The new Journal of Buddhist Ethics has an interesting article up on Śāntideva, by Stephen Harris, a grad student at U of New Mexico. Harris is a colleague of Ethan Mills, who gave the APA talk about skepticism that I discussed in late December (and who has since made thoughtful contributions to this blog’s comments); Harris also gave a talk about Śāntideva on Mills’s panel.
Harris’s article returns us to the most famous passage in Śāntideva’s work: the meditation on the equalization of self and other in Bodhicaryāvatāra chapter VIII, in which Śāntideva takes metaphysical arguments for the nonexistence of self (Buddhist anātman) and uses them as a premise to argue for altruism, ethical selflessness. He asks: “Since both others and myself dislike fear and suffering, what is special about my self that I protect it and not another?” The self that I was three minutes ago is a different entity from the self I will be three minutes from now; the present self has as much reason to protect others as it does its future self. He adds: if you object that suffering should be prevented only by the one it belongs to, well, your foot’s suffering does not belong to your hand, so why should the hand do anything to protect the foot?
The Catholic Buddhologist Paul Williams has criticized this passage in depth, arguing that altruism makes no sense without selves. I’ve discussed Williams’s criticisms twice before, though I haven’t taken a position on the debate yet. I will note that several Buddhologists have already come to Śāntideva’s defence on these arguments – with varying degrees of success.
Harris is the first writer I’m aware of to defend Williams’s position (other than Williams himself). His article goes at length over the defences mounted by Mark Siderits and John Pettit, and concludes that neither adequately escapes the basic dilemma Williams has pointed to: if the self does not really exist in any sense that implies it should be privileged over others, then why should we think suffering is really bad in any sense that requires it be prevented?
Harris does finally part company from Williams, but only in his final remarks, which I think deserve additional scrutiny. Having argued that Śāntideva’s arguments in BCA VIII are not convincing, he now claims that Śāntideva’s arguments here are not supposed to be convincing; instead they are to be meditated on. He says that it is the Bodhicaryāvatāra’s ninth chapter, dealing with the virtue of theoretical understanding (prajñā), in which Śāntideva openly considers his opponents’ views and refutes them; the altruism argument is in the previous chapter, which is explicitly about the virtue of meditative concentration (dhyāna). The point isn’t to persuade people of the value of a Mahāyāna Buddhist path; it’s a meditative aid for those who are already on the path. In such a context, a contradiction doesn’t matter so much. One may switch back and forth between a perspective where suffering selves are real and their suffering should be prevented, and a perspective where they aren’t and we need to diminish our attachment to them.
Let’s accept for the sake of argument that Harris is right, and Śāntideva’s arguments about altruism don’t need to stand up to rational scrutiny because they are primarily meditative aids. If that’s so, here’s the problem: what makes these verses interesting and valuable is precisely their status as potentially persuasive arguments. Arguments for particular ethical positions, perhaps especially for Mahāyāna altruism, are relatively unusual in Buddhist tradition. This is why Damien Keown has argued in Buddhist Studies from India to America (falsely, in my view) that there is no such thing as Buddhist ethics. Śāntideva’s argument appears as one of the most preeminent counterexamples, though not the only one.
That this argument is taken as an argument is the reason – it may be the only reason – it has attracted so much attention in recent years. A 1998 reader in ethics includes BCA verses VIII.89-140 alongside readings from Aristotle’s Ethics and Kant’s Grounding – and Xunzi, Aquinas and Epicurus – precisely because it makes an argument for a Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical ethics. David Cooper, the reader’s editor, says: “Although both authors [Śāntideva and Tsong kha pa, who also has a selection in the book] speak of ‘methods’ for inducing a compassionate attitude, we might instead think of these as arguments for why one ought to adopt such an attitude.”
So if Harris is right and Śāntideva didn’t intend the arguments to be taken seriously as arguments, this is quite a sad thing. If Harris is correct, the likely lesson to be taken is that we should stop paying such close attention to this part of Śāntideva’s work, for it isn’t really worthy of it. Better to look at parts of the BCA that make a genuine contribution, such as its sixth chapter’s beautiful thoughts on anger. If this section is worth our taking seriously at all as cross-cultural philosophers, it is because it offers an argument for Mahāyāna altruism, and is not merely a guide for meditation.
Interesting post, but I am puzzled that the incoherence of some of the ideas is not evident.
What is the “anatman” thesis? What does it mean “to deny the self”?
Let’s be very clear at the outset that it makes no sense to say that any of the following claims is tantamount to a denial of the self:
a. The self is a compound or complex entity.
b. The self depends on many factors for its existence or continuation.
c. The self is subject to change.
None of these claims deny the self. In fact, and obviously, they presuppose and imply its existence! And this point is not unique to the self. All statements which affirm those predicates presuppose that the subject, whatever it is, exists.
So, what in the name of the pure land is being denied when the self is denied? It can only mean and imply the following:
1. There is no entity which is the referent of subjective and objective personal pronouns and proper names of individuals.
