Ch'an Buddhism. Logic based?
Is Ch'an Buddhism more about observation and using logic to determine the nature of the world? I was talking to a representative of the US Shaolin Temple and he says they don't believe in anything "supernatural" or ethereal. Just the physical. I got the impression that their version of Buddhism wasn't so much a religion as a philosophical/scientific method. And those that believe in karma and reincarnation can do so independent of the general teachings. Anyone else know what they believe?
Comments (124)
Ch’an/Zen Buddhism has beliefs, but it is not about belief, it’s about unrelenting and strict discipline (sadhana) which is practiced in a highly controlled and disciplined setting according to the traditional monastic discipline (vinaya). It uses logic, but its aim transcends logic. Of course as it has now been transmitted to Western culture through several generations of books, teachers, proponents and enthusiasts, both real and fake, it has many meanings not all of which are true to the tradition that gave rise to them. There are now many popular books on the Zen of Golf, or Gardening, or Business, or [insert topic here].
At least, nowadays, there are credible representative teachers and organisations in the Western world, and the parent organisations in Japan have pretty good websites for those seeking more info, including https://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/index.html and http://zen.rinnou.net/. There are many others also. It is still a thriving and vital spiritual movement.
Mind if I pick your brain on this subject. It's quite close to my heart in the sense I sometimes feel as if I don't exist or, more accurately, as if I exist only to not exist. A puzzle that's so close to home that I'd probably commit every possible fallacy in the book. Thanks.
It's rooted in either something that happened to you or a chemical imbalance. So figuring yourself on this is first key, and if that doesn't help and you feel stuck Zoloft or ketamine infusions can help.
:smile: I'm trying to avoid chemical interventions but I smoke :grin:
Belief (faith) is fundamental, though, as Açvaghosha's Discourse on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahâyâna attests.
Who would go through "unrelenting and strict discipline (sadhana) which is practiced in a highly controlled and disciplined setting" without believing that doing so would, or at least could, lead to "Prajñ?p?ramit? or ‘transcendental wisdom’, or awakening, satori."? And until one had attained such a state one would have no foundation for believing that the discipline would, or even could, lead to it.
And even then one would have no inter-subjectively corroborable reason for believing anything at all about what the teachings of Buddhism claim (karma, rebirth etc.). The whole phenomenon could be explained merely in terms of brain chemistry for all we can tell.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with having groundless faith; we all inevitably do it. The point is that it should be acknowledged, not obfuscated by further groundless appeals to "direct knowing" as if that could prove anything about the nature of reality!
In other words the very idea that humans can directly know the nature of reality is itself an article of groundless faith, no matter how "enlightened" a person, or some tradition, finds that person to be. Intellectual honesty demands that this be acknowledged, and yet it so seldom is by adherents.
The aspirant also has glimpses of satori, which are validated by the teacher. According to Edward Conze, who is a notable scholar of Buddhism, it is essentially a gnostic school - the word 'gnosis' comes from the same root as 'jn-' in the Sanskrit 'Jñ?na' and has a similar meaning. The foundational texts of Zen Buddhism, such as the Lankavatara Sutra, are deep philosophical treatises on the realisation of the faculty of Prajñ?p?ramit? - 'transcendental wisdom', or 'the realisation of emptiness'.
Quoting Janus
It's not groundless to Buddhists, as 'the Buddha' is 'one who knows' - it's what the honorific 'Buddha' means. Of course, for you that might be a matter of belief. And in practice for Buddhists at some point it often requires acceptance on faith, with the proviso that it can ultimately be seen directly by them also.
Quoting Janus
I once saw an interesting talk by a neuroscientist who had investigated Zen and joined a Zen order - Zen and the Brain, James Austin. I don't think he would have thought you can 'explain' Zen in terms of brain chemistry, but he was interested in the correlations. You'll find a long lecture by him here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEIXijQctlQ. (He's not a scintillating speaker though.)
Gnosticism is the belief that certain kinds of experiences tell us something about the nature of reality. That cannot ever be anything more than a belief or feeling, no matter how convincing the experiences may be. So you see, belief is fundamental after all.
Quoting Wayfarer
Here again, the notion that what I'm seeing is direct seeing or knowing is itself groundless, or at best grounded on a conviction based on a feeling, perhaps even a feeling of utter certainty. But even feelings of absolute certainty are not rational warrants for beliefs. I realize you don't want to admit that, but you have no rational justification for denying it.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't believe such things, I'm saying that intellectual honesty demands that you acknowledge that they are beliefs that, unlike empirical beliefs, cannot ever be inter-subjectively confirmed, because there is nothing that can be presented as evidence. In one way or another we all believe things like that.
