Category Archives: Asian Thought

Accounting for Hegel and the Pali

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Compassion, Early and Theravāda, Emotion, Epistemology, German Tradition, Metaphilosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Self

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My previous two substantive posts, on Thomas Kasulis’s intimacy/integrity distinction, went in opposite directions from one another. Two weeks ago I noted how the intimacy/integrity distinction seems to divide into two separate distinctions – an ontological one of internal vs. external relation between things, and an epistemological one of affective somatic “dark” knowledge vs. public self-reflective knowledge. Kasulis writes as if internal relation and affective somatic knowledge are all part of the same complex and vice versa, but Hegel and the Pali Buddhist texts seem to cross these divides, such that the Pali literature places external relation with affective somatic knowledge and Hegel the opposite.

Last week, though, I aimed to show that the connection Kasulis assumes between these aspects is a real one. What I pointed out was that an internal relation between existent things implies an internal relation between knower and known, and that this implies an affective somatic kind of knowledge – as an external relation between things implies an external relation between knower and known, and therefore a public and self-reflective kind of knowledge.

But if this is so, what do we do with the exceptional cases of Hegel and the Pali literature, which seem to involve one but not the other? Continue reading →

New article on Śāntideva, gifts and politics

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in External Goods, Mahāyāna, Politics

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I’ve just got a new article published in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics. It takes up a theme that emerged in my dissertation writing but didn’t quite fit with the broader idea of the dissertation. I’ve touched on it here a couple of times, especially in writing about Śāntideva’s anti-politics. In the article I go into more detail about Śāntideva’s rejection of political institutions, and why other writers have missed it – leading into it with the curious question of why Śāntideva advocates that his readers give gifts of sex, drugs and weapons.

One of the reasons I chose the online-only JBE for this publication is that they are, wonderfully, entirely open-access. That means absolutely anyone with an internet connection can read it, whether or not they have an academic affiliation. Have a look!

The different pieces of intimacy and integrity

03 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Early and Theravāda, Epistemology, German Tradition, Metaphilosophy, Metaphysics

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Regular readers will have seen how fruitful I have found Thomas Kasulis’s distinction between intimacy and integrity worldviews. So it is worth interrogating that distinction further and seeing how well the categories stand up to more careful scrutiny. The next couple weeks’ posts will in some respects follow my own thought process in trying to understand how robust the integrity/intimacy distinction turns out to be.

In explaining the distinction between the two, Kasulis breaks down the intimacy-integrity distinction into five main characteristics or features of each worldview:

  1. Intimacy is objective but personal; integrity emphasizes objectivity as public verifiability.
  2. In an intimate relation, self and other belong together in a way that does not sharply distinguish the two; integrity emphasizes external over internal relations.
  3. Intimate knowledge has an affective dimension; integrity emphasizes knowledge as ideally empty of affect.
  4. Intimacy is somatic as well as psychological; integrity emphasizes the intellectual and psychological as distinct from the somatic.
  5. Intimacy‘s ground is not generally self-conscious, reflective, or self-illuminating; integrity emphasizes knowledge as reflective and self-conscious of its own grounds. (Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity, pp. 24-5 and 32)

I have begun to think that one of these things is not like the others – but is also, perhaps for that reason, more important than the others. Continue reading →

Two gods

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Deity, Early Factions, Foundations of Ethics, Metaphysics, Vedānta

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Last week I examined the theology of Marcion of Sinope, who believed – as did many other early Christians – that there existed two gods, one good and one evil. I argued that Marcion’s theology is an ingenious way for a Christian to make sense of the atrocities in the Hebrew Bible. But this week I want to argue that the appeal of such a theology goes well beyond the interpretation of scripture in the West. Rather, it is also a way to help us understand the world, if we are to take theism seriously. Continue reading →

The innovations of S.N. Goenka (1930-2013)

06 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Early and Theravāda, Meditation, Modernized Buddhism, Monasticism

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S.N. GoenkaI found out via Justin Whitaker the sad news that S.N. Goenka died this week. The name needs little introduction for Yavanayāna Buddhists, but others may wish some additional insight.