2. There are no individuals.
3. There are no agents, i.e., self-conscious entities who choose their actions and are held responsible for those choices and actions.
4. There is no such thing as self-identity or identifying oneself as a certain kind of individual.
5. There is no such thing as a personal experience, i.e., an experience which is mine and not yours.
All of these five implications are so laden with total falsity and absurdity that it is positively pathological to pretend that they are profound truths.
The absurdity of the idea that altruism could be based on such claims boggles sanity. Altruism, by definition, is the promotion of the interests of other SELVES even at the expense of SELF-interest. The advocacy of altruism implies a self which subscribes to altruism and a self which is addressing other selves and wants other selves to subscribe to that ethical doctrine. This is so obvious that I think it is a case of total intellectual perversion to deny it.
I should imagine that the notion of paramarthika and vyavaharika truth would come into play here, that what is conventionally true at an intersubjective level would be canceled at the metaphysical monistic level. It is a question of experience versus realisation. That brings on the paradox of how opposing positions can be true at one and the same time to which the sage might reply that time does not come into the state of complete enlightenment. Sages are tricky customers that cause great hilarity in those quarters that do not accept the notion of levels of attainment.
So, tentatively, though you have faith in the anatman doctrine you act by what you feel.
Both Stephen’s article and Williams’s original article do spend a significant amount of time exploring the distinction between conventional/saṃvṛti and ultimate/paramārtha truth. I didn’t have the space to explore that above. But they both make a key point: if the self is real at the saṃvṛti level but unreal at the paramārtha level (which is the way the distinction would seem to help us), then at the saṃvṛti level its breakdown doesn’t give us a reason to be altruistic, since we still have a self there.
However, they don’t mention something else you allude to: the idea of multiple levels of attainment, which Śāntideva discusses in chapter IX along with the BCA’s only reference to conventional and ultimate truth. As you suggest, it is possible that Ś might defend himself with a reference to something like anekāntavāda, where each perspective is true to some extent but only the liberated sage can see how they are all true at once.
Thanks so much for the post, and for the comments by the other readers as well. (It’s almost as exciting to be featured in Amod’s blog as it is to be included in JBE!)
So let’s say (for a couple moments longer!) that my suggestion that Śāntideva primarily intended this passage as an aid to reducing anger, rather than a normative argument to convince us to become altruistic, is correct. I actually think this makes the passage very interesting. Here we have a set of verses in the form of an argument, in which the author’s intention is to help us feel a certain way, rather than do what philosopher’s usually want to do, convince us of truth claims. (Assuming I’m right) I find it a very interesting use of what initially appears to be normative reasoning as a skillful means to reduce attachment to self.
One of the things I find fascinating about the BCA is that within Śāntideva utilizes so many different strategies in convincing us to become bodhisattvas. The passage I focus on in the article parallels a universal consequentialist strategy. Then there are passages where he appeals to our innate tendency to feel concern for others (eg BCA 8:90); passages where he points out developing the virtues of the bodhisattva will help us suffer less (egoism) (eg BCA 8:129); passages that point out not developing these virtues will land us in hell (eg BCA: 8:84)(really intense egoism!); passages that present a eudaimonistic conception of bodhisattvahood as the maximal state of human flourishing (8:108)(at least this is how I read that passage). This list isn’t mean to be exhaustive.
So what do we make of this diversity? Is Śāntideva an ethical pluralist? Inconsistent? Confused? Do all these strategies come together, somehow, against the backdrop of emptiness?
I think keeping in mind his stated intentions in writing the BCA help answer this question. As he says in the first verse, this is a text meant to teach us how to become Bodhisattvas; the text as a whole is a how-to manual on how to develop Bodhisattva qualities. This is why I think Santideva is less interested (I wouldn’t say uninterested) in the question of whether any of these passages can hold up to rational scrutiny as to whether we should become bodhisattvas. A contemporary ethicist can point out that simply that fact that many of us feel sympathy arise when we see pain doesn’t settle the question of whether we are obligated to act on this motivation. Nevertheless, if the passage has succeeded in raising my compassion for others, then it has already succeeded.
I think where I differ from many of the other people who have commented on BCA 101-103 (and the surrounding verses) is I tend to see these verses as on par with the other passages mentioned in the last paragraph. I don’t think this is the key to the foundational grounds to Mahayana ethical theory (or at least Śāntideva’s position on it). And I do think the question of how well this argument (or “argument”) fits into the Mahayana project of developing compassion etc. is more important than whether it works as a self-standing argument.
This leaves open a number of interesting questions, such as whether there is any deep normative ground for why we should act altruistically, whether a Madhyamaka would claim such an answer was possible, whether Buddhists as a whole would think such an answer was worth pursuing . . . . I won’t claim the BCA isn’t relevant to thinking about these questions, but I also don’t think it was one of Śāntideva’s primary intentions to answer them.