Quoting Wayfarer
If you think it could me more, then you should be able to explain how it could be. Note, I'm not claiming that peak experiences don't tell us anything about the nature of reality, but simply that we have no way of knowing that they do, no matter how certain we may feel that they do. In any case they don't tell us anything determinate about the nature of reality, because if they did we would be able to say exactly what they tell us.
The disagreement about the nature and origin of the cosmos and of the soul and the nature of the afterlife in the various religions is enough to show that religious experience cannot tell us anything definite. If all religions agreed, the case might be different, but they don't.
Quoting Wayfarer
Obviously I am speaking about what we would consider counts as evidence. Other cultures may have different criteria as to what would be accepted as evidence. European culture considered scripture to constitute evidence for the longest time; but that criterion is no longer convincing to most intelligent people.
Quoting Wayfarer
This is not correct. How could subjective beliefs possibly be "objectively true"? Even what are considered to be scientific truths are not. Why should anyone think that their personal beliefs carry any inter-subjective weight, beyond being able to convince others of their truth?
Others can be convinced either by compelling rational argument or by rhetoric. How could you give a compelling rational argument that your peak experience has given you insight into the nature of reality that ought to be believed, not just by yourself, but others? Believing that others should believe as you do on account of your "higher experience" or revelation is a form of elitism that may lead to far greater abuses than any liberal secularism.
Your personal beliefs being objectively true or not, and their mattering "in any public way" are totally different subjects. I didn't say your personal beliefs don't matter in any public way, insofar as they affect your behavior to others, of course they matter.
[Quote] The main problem with our usual understanding of secularity is that it is taken-for-granted, so we are not aware that it is a worldview. It is an ideology that pretends to be the everyday world we live in. Many assume that it is simply the way the world really is, once superstitious beliefs about it have been removed. Yet that is the secular view of secularity, its own self-understanding... The secularity we presuppose must be "de-naturalized" in order to realize how unique and peculiar such a worldview is...
Western secularity, including its capitalist economy, originated as the result of an unlikely concatenation of circumstances. To survive within the Roman Empire, early Christianity had to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's, and keep a low profile that did not challenge the state; spiritual concerns were necessarily distinguished from political issues. Later struggles between the Emperor and the Papacy tended to reinforce that distinction. By making private and regular confession compulsory, the late medieval Church also promoted the development of a subjective interiority that encouraged more personal religiosity. New technologies such as the printing press made widespread literacy and hence more individualistic religion possible.
All that made the Reformation possible. By privatizing an unmediated relationship between more individualized Christians and a more transcendent God, Luther's emphasis on salvation-by-faith-alone eliminated the intricate web of mediation—priests, sacraments, canon law, pilgrimages, public penances, etc. — that, in effect, had constituted the sacred dimension of this world. The religiously-saturated medieval continuity between the natural and the supernatural was sundered by internalizing faith and projecting the spiritual realm far above our struggles in this world. "These realms, which contained respectively religion and the world, were hermetically sealed from each other as though constituting separate universes". The medieval understanding of our life as a cycle of sin and repentance was replaced by the more disciplined character-structure required in the modern world, sustained by a more internalized conscience that did not accept the need for external mediation or the validation of priests.
As God slowly disappeared above the clouds, the secular became increasingly dynamic, accelerating into the creative destruction to which today we must keep readjusting. What often tends to be forgotten in the process is that the distinction between sacred and secular was originally a religious distinction, devised to empower a new type of Protestant spirituality: that is, a more privatized way to address our sense of lack and fill the 'God-shaped hole'. By allowing the sacred pole to fade away, however, we have lost the original religious raison d' etre for that distinction. That disappearance of the sacred has left us with the secular by itself, bereft of the spiritual resources originally designed to cope with it, because secular life is increasingly liberated from any religious perspective or supervision. When religion is understood as an individual process of inner faith-commitment, we are more likely to accede to a diminished understanding of the objective world "outside" us, denuding the secular realm of any sacred dimension.
The basic problem with the sacred/secular bifurcation has become more evident as the sacred has evaporated. The sacred provided not only ritual and morality but a grounding identity that explained the meaning of our life-in-the-world. Whether or not we now believe this meaning to be fictitious makes no difference to the metaphysical security and ultimate foundation that it was felt to provide. A solution was provided for death and our God-shaped sense of lack, which located them within a larger spiritual context and therefore made it possible to endure them. Human striving and suffering gained meaning; they were not accidental or irrelevant, but served a vital role within the grand structure of things.
