the time period involved in the production, and reproduction, of their associated texts and commentaries. Although neither tradition appears to overlap in geographical terms of reference, or in terms of a direct influence, I perceive both traditions as instances of the same type of philosophical genre, namely, as examples of absolute philosophy; albeit with their own independent styles of presentation. In this thesis I make a distinction between absolutist philosophies and absolute philosophies. The latter I perceive as involving a transcendental-phenomenological attitude towards the phenomenal nature of the natural attitude; access to a transcendental dimension, or perspective, being achieved through a de-phenomenalization of that natural attitude. I will argue that both the Neoplatonic and the Buddhist-Wisdom traditions are involved in the same type of transcendental enterprise: a project grounded on the centralized imposition of a transcendental suspension and the means adopted to maintain, and exercise, the transformational nature of that transcendental attitude. In sharp distinction to this transcendental-absolute enterprise an absolutist philosopher, in accordance with my definition, does not develop, or develops imperfectly, the centralized imposition of a transcendental suspension or epoche. As a consequence the sense of their project is a combination of the following, namely, meaninglessness (realized through processes of excessive reification), paralysis through the exposure of interminable contradictions, an implicit sense of transcendental illusion through the improper deployment of phenomenal terms of reference, an overall state of  disorganization and/or mis-representation of the sense of the absolute in overt, or convert, forms of phenomenal treatment. 
	A transcendental attitude is one that investigates the sense of phenomenal presentation. Its interest is constitutional, hence its trans-constitutional perspective. Consequently such an attitude is not directly interested in the phenomenal per se, e.g., matters of time, space, ego, causation, or, secular and sacred forms of phenomenal manifestation, etc. However, in so far as the former are meaningfully constituted, and in that regard, the former can be investigated from this trans-constitutional, or trans-intentional, perspective. As the phenomenal sphere is constituted in intentional consciousness it follows that a trans-constitutional perspective must also be trans-intentional in its appreciation. Hence the transcendental-phenomenological nature found expressed in this type of religious philosophy; phenomenological as we are investigating the phenomenon of the constitution of the phenomenal.
	Now it seems reasonable to believe that few people would dispute the fact that Plotinus is an absolute philosopher. On the other hand it is fashionable nowadays to dispute whether this type of Buddhist philosophy, e.g., the Wisdom tradition, is in fact an example of absolute philosophy. In my humble opinion those that assert this classification appear to do so for the wrong reasons, whereas, in contrast, those that vigorously deny such an ascription use valid reasons to a misdirected end. 
	With respect to the Buddhist-Wisdom tradition I certainly find it hard to justify a religious sense of the Absolute, but, then, I find it even harder to dismiss the presence of an Absolute surfacing through the overall flavour of that type of text. However, philosophical good-sense in regards to an absolute philosophy, in distinction to an absolutist formulation, should demand that this question of the religious presence of this sense of an absolute (as a meaningful presentation in this type of text) be translated into a transcendental format. This format would involve the specialized use of a transcendental language, a process of translation that should be attempted before we contemplate this type of question and engage ourselves in its possible resolution.
	To short circuit this type of process let me say, in advance, that this transcendental sense of an Absolute involves the implicit religious treatment of the concept of a transcendental ego (not to be confused with some transcendent and/or immanent sense of ego). Treated in trans-phenomenal terms of reference as both trans-subjective and trans-intersubjective we find ourselves presented, when carefully conducted, with a transcendental concept that allows us to review a number of positions in this regard when a non-exclusive subjective-intersubjective bias is allowed to re-enter the field. It is in these general, and specific, terms of reference that I find more than adequate commensurable grounds to compare both of these traditions. The focus of my comparative examination finding itself falling upon this sense of an Absolute, or rather, falling upon these stylized senses of an Absolute. Not that these two traditions don't present considerable differences in the presentation of their own unique absolute style; differences, however, that can be accommodated within the embrace of this absolute genre in philosophical exposition.
	In the re-presentation of this thesis I have concentrated my attention, therefore, on establishing the centrality of this position that both philosophic styles are absolute-orientated and not absolutist in aspiration, and, that this sense of the absolute entails a religious sense of the Absolute. Consequently I have re-written most of it in order to clarify just these two points which were left open in the original presentation. In retrospect I perceive this position could only be demonstrated in the framework of a transcendental phenomenology and recognize the fact that when I began I had had little exposure to this type, or genre, of philosophy as exemplified by the work of Edmund Husserl. However, some years later I now find I am in a position to adopt, and adapt, this style of philosophy to the task to hand, namely, the demonstration that a transcendental exposition necessarily involves a sense of the absolute where by absolute is meant trans-phenomenal terms of reference. Consequently my methodology involves the use of a transcendental-phenomenological style of investigation in order to demonstrate that a transcendental-phenomenological exposition is actually in place in these two traditions. Moreover, in order to establish this interpretation, rather than imposing it, I will use three heuristic devices to help clarify, and circumscribe, this hermeneutical process that should allow us, eventually, to describe phenomenologically  the textual presentation of an absolute-philosophic style of religious discourse. I perceive a happy tension between the tendency towards the clarification of phenomenological description and the hermeneutical process of prescribed interpretation. A tension that becomes resolved in the ongoing mutual correlation between these two parties, i.e., this process of correlation releases more sense, or value, than that invested in this process of correlation. Moreover, I perceive this type of process as having the existential ability to self-correct itself through the richness of the impact the experiential aspect of the descriptive has on the relative poverty of our cognitive repertoire of interpretative and manipulative mechanisms. A resolution that I perceive taking place on at least two levels. First, through the careful effort that sees both parties mutually re-setting the agenda for the ongoing operation of the other. Second, through the impact this process has on the thematization of the associated horizon involved in that process of appreciation and the discreet changes in interpretation, or insight, that flow from the re-structuring of that horizon, or gestalt background. 