Thrill, I understand Śāntideva to be accepting the conventional existence of selves, for some of the reasons you mention. (I differ from Paul Williams in this). I take the question he is poising to be whether, given certain Buddhist understandings of paramartha (I think probably an Abhidharmika understanding), whether it is justifiable to prioritize our welfare over others. (So yes, Michael is right regarding the importance of this distinction here).
Stephen, you flatter me! Thanks very much for your detailed response. I hope you will continue to be involved with this blog in future posts; I would love to have your further comments.
I suppose I overstated my point when I said that this passage are not interesting if it’s not taken as an argument. It does remain interesting – but in a way that should demote it to one passage among many, another rhetorical weapon in Śāntideva’s arsenal of upāyas. I think that’s effectively the angle you’re taking in this post. Which is quite fair, but I think it does leave my basic point intact: the passage still loses its distinctiveness, the striking character that has brought it so much distinction.
And perhaps more fundamental: there just aren’t all that many explicit ethical arguments made for a Mahāyāna position in premodern Buddhist literature; this is the most striking, and often seems like the best developed. If even this argument doesn’t work, perhaps it is the case that there just isn’t a reason to take up the Mahāyāna and be altruists. You may well be right that Śāntideva (like other Mahāyāna thinkers) wasn’t particularly interested in finding a rational justification for the Mahāyāna. (Ś describes his intentions less as a how-to manual and more as a self-exploration, to “perfume his own mind.”) But one might then well wonder if such a justification even exists at all. And if there isn’t, perhaps the proper response for us is to say that there’s no good reason to follow the Mahāyāna, and therefore we should dispense with it. That is Williams’s conclusion, in the end; and it is not clear to me how you avoid it, since I think you have accepted the majority of his premises.
I think that Santideva gives us a number of reasons to be altruistic, but I’m not sure that he has any deep theoretical commitments that ground this position. It’s a really intersting question what justifcation the Mahayana tradition gives for the transition from the Arhat to the Bodhisattva ideal. Good point about the potentail problem of the argument losing some of its interest if my suggestions are correct.
Thrill–I think Madhyamakas would claim that it’s not merely a matter of convention, in the sense of us getting together and deciding to acknoweldge them, that stars, persons etc exist. But they can appeal to karma and a deeply ingrained tendency to reify what are ultimatley conceptual imputations. I’m not sure that this is (at least) obviously wrong.
Neocarvaka–first off, great handle! Mark Siderits tends to gloss Santideva’s argument as trying to establish that we should remove as much pain as possible, no matter whom it belongs to. So if I can remove the most pain by taking care of myself first then I should do that (often the case, given the close causal connections between present and future aggregate series). But when I can remove the most pain by sacrificing my own intersts (eg the firefighter sacrificing his life for others) I should do that. I think this might answer your concern . . . ?
1. “in Bodhicaryāvatāra chapter VIII, in which Śāntideva takes metaphysical arguments for the nonexistence of self (Buddhist anātman) and uses them as a premise to argue for altruism, ethical selflessness. He asks: “Since both others and myself dislike fear and suffering, what is special about my self that I protect it and not another?””
Hello, Santideva, in your question you acknowledged the existence of “others” and “myself” in saying that “both others and myself dislike fear and suffering”!!!!
2. It is a horrible muddle to think that acknowledgment of the existence of the self must lead to egoism. It is also a horrible muddle to think that altruism requires or is supported by denial of the existence of the self. The fact is that the (meaningless) denial of the existence of the self makes both egoism and altruism incoherent or meaningless.
3. The fallacy of composition looms large in the inference from “X has undergone change in one aspect or part.” to “X has changed completely.” Just because someone’s hair is turning gray doesn’t mean or imply that he or she has changed completely into a new entity. Continuity of the entity is ensured by the slow rate of change of one element or part relative to other elements or parts constitutive of the entity.
4. The reality and continuity of the self or agent is presupposed by ethics. If we all subscribed to the absurd metaphysical idea of the non-existence of self or agent, or the equally absurd idea that any change in the agent implies a change OF the agent, then praise, blame, regret, and punishment, constitutive of ethical judgment and life, would become meaningless.
“Thrill, I understand Śāntideva to be accepting the conventional existence of selves, for some of the reasons you mention. (I differ from Paul Williams in this).”
Stephen, Consider this philosophical “trill”:
What do you mean by “conventional existence of the selves”?
If you mean “acknowledged to exist by virtue of human convention”, then it is category mistake, and, hence, nonsense, to claim that the self exists by convention.
Traffic rules, laws, and customs can be meaningfully said to exist by convention. But bodies, trees, stars, etc., cannot be meaningfully said to exist by convention since they will still exist even if in the throes of some metaphysical madness we all decide that they don’t exist, i.e., decide on holding the false belief in their non-existence.
The self is another entity of the same sort. Its existence is certainly not a matter of convention. Perhaps, it is the result of brain processes and functions. It certainly makes no sense even to think that we could all, selves that we are, come to an agreement that there is no self!
On the other hand, if you mean by “conventional existence of selves” the empirical (Vyavaharika) truth that selves exist, what are you contrasting this truth to? The “paramartha truth” of the non-existence of selves? Can anyone possibly know this truth?