What may be misleading about this discussion of an enervated sacral dimension is that it still seems to suggest superimposing something (for example, some particular religious understanding of the meaning of our lives) onto the secular world (that is, the world "as it really is"). My point is the opposite: our usual understanding of the secular is a deficient worldview (in Buddhist terms, a delusion) distorted by the fact that one half of the original duality has gone missing, although now it has been absent so long that we have largely forgotten about it.
This may be easier to see if we think of God and the sacral dimension as, most broadly, symbols for the "spiritual" aspect of life in a more psychological sense: that is, the dimension that encompasses our concerns about the meaning and value of human life in the cosmos. The sacred becomes that sphere where the mysteries of our existence—birth and death, tragedy, anxiety, hope, transformation—are posed and contemplated. From this perspective, the secular is not the world-as-it-really-is when magic and superstition have been removed, but the supposed objectivity that remains when "subjectivity"—including these basic issues about human role and identity—has been brushed away as irrelevant to our understanding of what the universe really is. In the process our spiritual concerns are not refuted; there is simply no way to address them in a secular world built by pruning value from fact, except as subjective preferences that have no intrinsic relationship with the "real" material world we just happen to find ourselves within.[/quote]
Bolds added.
From Terror in the God-Shaped Hole: A Buddhist Perspective on Modernity's Identity Crisis, David Loy.
See also The Strange Persistence of Guilt, Wilfred McClay, Hedgehog Review.
So my experience of sitting at this table can never be anything more than a belief or feeling?
The solution to this could be to embrace the experiences for their own value, and don't bother trying to translate them in to some collection of abstractions. Personally, I tend to see the abstractions and conclusions etc as being sort of a waste product of the experiences. We eat a nice dinner, and then perhaps we have to go to the bathroom.
Or, if one is incurably philosophical and simply can't avoid creating the pile of abstractions, then it might be wise to carry them lightly, with a wink and a smile. Like watching clouds blow by. There's a pretty one! And now it's gone. Here comes another one. Etc.
Example: Some people report they have experienced God. Often this seems to be a positive experience. So far so good. And then they may begin to insist it was God they experienced and not something else, thus opening the door to centuries of pointless conflict that goes endlessly round and round to nowhere.
Yes, thus the so very common assumption by forum atheists that they bear no burden of proof, that this is the other fellow's burden exclusively.
Why would you say that? Others can see you sitting at the table and thus confirm your belief in your experience of sitting at the table.
I agree with this; I value peak experiences for themselves, not as means to some imagined end. I don't believe any conclusions can be rationally derived from them.
Why would you say that? It is the theist who is claiming that something invisible exists. How could there ever be evidence for such an existence?
I say you are intellectually dishonest because you won't address any of the arguments made against your position, not on account of your holding your faith, but because you won't admit it is a faith like any other.
I don't care what credentials you might have; to cite those is a kind of appeal to authority. I don't care how much those credentials cost you to get either; if they cost a lot all that shows is that they, and/or the studies they were awarded for, were important to you, it says nothing about the veracity or intellectual validity of what you studied. You haven't done arguing about it with me; you haven't even begun to.
For years, I have tried to answer questions from you, to be told 'you haven't answered the question' or 'you've changed the subject'. What this means to me, is that you don't understand the answers I have tried to provide. Then you get visibly annoyed with me for not having responded even when I try and respond.
I didn't quote the cost of my MA degree because I thought you should believe what I say, it was simply to indicate the fact that I am sincere and serious in my philosophical quest. I debate on this forum in good faith, and sometimes I give up and walk away, but I usually come back because I'm still interested in the subject. But I've been told over and over by you that I'm lacking sincerity, intellectually dishonest, and so on, to the point where it's simply an insult, and a waste of time. Your intellectual horizons are your own business, but I'm no longer going to try and fit into them.
I'd say it is more the case that your mind is made up than it is that mine is. I actually used to think as you do, but I saw there were holes in it. I am prepared to listen to arguments to support your beliefs but you don't present any. Instead you make appeals to traditions and authority.
That's just condescending nonsense to say that if someone doesn't find what you say convincing then they must not understand what you have said. Of course I understand what you are saying; I used to think like you. I in all honesty don't believe that thinking (regarding direct knowing) is rationally supportable, and I think I have good reasons for thinking that.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't believe it; I don't go as far as to say what others should believe; I do say it is an article of faith, but there is nothing wrong with having faith; we all do it one way or another, but we also should not deceive ourselves about what is a matter of faith and what is not.