Goenka, born in Burma, was a pioneer – really the pioneer – of what is now known as vipassanā meditation. This term vipassanā (usually translated “insight”) is found in the classical Pali texts, and so is the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta from which Goenka originally drew the meditation technique. Notably, though, the term vipassanā does not show up in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta itself. And that detail, I think, is telling about Goenka’s whole project.

I recall Goenka claiming, like many other contemporary Buddhist teachers, that what he was teaching was not new; it was just the teaching of the Buddha. That statement is not false exactly, but it’s not the whole truth. Continue reading →

To say something is to negate something

21 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Epistemology, German Tradition, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Vedānta

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Not long ago I attended a conference on a particular genre of educational technology. The conference presenters were endlessly positive, uplifting – they sought to inspire the attenders with the potential that their subject could offer for student learning. But some discontent rumbled among the attenders, rightly I think: these presenters are not really saying anything. Their theories are abstractions, perhaps even platitudes, that are difficult to disagree with but mean very little in application. Emotionally they can inspire us; rationally they give us no value.

In the conference’s smaller- group discussions (of which there were fortunately many), there was more of a chance to speak of problems, to complain, to be negative – and paradoxically, by being negative they were able to be more constructive. Why? It is far easier to understand what to do when you understand what not to do; you learn what’s true in part by learning what’s false. Endless affirmation of how good something is won’t tell you anything about what makes it good, let alone about how to put it into practice successfully.

As it happens, on the way to this conference I had been reading a book about Kant. Continue reading →

A journey to Buddhism with Hegel

14 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Early and Theravāda, Flourishing, Friends, German Tradition, Metaphilosophy, Modernized Buddhism, Social Science

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A few years ago I told what I thought of at the time as the story of my philosophy: how I left a utilitarian worldview and came to discover Buddhism in Thailand at age 21. I realize now that there’s something important missing from that story, and you can see it in the final paragraph of the second piece:

And yet, all the Western philosophy that I’d learned before didn’t just go away. I’d learned important, powerful, beautiful things that seemed true – and often seemed opposite to the Buddhism I’d found myself in. Is there a way to reconcile the two? One way or another, that question has been central to my life ever since.

That was the right ending: since then I have indeed been preoccupied with reconciling Buddhism and the Western philosophy I’d already learned. But if you only read those two pieces, you would come away with the impression that the Western philosophy I had learned, and would try to reconcile, consisted primarily of utilitarianism. And that would be completely wrong. Continue reading →

The atomized Buddhist individual

07 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by in Early and Theravāda, East Asia, Jainism, Mahāyāna, Metaphysics, Self, South Asia

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I have frequently discussed how early Indian Buddhism, like Jainism, takes an integrity perspective in an ethical or practical sense. I’ve said less about the theoretical side of its integrity approach. But I think that side is very much there. And it’s that link between theoretical and practical philosophy that makes the concepts of intimacy and integrity so appealing: they go “all the way down”.

I find it particularly important to discuss the theoretical integrity of early Buddhism because I think this is a place where Thomas P. Kasulis – from whom I take the very concepts of intimacy and integrity – has misapplied his own theory. Continue reading →

How a sensible person could hold the radical Zhuangist view

09 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Action, Daoism, Flourishing, Hermeneutics, Metaphilosophy, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Serenity, Unconscious Mind

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Last week I critiqued Chris Fraser‘s readiness to discard the “implausible, unappealing radical” view that he found in the Zhuangzi. My reflections there were general and methodological. Here I want to plunge into the details and see what might happen if we read the Zhuangzi in the way that I recommended there, rather than the way that Fraser takes in his article.

Let me be clear that what follows is the work of a rank beginner in the study of Daoism. Indeed, most of what I know of the Zhuangzi comes from Fraser himself. So I acknowledge that my attempted interpretation here may be totally wrong. But just based on the passages Fraser himself translates, I find it a more satisfying interpretation than the one that Fraser takes. Continue reading →

The appeal of the unappealing

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Daoism, Hermeneutics, Metaphilosophy, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

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As I noted last week, I owe a real intellectual debt to Chris Fraser‘s work for helping me figure out Zhuangzi – or the Zhuangzi, as Fraser would say. His interpretations have been of incredible value to me in understanding this very difficult thinker (or text, if you prefer). I have my difficulties with him, though, when it comes to methods of constructive application – of trying to apply Zhuangist philosophy to our contemporary context. Continue reading →