I hope you see the utter nonsense in claiming that anyone can know that the non-existence of selves is a “paramartha truth”. The reason, and I’m sure this is obvious to you, is that the claim entails the reality of a knower or knowing self!
“I take the question he is poising to be whether, given certain Buddhist understandings of paramartha (I think probably an Abhidharmika understanding), whether it is justifiable to prioritize our welfare over others.”
He should also be asking “whether it is justifiable to prioritize others’ welfare over one’s own” on that selfsame “Buddhist understandings of (anatman) paramartha”! If there are no selves, does it make any sense to speak of putting the interests, including interests of enlightenment, of other selves above your own? The answer is obvious!
I confess that I am nonplussed as to the reason Santideva feels compelled to appeal to the “paramartha anatman” doctrine to justify altruism. If indeed he accepts the “conventional existence of selves”, wouldn’t this suffice for altruism? All he needs is a premise affirming egalitarianism or impartiality!!!
Thrill–I think Madhyamakas would claim that it’s not merely a matter of convention, in the sense of us getting together and deciding to acknoweldge them, that stars, persons etc exist. But they can appeal to karma and a deeply ingrained tendency to reify what are ultimatley conceptual imputations. I’m not sure that this is (at least) obviously wrong.
“But they can appeal to karma and a deeply ingrained tendency to reify what are ultimatley conceptual imputations. I’m not sure that this is (at least) obviously wrong.”
It is obviously wrong for two obvious reasons:
1. “Karma” requires a bearer or subject (aka Self) who creates and undergoes it.
2. “Conceptual imputation” and reification again requires a complex mind (aka Self) which does the imputation and reification.
The Buddhist can respond that all of this can be accomplished by impermenent but connected dharmas. Karmic seeds, associated with a given stream of dharmic moments, replicate until they ripen. Likewise, conceptualization can be explained as a moment of consciousness arising with associated mental factors. There streams of associated dharmas can be conventionally called a person, but there is no need to posit any underlying substratum.
“There streams of associated dharmas can be conventionally called a person, but there is no need to posit any underlying substratum.”
Why can they be “conventionally called a person”? And isn’t a self, entity, or person actually doing so?
We are actually positing an “underlying substratum” when we do call the “streams of associated dharmas” a person albeit “conventionally” (I am still unclear what you mean by “conventionally” in this context!).
Why and how does the sense and concept of self arise from these “streams of associated dharmas”?
Why do we ascribe thoughts, feelings, and sensations, the “streams of associated dharmas” to persons or selves?
The two-tiered reef which leads to the sinking of the Buddhist ship, lock, stock, and barrel is this:
a) the problem of explaining WHY we ascribe thoughts, feelings, sensations, experiences, states of consciousness, etc., to a subject or a person or self.
b) the incoherence involved in saying that “we” or subjects are aware of “streams of dharmas” and in the same breath to deny the reality of the subject or self; recourse to “called conventionally” fails to eliminate this incoherence and raises the additional problem of what that means and why it should be so.
“We are actually positing an “underlying substratum” when we do call the “streams of associated dharmas” a person”
This needs to be revised to read:
“We are actually positing an “underlying substratum” when we ascribe the “streams of associated dharmas” to a person or subject or self.”
Thill, whenever we use words, we are in the realm of relative truth. Relative truth is the truth of concepts — distinguishing one thing from another. So relative truth distinguishes self from other, good from bad, wisdom from confusion, light from dark, big from small, past from present. So, from the point of view of relative truth we can say that self exists and there is cause and effect. Relative truth can speak about concepts such as emptiness or non-self that point to absolute truth — but these concepts are inadequate.
The logical (relative truth) approach to reach a conceptual understanding of non-self is to look and to try to identify what we call “self” and to see if anything is there other than a shifting attachment to transient phenomena (our body, thoughts, emotions).
In another thread, I recall that you expressed the view that self might be posited as being the self-aware quality of mind (this is my memory — I am sure that you expressed it differently). I thought that this was an interesting comment at the time. The concept of the cognizant quality of mind is very important in Buddhist practice and philosophy — but a Buddhist would not say that cognizance establishes a self. In Jamgon Kongtrul’s commentary on Light of Wisdom, he argues that cognizance does not exist as a self because self-awareness is always a thought based on the past or the future (even if the attachment to past phenomena as self is a fraction of a moment in the past). The past has disappeared and does not exist. The future has not yet arisen and therefore does not exist. In the present moment (and the phrase “present moment” is inaccurate because it is a relative term that can be defined only with reference to past or future) the mind cannot see itself — that would be like an eyeball seeing itself or a knife cutting itself. This is why absolute truth cannot be described — only pointed at by using concepts such as emptiness and egolessness.
Hi Thill,
I need a little help here…
“Traffic rules, laws, and customs can be meaningfully said to exist by convention. But bodies, trees, stars, etc., cannot be meaningfully said to exist by convention”
I am trying to understand what you mean by “exist by convention”.