I try hard to honestly present my arguments and yet you don't address them with counter-arguments. Instead you go off on other tangents and then say I haven't understood what you've said when I point this out.
Because I'm annoying, stupid and stubborn, and insist on saying things that long experience should have taught me will accomplish nothing at all. :-)
Quoting Janus
Space, the overwhelming vast majority of reality, is invisible, and has none of the properties we typically use to define existence. And yet it is real. If you consider yourself to be a person of reason, consider how you may be completely ignoring a fundamental principle of your chosen methodology, observation of reality.
Phenomena which is invisible and has no mass or weight etc can be real. Not a religious doctrine, a fact proven by science. And not a tiny obscure matter, but rather most of reality at every scale.
Quoting Janus
So they are. And so they bear a burden for their claim, just as anyone making a claim bears a burden. Atheists are making a similar wildly speculative claim, though most of them seem not to realize that. You might be different though, I don't know.
What is the unproven claim which atheism is built upon?
That's just their experience. What if they are deluded too?
It's unknown whether valid conclusions can be derived from such experiences or not.
My point would be that to the degree we feel the need for explanations of such experience, what we're really saying is that the experiences themselves are not enough, a premise which I don't agree with. The irony is that the rush to explanations is in a way a denial of the experience.
If you are willing to admit that your position too is built upon faith, then this seems like a reasonable complaint. If you are not so willing, then Wayfarer seems justified in investing his time elsewhere.
Please forgive me for this guess, which is based on 20 years of experience, but no knowledge of you personally. My best guess, which could easily be wrong, is that you don't know that your position is based on faith, and thus you are being sincere if you claim it isn't. If that's the case (and it may not be), you wouldn't be intellectually dishonest but just not fully informed.
But if you say:
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
So if you believe that, then there's no chance that anything said in a forum will be likely to overturn it.
As far as 'appeals to tradition and authority' - what I say is, certainly in Buddhism there is both tradition and authority, but there is also the principle of 'ehipassiko' which means 'come and see'. Through application of the principles and the disciplined practice of meditation, then evidence can be discerned in direct terms. But of course, to you, that is a 'belief'. I can't persuade you that there is such evidence because it has to be 'seen each one for himself'. And as you've already declared that such seeing is impossible in principle, then again, what argument could be presented? What is there to discuss? You already know 'it's just a belief'.
Please read the long passage I quoted from David Loy's essay, which directly addresses your criticisms:
This is exactly the perspective you come at everything from. You're like a lot of people on this forum, the secular thought police. Anyone who says anything which questions the secular understanding of secularity better look out.
You say Quoting Janus
But now, you're essentially a positivist.
I liked you a lot better when you were Dawson. So, meanwhile, have a nice life.
Well, discussing doesn't necessarily require the possibility that anyone will be convinced of anything. And as you undoubtably know from long experience, it's quite rare that anyone is persuaded to any view other than the one they already hold. Many people, probably most, consider anything said on any philosophy forum to be a waste of time, a point of view which is not so easy to dismiss.
Personally, I keep typing a billion words to nowhere because I was born to type. If I wasn't typing on the Internet, I'd be typing in my head, just as I long did before 1995.
OK I'll take you up on your challenge of 'presenting an argument'.
This thread started as a question about whether Zen Buddhism was 'based on logic'. I responded that Zen Buddhism is based, not on logic, but on
Quoting Wayfarer
But you are insisting that it can only be based on 'groundless faith'. In other words, you're taking issue with the very idea that there can be such a faculty as Prajñ?p?ramit?. So not only are you saying that I'm wrong, you're basically saying that Buddhists, generally, must be wrong about it.
So here's my argument. Adherents of secular philosophy are obliged to deny that there can be such a faculty as prajñ?p?ramit?. This is because in that worldview, 'religion' is a private and subjective matter; it can only be about belief. Liberal democracy allows individuals 'freedom of belief', as you acknowledge. This is not because it accepts that belief means anything necessarily, but because of the democratic principle of freedom of conscience. 'Knowledge', meanwhile, is always public, third-person and verifiable by scientific method. So there cannot be such a thing as 'gnosis' or prajñ?p?ramit? in that worldview. It is black and white, open and shut - religion is never about knowledge, only ever 'groundless faith', which might be touching in its sincerity and might even lead to beneficial consequences. But in reality it has no objective reference. Reality is solely a matter for science.
That is why I quoted the passage from David Loy's essay. That essay was written after the 9/11 attacks, as an analysis of the terrorist response to the perceived groundlessness of secular culture. It's quite a sophisticated argument and is directly on point. You're speaking from 'secular culture's self-understanding'. That passage is an analysis of that attitude. You haven't said anything about that, I think it applies directly to your criticisms and the cultural background that gives rise to them.