	The first heuristic device I use is an expanded Hermeneutic Circle, renamed as a transcendental-phenomenological-hermeneutical circle. I argue that for the analysis and/or synthesis of that already constituted to take place new, but related, terms of reference must be put in position in order to commence that type of process. The candidate chosen for this task is that of the transcendental suspension or epoche. The next stage, or moment, of this dialectical process in the establishment of sense is the focus of our interest upon the essential aspect of the constitution of that under examination. Finally, these first two forms of transcendental analysis are returned to the act of transcendental re-constitutional simulation of the phenomenon under examination in such a manner that allows meaning-structures to be made functionally meaningful, and vice versa. Any two parties of this circle, or triangle, being seen to co-thematize, through contrast, the significance of their mutual third party. This co-thematization of significance, through contrast, finding itself taking place on transcendental, phenomenological and hermeneutical levels of examination.
	A second device, the hermeneutics of apparent disconformity, entails various considerations we might undertake in order to establish whether two, or more, events that appear to entail ostensive disconformity are actually in phenomenological fact structurally and/or functionally isomorphic.
	A third device, the hermeneutics of absolute typology, is a provisional scheme drawn up to examine these two traditions in order to differentiate in what manner their individual styles of exposition can be both accommodated and distinguished.
	Let me now highlight the passage taken by this thesis chapter by chapter.
	My first chapter is essentially an introduction. I note my initial motivation, state my methodology and discuss the phenomenological and hermeneutical dimensions of this exposition.
	The second chapter is a phenomenological examination of metaphors of disvaluation, i.e., metaphors that involve the ongoing non-extreme devaluational treatment of the world as, e.g., an illusion, or work of magic, or as an object of depreciation.
	The third chapter involves a transcendental-phenomenological re-examination of disvaluation, and, the recognition of the importance of a transcendental suspension for the establishment of a transcendentally-orientated process of philosophical investigation.
	The fourth chapter examines the relationship between reductive-analysis and deconstructive-synthesis and the implications this has for the development of a transcendental-phenomenology. In this chapter I complete my exposition on the nature of this heuristic device of a transcendental-phenomenological-hermeneutical circle. In the process I use it to demonstrate the circular nature of the negative theological process and that metaphors of disvaluation correctly involve a disvaluation of the natural attitude and not the disvaluation, or the devaluation, of the world per se. This has important consequences for the style of this type of philosophic exposition inducing it to shift, via a transcendental turn, from phenomenal and/or absolutist terms of reference to transcendental-absolute terms of reference.
	In the fifth  chapter I develop my second heuristic device, namely, the hermeneutics of apparent disconformity.
	In the sixth chapter I develop my last heuristic device, namely, the hermeneutics of absolute typology.
	In the seventh chapter I combine these three heuristic devices and examine typological differences between these two styles of absolute philosophy. My conclusion to this chapter, in effect, being found to form the direct conclusion to this thesis.
	In my eighth, and last, chapter I investigate some of the indirect conclusions, as a series of possible subtexts, that could follow from the ramifications of this type of enterprise.
	One final note. It is the nature of transcendental philosophy that it cannot offer doctrinally stated logically formulated truths. A transcendental philosopher can only offer transcendental methods and the results of their transcendental investigations. But the self-evidence of these textual pronouncements, it would appear, can only be experienced through the adoption of those methods. To complicate the picture further these pronouncements can only correctly be translated into, and interpreted through, a transcendental format. Such a process involves the continual transcendental suspension of those pronouncements hence the absolute philosopher, in distinction to the absolutist philosopher, can only utter metaphors and methods and continually clarify the role taken by the careful transcendental control in the interrelating of these two kinds of textual processes. The literal treatment of the metaphor destroying the transcendental value of that currently enthroned metaphor unless such methodological exposition is returned to the transcendentally suspended heart of the metaphorical. By its very nature the metaphor is a perfect transcendental suspension through its ability to affirm it is both like and not (absolutely) like that which is portrayed by the text of the metaphor.  
	Both traditions are rich in metaphor and it is only through the careful placement and transcendental interpretation of the same that an absolute philosophy demonstrates the power of its exposition (through processes of resolution), its ensuring transcendental critique being methodologically exercised under the influence of this power in, and through, cognitive terms of reference! Hence the double ability of the religiously motivated absolute philosopher, with one hand, to evoke a rich panorama of metaphorical images, and with the other hand, to wield a dialectically sharpened sword of provocative criticism against the `spiritual complacency' entailed in their perception of our staying in the natural attitude.

						 Noël Tointon, Leura, 27.5.91.