It seems that some things exist by convention and some things don’t.
Conventional existence depends on humans agreeing that the “thing” in question exists.
So the “thing” comes into existence, or is created by a meeting of minds.
This thing we create is mind dependent, human dependent and conceptual.
It seems that these things are also objective in the sense that they do not depend upon a single individual, but anyone would be able to know of the existence of these types of things.
Also,If for some reason all humans were wiped off the face of the earth, (or in a time before men and women started to do this “agreeing” )then all of these “conventional things” would immediately cease to exist, because they depend on human minds for thier existence.
Is this what you mean when you say something exists by convention? Or am I reading too much into this?
Charlie
“X exists by convention.” means “The existence of X depends on human agreement and compliance.”
Traffic rules, laws, customs, etc., are the paradigm cases of things existing by virtue of human agreement and compliance.
As you know from your middle school science classes, the natural world existed prior to the evolution of human and other sentient creatures and will continue to exist even if all sentient creatures in it are destroyed.
The objects in the natural world have the names they do because of human linguistic convention and practice, but the existence of the objects is not dependent on the fact that humans have cognition of them and have given them names. This is simple common sense and the foundation of all science and technology.
Metaphysical fantasies, by contrast, are in another ballpark littered with “loony bins”! LOL
Thill…..
“The objects in the natural world have the names they do because of human linguistic convention and practice, but the existence of the objects is not dependent on the fact that humans have cognition of them and have given them names.’
Thanks for the reply, but I am still a little unclear on some of these things.
Am I still on track here or not?
An example of an object in the natural world could be a natural tree.
But prior to our naming it “tree”, it is just an object in the natural world.
If I go sit on my back porch and look at nature, I see objects that we have named “trees”, I can accept that the name “tree” is a convention, so I can imagine a nature where the name “tree” does not exist, or only exists in the minds of men and women.
The problem now is what in the pure land is that object?
And it is useless to describe it or give it another conventional moniker, because all of these new ones are likewise conventional.
Even calling it an ‘object” is naming it.
What can I say about this natural tree?
How can I know it even exists?
If their existence is not dependent on our naming them or our cognizance of them, than what does their existence depend on?
I’m not even sure I can imagine a natural world of no conventional trees but only natural trees.
Thanks again,
Charlie
Charlie,
Why do you pretend not to know that trees exist and have certain properties? This is a far greater problem than the pseudo-problem of how we know that trees exist!
We have to refer to things. So, we have to use language. So, no problem exists concerning the use of “object” to refer to things we perceive in various ways directly and by means of instruments.
“The problem now is what in the pure land is that object?”
That depends on what the object is! Don’t fall into the trap of reifying “object” here! There is no such thing!
If you are using “object” or “thing” to refer to a tree, then your question should be “The problem now is what in the pure land is that tree?”. The question answers itself. It is a tree and for details on its properties you need botany text. But I presume you have some common sense notion of what a tree is.
“What can I say about this natural tree?”
Again, Charlie, stop pretending that you can’t say anything about the tree!
“How can I know it even exists?”
Ask a gardener or ecologist! Or, better, just go up to it and feel it. Or, much better, bang your head against its trunk! LOL
“If their existence is not dependent on our naming them or our cognizance of them, than what does their existence depend on?”
Pl. read a botany primer to find out what trees depend on for their existence.
“I’m not even sure I can imagine a natural world of no conventional trees but only natural trees.”
Your reliance on your imagination is the problem here. Just observe a tree or a flower with an open eye and mind!
I recommend the Chinese classic “Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom” by Sung Po-Jen.
Thill,
Now I am a little more confused.
Let me step back a little.
I am still trying to understand what you mean by convention.
You said….
“The objects in the natural world have the names they do because of human linguistic convention and practice, but the existence of the objects is not dependent on the fact that humans have cognition of them and have given them names.”
I think this means that you are proposing that there are two types of things that exist.
1. Objects in the natural world, which do not depend on human cognition nor the fact that we name them for their existence.
And
2. Things that exist by convention..
Laws, rules, customs exist by human agreement and compliance.
And the names we give to object in the natural world exist by linguistic conventions and practices.
Is this a fair assessment of what you are saying?
I am trying to agree with you but I have to know what you are proposing before I agree to it.
Again thank you for your time.
Charlie
Yes, that is an accurate summary of what I was saying in an earlier post.
Pl. note that convention or custom is inter-subjective and public in nature.
I would like to distinguish three kinds of reality: objective reality, subjective reality, and inter-subjective or conventional reality. The subjective and the inter-subjective overlap, but there is no overlap between objective reality and the other two forms of reality.
Objective reality is reality or existence independent of the subjective (thought, feeling, volition, etc) and the inter-subjective (consensual, contractual, conventional). Nature is objective reality and exists independently of the subjective and the inter-subjective. Objective reality is also the necessary condition of subjective and inter-subjective reality.