Quoting Janus
Speaking of 'arguments', all of yours consist of this one: that there can be no 'enlightenment'
Now, what 'enlightenment' is, is obviously a vexed and deep question. In the Buddhist tradition, the word that was translated as 'enlightenment' was 'bodhi', which is elsewhere translated as 'wisdom'. However, here you're declaring that, whatever it is claimed to be, it can't be real. So I'm expected to produce an argument to the contrary. You want me to persuade you, by argument, that Buddhists are not, in fact, uniformly deluded.
I shouldn't get wound up about this. I think I'll probably try and keep away from this forum for another month or two, as it ends up wasting a lot of time. But please at least understand that I am not the one being 'dogmatic' here.
It might help if you could, here or elsewhere, dive further in to this description. Or perhaps point us to descriptions which have been translated out of Buddhist terminology in to something approaching every day English.
If the argument is "does enlightenment exist or not" then it would seem to help for us to have clearer understanding of what enlightenment is proposed to be. I've been reading about such things for 50 years, and don't have a clear understanding myself.
I REALLY hope you won't bail on the forum, but I'd still be interested in reading you respond to a challenge which I've not yet seen you address, though you very well may have. You're heard this one before I think...
I'm agreeable to the possibility that some form of fundamental transformation of human psychology may be possible, because there are people with special abilities way out at the end of the talent bell curve in every field. Assuming such people exist...
My challenge would be that they seem to be so exceedingly rare as to be largely irrelevant to the human condition.
"Ch’an is the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit ‘dhyana’ which means ‘meditative absorption’. The Japanese version is the more familiar ‘Zen’".(Wayfairer)
A patriarch of Zen is the Noble Nagarjuna. He is famous for making clear the philosophical foundation of the Buddha's teachings. In his Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way he reduces to absurdity all positive metaphysical theories, thus proving the logical soundness of non-dualism and a neutral metaphysical position.
So, yes,. Zen/Ch'an has a sound and unshakeable logical foundation. It's the foundation of the Perennial philosophy. This is why no workable fundamental theory can be found in Western thought. The only theory that works is the only one it rejects as a matter of principle.
Zen gives the appearance of being unconcerned with analysis and logic, but there's an iron fist inside the glove. .
Yes, air is invisible too, but air pressure and the curvature of space have measurable effects.
Quoting Wayfarer
It's not a matter of me believing anything. I am merely pointing out that there are alternative explanations, and that there is no way of determining which is the case. So, the phenomenon of peak experiences could conceivably be just down to brain chemistry. Or it could be a contact with a "higher reality". We can imagine both explanations. We cannot know which is true. So, if we opt for one or the other faith is involved. That's all I'm saying. The frustrating thing is that you don't listen to what I'm saying but instead put me into one of your preconceived boxes that you feel you can tidily dismiss.
Absolute certainty about some proposition in any person, even those who are generally revered as sages or enlightened ones, does not constitute a rational warrant for belief, because it is always possible that what anyone is certain about is wrong, or a delusion.
That is why religious experience cannot tell us anything definite. And an example of your failure to address my arguments is your failure to address the problem that religions all tell us different things about the origin of the soul and Cosmos and the purpose of life and the possibility of an afterlife.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, but before one has had the experience of seeing one must have faith in the tradition and its authority figures in order to be motivated to attempt to "come and see".
Quoting Wayfarer
Again you have failed to understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying Buddhists "must be wrong" about Prajñ?p?ramit?. Perhaps inner experience does show us something about reality. But what could that something be other than something ineffable? Personal intuition, which is what Prajñ?p?ramit? amounts to if you don't accept any dogma, cannot be rationally or empirically demonstrated to yield any determinate knowledge about anything. It's like poetry; it can yield insight, evoke "higher" feelings, but the meaning of poetry cannot be rationally demonstrated. Same goes for music and the visual arts. I love all that stuff, but I don't draw any conclusions from the experiences evoked by them.
Quoting Wayfarer
Your first paragraph is not an argument but a characterization of what you take to be the general view of "secular philosophy". You haven't said anything about what is invalid or wrong in such a view; you have simply put all that philosophy in a box labeled "secular" to be rejected as if it were anathema; without giving any reasons for that rejection.
You refer in the second to Loy's essay. I read it and I think it is an overgeneralizing tendentious summation. Everyone has different experiences and views. Mine have changed a lot over my life. To attempt to dismiss what I say as being merely "speaking from 'secular culture's self-understanding'" is not an argument that addresses anything Ive said, but merely a disingenuous attempted dismissal of a conceptually impoverished strawman, with ad hominem overtones.
Or then there's this scintillating argument:
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't reject metaphysics and theism. How many times do I have to say it before you will understand that? As I've said and argued fro many times, I see theism and metaphysics on the same level as poetry and the arts; they can certainly enrich lives, but from a purely rational and/or empirical perspective (which are the only perspectives where determinate inter-subjective knowledge can be established) they are groundless. Imagine trying to rationally prove or empirically show that one particular interpretation of a poem is "the one true meaning" of the poem. It simply can't be done.
You're preaching positivism.
You continue to try to dismiss me as a "positivist". I am no more a positivist than Wittgenstein or Popper were. You don't understand what positivism consists in obviously. You're preaching bullshit.
This is a reasonable conclusion which many people share. There is a simple obvious rational solution to this concern. Explore the experience for itself, and set aside any explanations which arise. End of problem.
What typically happens on philosophy forums is that many members really really want to see religion as nothing more than an ideological assertion machine, because they really, Really, REALLY want to play the role of The Great Debunker. And so for example, we'll see 8 billion "does God exist" threads, and none on the experience of love.
And of course I agree about exploring experience, and coming to no conclusions about it; that is just what I'm saying. I'm not interested in debunking religion; I think it has an important place in society. "Does God exist" is in my view simply a stupid, senseless question. The better question to ask yourself would be "does God exist for you?".
Many people have a typically unexamined faith that the rules of reason invented by a half insane semi-suicidal species with thousands of hydrogen bombs aimed down it's own throat, only recently living in caves on a single planet in one of billions of galaxies, should automatically be accepted as the final authority on the very largest of questions regarding the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere.
This faith position is as easily ripped to shreds as any other. But only fools such as myself bother to do so, because everyone is entitled to whatever form of faith they can connect to, and it's almost always the case that any and all inconvenient challenges to their faith will be promptly discarded.
Quoting Janus
And yet, your posts would seem to be filled to overflowing with your conclusions, and so far as best I can tell, little report of your exploration of experience.
My apologies. I truly have no beef with you personally and just wanted to make sure that's clear. I have a bad case of the "picking things apart" disease, and can thus be rather annoying and inconvenient to people of faith of all flavors. Were I truly rational, I would quietly watch everyone yell about their competing faiths while cheerfully eating a fresh ripe apple. But, like everyone else I am not truly rational, so hey, here I am! :-)
Sound reasoning, but no believer could see their beliefs as art or poetry. It simply can’t be done.
My posts on this reflect my observations; my experience of people, logic and the sciences. I'm very open to counterarguments, but none have been forthcoming.
My posts don't reflect my contemplative examination of altered states of consciousness and aesthetic experiences, because it is my experience that such states can yield only poetry or mysticism, not inter-subjectively determinable knowledge. If you think this observation is wrong you're welcome to present counterargument.
I've already presented you with counter reason, which you have ignored, while claiming no counter arguments have been presented, exactly as Wayfarer predicted.
You appear to want me to present some argument justifying conclusions which have arisen from religious experiences. Why? You've already clearly stated you don't find such conclusions valid or useful, and I've already agreed that is a reasonable position.
So why are you clinging to that which you have already clearly and repeatedly identified as not being useful to you? How is that an example of reason?
Reason might look this like.
1) Separate the experiences from the conclusions.
2) Drop the conclusions.
3) Keep the experiences.
This is a common problem on philosophy forums, you are not alone. Some members like to lecture religious people about reason, while ignoring reason themselves. Not very credible, imho.
I don't understand the logic (if there is such) of your citicism. I am saying that I think it's eminently reasonable to drop conclusions; that's the whole point!
Saying, but not doing. Thus, not credible.
I know what you write and don't write, publicly available for all to see.
Quoting Janus
But you are not dropping conclusions. You are repeating the same conclusions over and over. As is your right of course.
But doing so undermines your credibility, because that's an argument with your own stated position, making you vulnerable to the kind of debunking you may prefer that you would be applying to others.
What I'm arguing is simply that, unlike mathematics, logic and the empirical sciences, where conclusions may be drawn and tested, no rational, that is testable, conclusions can be drawn from religious or peak experiences. Do you disagree with that assertion, or not. If you do disagree, then why?
Religion is not science, we agree. To me, comparisons between the two are misguided. Science is concerned with facts about reality, whereas religion is about our relationship with reality. Apples and oranges.
So for example, if my religion tells me XYZ is true, it's irrelevant that this assertion can't be proven so long as it enhances my relationship with reality.