Subjective reality is constituted by mental events and processes. These are not always or necessarily private. Hence, my point that subjective and inter-subjective reality overlap.
Inter-subjective reality is the domain of consensus, contract, custom, and convention.
Many philosophical confusions arise from conflating the objective, the subjective, and the inter-subjective and from the failure to understand that the subjective and inter-subjective have an overlapping and interdependent relationship, but the objective is independent of the subjective and the inter-subjective.
Very neat and elegant. But how do we know objective reality? You seem to say that it exists independently from an observer — but this, to me, defies logic. The observer and the observed can only arise simultaneously. Otherwise it is like saying that light exists separate from darkness. It is nonsensical.
Of course, it maybe be possible to know something without logic — but that is not the point you are making, so we can leave it for now.
“The observer and the observed can only arise simultaneously.”
They certainly CAN arise simultaneously, but “can” does not imply “is”.
It is false that that they “can only arise simultaneously” because of the following alternatives:
1. The observer arises after the observed.
2. The observed arises after the observer.
Pl. see my recent responses to Charlie on this blog. I’ve pointed out some absurdities your (and Charlie’s) point of view leads to.
On what grounds do you rule out these alternatives?
Jim, when you look at the Sun or the Moon, please don’t imagine that they arise and cease to exist simultaneously with the beginning and cessation of your observation of them!
Our common sense and/or scientific knowledge of the nature and structure of many objects we observe daily is such that it would be absurd to think that these objects arise and cease to exist simultaneously with our observation of them.
In any case, please explain this wonderful simultaneity of the arising and cessation of objects and your act of observation of them. Why is it (allegedly) simulataneous?
You have not answered the basic question: “How do we know objective reality?”
Hi Thill,
First.
Thanks for your reply, but now we have 2 kinds of existence and 3 kinds of reality to deal with.
Let’s concentrate on things that exist conventionally and things that exist as objects in nature for a little while longer.
My question would be, Can we use conventional methods of knowing to know both conventional things and objects in nature?
Second.
Observe, verb: to be aware of
Observer, Noun: one who observes
Jim Wilton is talking about the verb, the act of observation. For there to be an “observation”, there must me an observer and a thing observed. During the act of observation both observer and thing observed must be present, or there is no “observation”. Can you imagine an the act of observation without both observer and thing observed?
Thill, is seems you are talking about the noun, observer. We can elect someone the official village sunrise observer. This would be that person’s title, he is the official observer even if he sleeps right through sunrise and misses what he was supposed to observe. So yes in this sense the title observer is not dependent upon him actually observing anything.
The point being made is that there is a difference between talking about the natural world and experiencing the natural world.
I would think nouns and verbs would fall under the heading of conventional, as they rely on their existence because of linguistic customs and practices.
Thanks again for your time.
Charlie
Thanks, Charlie, for your response, but you have not addressed my arguments on the absurdities of the observer-dependency or observation-dependency theory of reality.
The range of reality, of the sorts of things which exist out there, is not coterminous with the range of our cognitive capacities and stock of knowledge.
There are things and events out there beyond the range of our present capacities of cognition and stock of knowledge. How do we know this? By extrapolation from cases such as frequencies of sound and wavelengths of light beyond the range of our normal auditory and visual perceptions. I think it is plausible to hold that there may even be things and events out there which we can never perceive or know given our physical constitution.
Hence, I find any attempt to reduce the range of reality to what is encompassed by our puny capacities of cognition, or observation, or stock of knowledge, rather ludicrous.
“For there to be an “observation”, there must me an observer and a thing observed.”
Yes, that is true. And I trust you will acknowledge that our very survival as “observers” implies that our observations, generally and in preponderance, have disclosed a great deal of the nature of the observed and, therefore, are generally reliable.
Thill, I (and I think Charlie) are making a more subtle point. Because as you must acknowledge, there is no observed without an observer, the concept of an “objective” reality is questionable. I am not questioning what is perceived — or even what I project based on logic to exist beyond what I perceive. It is just that this perception always exists only in relation to an observer and is not “objective reality”.
Your view expressed above is a variant of a theistic view — that an objective, external reality exists that is beyond our “puny capacities of cognition, or observation, or stock of knowledge.”
So, I ask again, how do we know this objective reality?
Thill, I am an old construction worker trying to put into words some of my thoughts, I am not used to doing this, so bear with me. Thanks in advance.
Thill you are correct, I have still not addressed what you feel are absurdities.
Calling something absurd is not the same as making an argument against it. I am trying to take my time to get to know why you call these things absurd, but I guess that is too slow a process for you.
All of your “arguments” are convention based, based on conventional linguistic practices and customs, so are all of my arguments.
When you say there are two kinds of things “out there” you are employing linguistic practices and customs to extrapolate, infer and project, conventional notions onto nature.
Even the idea of there being an “out there” is a result of convention. If there was an “out there” than where are we? There is no “out there” and no “in here”, we are right in the middle of nature and the only way out is to think that you are not a part of it, by ignoring this fact.