Should you choose to read more of my posts you will see that I routinely rant on and on about valuing religious experience over religious explanations. I'm also entirely agreeable to discarding religion entirely if such experiences are more easily accessed by other methods.
My pitch would be, find something that works, and work it.
So all I have been doing is to point out the differences between religion and science, logic and mathematics; to show that religion is more akin to the arts. I am saying precisely that comparisons between the two kinds of inquiry are misguided; so I can't see why you have been accusing me of performative contradiction.
My argument with Wayferer is just that he won't admit the difference I am pointing to, insofar as he wants to claims that religious experience yields inter-subjectively determinable knowledge, and yet is unable to say how that could be possible.
Ok, argue away, keep going for years, decades, your entire life. Who cares?
What are you here for? I participate here to do what I outlined above because I enjoy it; it helps me to clarify my ideas. If someone comes up with a convincing critique of what I've presented, I might learn something and even change my mind.
You start with the assumption of any religious tradition, that the literature and history of that tradition is first taken off the table, on the basis that it can only ever represent ‘authority and tradition’, which have no epistemic validity (according to positivist standards). You have to then commence tabula rasa, as it were - ‘persuade me that these traditions contain anything real, beyond the subjective edification they have on believers'. That's the argument this is not worth having. I'm not going to attempt to change your mind on that, I can't see any point. If you do change your mind, then it's something I would be more than happy to discuss.
As an example of this culturally mediated interpretive situation I offered the differences in the beliefs about the origin of the cosmos, the soul and the nature of the afterlife to be found in the various traditions. You can't reasonably deny that they all say different things about those, even if their core ethical values don't differ so much. And yet you simply refuse to address that difficulty for your position, apparently.
I'm presenting what I honestly think in good faith here. But you don't want to address the questions on their own terms; instead you just came back with lame and inaccurate accusations about me being a positivist. This shows that you can't tolerate people disagreeing with you, and it seems, will always resort to the strategy of claiming that your interlocutor doesn't understand, mustn't understand, because they don't agree. This is essentially elitist thinking and it has no rational warrant. It relies entirely on the idea of authority. Here's a simple question for you: can you honestly say that the idea of the Guru is not the idea of an authority?
Quoting Wayfarer
Here's your opportunity to explain how the literature and history of any religious tradition (choose whichever one you like) could have "epistemic validity" for the unbiased observer. Because that is what is at issue. Claims in logic, mathematics and empirical claims do have epistemic validity for the unbiased observer, at least once they have come to understand the claims if they are intellectually difficult.
Awesome topic!
I know you don't give up that easily.
By "real", they would theoretically yield some kind of objective edification - is genocide not persuasion enough?
Nice! :fire:
You've made it plain that as far as your concerned, there can't be any. But in Ch'an Buddhism there has always been a way of validating both the lineages and the progress and realisation of the aspirants. Standing outside that tradition, though, you're obviously not going to get 'peer-reviewed scientific journal articles' which validate 'the realisation of satori'. If that's the standard you're demanding, then you're correct, you're not going to get it, but that standard is incommensurable with the subject, as it is exogenous to the tradition in which such practices are meaningful.
Quoting Janus
The world is a global village nowadays. There's masses of information available allowing you to contrast and compare all of these traditions. If you don't feel the 'pull' of spirituality, then it's true, it seems they all conflict. But if there's a will, there are ways can be found of harmonising them. I've always been interested in the Zen Christian movement, which really originated with Thomas Merton, but has many distinguished exemplars. Certainly on the 'doxastic' level there are massive differences between Christianity and Buddhism, but in this movement they are harmonised. Likewise there are many inter-faith communities and movements all over the world. Some differences will remain insurmountable, it's simply a fact of existence. Sometimes you have to decide.
The issues with religious cosmology and modern science is large and vexed. There's a scholar by the name of Donald Lopez who's written a lot of interesting work on that. But to say that you can practice the principles of Buddhism without dealing with cosmology! It's like, you can be dedicated Christian without believing in the literal creation myth.
But, again, if your main aim is to say that all of them are simply subjective or social myths, then sure, their differences can easily be exploited for that argument.
Quoting Janus
In liberal cultures, the implicit belief is 'nihil ultra ego', nothing beyond ego. In liberalism, the ego, buttressed by its belief in science, is the arbiter of reality. If you ever have the good fortune to meet with a genuine guru, you will find they can tell you many things about yourself that you don't know. Of course, unscrupulous hoodoo gurus have found millions of ways to exploit that. But 'if there were no gold, there would be no fools gold'.