You seem to feel that direct sensory experience will limit your knowledge of nature.
How can direct sensory experience “limit” conventions?
What you can know by direct sensory experience and what you can know by convention are not mutually exclusive. The only difference is that the one is natural and the other is man made.
The fundamental practice of convention is to split all of nature into things and events, to identify by naming.
This leads to compartmentalization and division of knowledge, which leads to a situation where everyone knows a lot about a little spectrum of the total knowledge available. We end up with specialists in specific areas of investigation, where no one is being trained in the “overview”.
It seems to me that direct sensory experience holds out the possibility of a total view, a samyak vriti.
You have just given an overview of “conventional knowledge”
Do you think that by investigating the subjective experience that somehow, something will be learned that will make all conventional knowledge useless? If conventional knowledge was not useful to someone, it would not exist.
You say that all of your conventional knowledge is based upon our collective, subjective experiences but you refuse to look at or investigate that subjective experience, because why?
Only because you cannot use your conventional, linguistic customs and practices to do the investigation,
You must put them aside for a moment to find out who you are and what your relationship to nature is on a subjective level.
I think that the point is, is that “our observations” are always subjective, it is not until we objectify this experience by “naming” it does it become objective. So all we (collectively and conventionally) are really agreeing on is the description of the experience, not the subjective experience itself.
It is only after the subjective experience has been objectified that all of our conventions, linguistic customs and practices start to kick in.
It is only after we project, extrapolate and infer by means of conventional linguistic practices that conventional knowledge and understanding of nature comes into existence.
The entirety of non-human nature does not use and cannot use “convention”, yet it survives very nicely without any of it.
Name one conventional bit of information that if I did not agree that it existed, would cause my immediate demise.
On the other hand all of our institutions of country and commerce and education and civilization are definitely dependent upon our conventions.
You say there are two types of things that exist, conventions and objects in nature.
When I ask what a tree is, I can only use linguistic conventions to ask the question.
So when you give me an answer by describing it, you too can only use linguistic conventions.
The question and the answer and the description only exist in our minds, conventionally, because we have agreed on these linguistic customs, we use the same language.
If I ask, what is the object in nature, before we “name” it and before we start to deal with it conventionally, I am still using conventional language, but this question can only be answered by the direct sensory experience of the thing we have named “tree”. At this point we must put aside all convention and use our senses.
Just because 900,000,000 people (the approximate number of English speakers) conventionally “agree” on the definition of a conventional “tree” does not make it any less of a symbol or a concept that exists only in the minds of men.
So, it boils down to what you want to know.
If you want to know the myriad conventional facts that we project onto nature, you must use convention.
If you want to argue that conventional knowledge is logical, and direct sensory experience is not, you will win hands down, because logic is one of the practices or rules of linguistic usage.
If you want to know who you are (know thyself) and your relationship to the rest of us and nature, then I would recommend setting convention aside.
Thanks again for your time.
Charlie
Thill,
Nothing?
A thunderous silence. Very Zen.
What?
Too much?
Or, not enough?
Am I out of my mind?
Or have I touched a nerve?
Somebody?
Anybody?
Thanks in advance.
Charlie
A Question For Charlie:
Did your parents exist prior to your existence? If so, then then their existence is not dependent on your cognizance of them since there was a time t at which they existed, but you had no existence, and, hence, no possibility of any cognizance of them.
So, there are at least two entities in the world whose existence is not dependent on your cognizance of them!
Yeah, not only does Charlie’s idealist view that the existence of things or entities depends on our cognizance of them lead to the great absurdity that his parents did not exist prior to his birth and subsequent cognizance of them, but also to the greatest conceivable absurdity that the world did not exist prior to his birth and his subsequent cognizance of it.
He also cannot avoid the absurdity that none of his remote ancestors actually exist since there no way he can be cognizant of them.
“He also cannot avoid the absurdity that none of his remote ancestors actually exist since there no way he can be cognizant of them.”
This should be revised to read:
He also cannot avoid the absurdity that since there is no possibility of cognizance of individuals, including our ancestors, who lived and died prior to our birth, that, therefore, they do not exist.
Putrid idealist metaphysical absurdities will vanish instantly into thin air when faced with the awesome forces of nature such as the infernal tsunami which has claimed thousands of lives in a few minutes in Japan on Friday.
Our much-vaunted consciousness or mind and its silly ideas on nature makes no difference to the destructive power of a tsunami or an earthquake. We are swept away by it in just the way other things are which stand in its path.
1. I fail to see how “a premise affirming egalitarianism or impartiality” can support the strong altruistic claim that one ought to sacrifice one’s interests for the sake of preserving or advancing the interests of others.
If the interests of the self and the interests of others are of equal importance, this does not imply or support the claim that the interests of others take priority over one’s own interests in just the way it does not imply or support the claim that one’s own interests should take priority over the interests of others.
What strong altruism needs is a premise which states that the interests of others should always take priority over one’s own interests. I don’t think there is any justification for this premise.
2. What the Anatman doctrine actually entails is that egoism and altruism are both delusions since the former assumes the reality of one’s self and the latter assumes the reality of other selves!
Neocarvaka–first off, great handle! Mark Siderits tends to gloss Santideva’s argument as trying to establish that we should remove as much pain as possible, no matter whom it belongs to. So if I can remove the most pain by taking care of myself first then I should do that (often the case, given the close causal connections between present and future aggregate series). But when I can remove the most pain by sacrificing my own intersts (eg the firefighter sacrificing his life for others) I should do that. I think this might answer your concern . . . ?
“…we should remove as much pain as possible, no matter whom it belongs to.”
That depends on the nature of the pain, on whether it is necessary, or unavoidable, for a significant good.
It does matter “whom it belongs to”. Otherwise, you are looking at foolish and clumsy attempts to prevent the just infliction of pain on those who would seek to create pain for others, e.g., criminals.
Once you are talking about “just infliction of pain” and retribution, you are quite far from any Buddhist concept of compassion — and, I would argue, not an altruist even from a Western point of view.
Jim, how do you think the cruel Nazi and Japanese war machines were stopped in Europe and Asia respectively? By throwing roses and rosaries at them?
You are raising a different issue — the issue of just war. Neocarvata (at least as I interpret his words) was speaking of retribution — “the just infliction of pain on those who would seek to create pain for others” — he was not speaking of use of force with an intent to stop violence, but instead an intent to inflict pain. This difference is in motivation — and it is a big difference.
Is there is no notion of just punishment or retribution in Buddhism? Have you forgotten the law of karma and the notion of rebirth into hellish realms?
Punishment or infliction of pain to prevent evildoers from harming innocent people is clearly not inconsistent with altruism. In fact, sometimes the only way you can help others and save them from those who would seek to harm them is to deter or punish the latter by infliction of pain in some form or other.
You must hold that incarceration of criminals is also inconsistent with compassion and altruism. Right?
You ask a few different questions. The answer to the first is that, as far as I know, there is no notion of just punishment or retribution in Buddhism. In part, this is because Buddhism is a non-theistic religion — so there is no objective code of ethics or neutral arbiter if what is just or unjust in the abstract. There are codes such as the vinaya — but these are best seen as rules for behavior consistent with creating positive karma — rather than objective moral principals.
Karma is a word that has a distorted meaning in common usage in the West. There is no concept of punishment either in the Buddhist concept of karma or the Buddhist hells. Karma simply means cause and effect. Put very simply, actions based on selfishness have a negative effect on the mind of the actor. So if someone loses their temper and screams at someone else — this has an effect. It causes others to tend to respond aggressively so the psychological state that the actor finds himself in is a world or realm with sharp edges, heat and enemies all around. That is a state in our human experience that is analogous to Buddhist hell. Similarly, selfless acts tend to have positive effects on the actor — others may feel grateful and generous in response, for example.
I think in your second sentence you are again conflating retribution with a concept of just war — although the emphasis on inflicting preemptive pain on an enemy seems to me to be very problematic from an ethical (not to mention pragmatic) point of view (although maybe consistent with the Bush administration’s assessment of proper behavior in response to a threat). In my view, this is inconsistent with altruism or with any standard of virtuous behavior.
Finally, it seems to me that incarceration is quite different than inflicting pain as punishment. There are different theories of incarceration. Incarceration serves at least the purpose of removing a criminal from the streets. In more enlightened times in the United States, incarceration also presented an opportunity for rehabilitation.
When viewed as punishment, incarceration, capital punishment or torture are all theoretically justifiable as deterrents to the committing of crimes by third parties (the so-called media didactic theory of punishment) and in the case of all but capital punishment a theoretical method for molding the criminal’s future behavior.
In the U.S., I believe that all capital punishment (and torture in the case of political prisoners) is for one purpose only — retribution. And, in my view, that is not morally justifiable.
“there is no notion of just punishment or retribution in Buddhism.”
The Jataka Tales are replete with just punishment or retribution! But there is something odd about the very idea of the alleged absence of a concept of just punishment or retribution in a religion. Given the social functions of religion, this is, prima facie, highly implausible.
“There is no concept of punishment either in the Buddhist concept of karma or the Buddhist hells.”
Buddhist lore is full of tales of punishment,just and unjust, by supernatural agencies.
Further, if a Bodhisattva or Buddha-deity knows that X will suffer as a consequence of performing evil actions, and has the power to prevent that suffering, but does not intervene, this is tantamount to just punishment of X by that Bodhisattva or Buddha-deity.
Jim,
There are many theistic elements in Buddhism, e.g., conceptions of Devas, primordial Buddha-mind as the source of phenomena, etc. Alan Wallace has an interesting paper entitled “Is Buddhism Really Nontheistic?” accessible at
http://www.alanwallace.or/Is%20Buddhism%20Really%20Nontheistic_.pdf
The proper link to Wallace’s paper is here:
http://www.alanwallace.org/Is Buddhism Really Nontheistic_.pdf