Krishnamurti, you may recall, always rejected any idea of 'spiritual authority'. Yet it was always him on the podium, speaking. I suppose you could say, he had no authority beyond that of 'pointing out', but he was always pointing out something that most of us don't see, otherwise there would have been nothing to say. Where religious authority becomes corrosive, is when it is allied to governmental or executive power, and when religious dogma is enforced using those means, which is writ large in the history of religion in Europe, and one of the things that moulds our understanding of it to this day.
you completely lost me with your reference to 'genocide'.
It was a good attempt at a bad joke
I don't disagree with what you've said in this post, but all it indicates is that within traditions, there are means of obtaining what the people who adhere to that tradition count, on the basis of their shared assumptions and beliefs, as corroboration. The same can happen in poetry interpretation or arts criticism. As I have said the case with science, logic and the empirical is different, because the corroboration can be achieved with an unbiased observer.
And I should repeat, contrary to Wayfarer's accusations, I am not against religion (apart from some religions' genocidal and oppressive tendencies), and nor am I a positivist (if anything I am a skeptic!). I don't have any problem with people having faiths of various kinds, provided they see, and admit, that it is faith. The inability to see faith as faith leads to fundamentalism; and that is a big problem (on both sides of the argument).
Thanks for the compliment too, but I really don't think I deserve it. :smile:
Quoting Janus
First of all, no one uses repetition in philosophy these days, excellent work. :up:
Secondly, I disagree. Direct knowing is easily supported by rationality. By objective evidence, not so much. Your "good reasons for thinking that" should be evidence enough. Lol
What these have, which art and religion lack, are methodology, but digging deeper than methodology, the latter lack a purpose: that is to yield objective truth, which is qualitatively opposed to subjective truth.
Please explain how direct knowing that yields inter-subjectively corroborable beliefs is possible. (Just to be sure it is clear empirical data, although they may be directly known by observation don't count as direct knowing in the sense I mean; I am talking about "inner direct knowing" in the sense promoted by Zen Buddhism for example).
Not sure what you mean here.
I didn't say it was possible. I don't see how it is, other than through tyranny and oppression. I said it can be rationalized, and yield the highest degree of rationality to those ready to receive it. Remember that rationality can actually be the most illogical shit ever invented, but it is still rational - meaning that it coheres within its own system.
Empirical data, not that which is collected and quantified into objective knowledge that we can all agree upon , like the acceleration of gravity, but in the philosophical sense of direct experience, immediacy, existence in and for itself...that is what I assume you are referring to, more or less.
I believe you are putting too much negative weight on subjective or social myths. Even if we regard them (authority/doctrine) as art, they are no less significant to the believer. And it is the believer, and the believer's belief that is of concern - not what the believer believes in, but that he believes.
The former is definitely philosophical territory - fun, as it were; the latter causes philosophers to shove their heads up their own stanky asses.
That's an implicit criticism of such beliefs on the basis of 'shared assumptions' - again, belief and tradition don't count, or rather, they only count because of their beneficial consequences. But, you say, science and empiricism can show 'what is really the case'. And yet you deny that this criticism is positivist - look again at the definition of positivism:
'a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism.'
This not an ad hominem - positivism as a general tenet is a defensible point of view, and I don't say you shouldn't hold it or that there is anything the matter with you holding it. But you can't then turn around and claim not to hold it, when what you're saying is in line with it.
Secondly, as for 'unbiased observation' - a perfectly detached point of view - then again, in Buddhism that is also well understood. An ability of the Buddha is yath?bh?ta? - 'seeing things as they truly are'. The ground for this claim is that the Buddha is completely lacking in self-interest and is therefore perfectly detached. There's an echo of that in scientific method itself, with its emphasis on detached objectivity, with the caveat that, since Hume (the 'is/ought' dichotomy) and the ascendancy of philosophical naturalism the Universe is believed to be devoid of inherent meaning or purpose - even though that itself is a value judgement! (although one which most people will say has been validated by science.)
'In the Indian context it would have been axiomatic that liberation (Nirv??a) comes from discerning how things actually are, the true nature of things. That seeing things how they are has soteriological benefits would have been expected, and is just another way of articulating the ‘is’ and ‘ought’ dimension of Indian Dharma. The ‘ought’ (pragmatic benefit) is never cut adrift from the ‘is’ (cognitive factual truth)' ~ Paul Williams.
(Although it should be noted that Buddhism doesn't regard the natural Universe as inherently good on the grounds of it having been created by a benevolent creator. )
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Again, it subjectivises the matter. I think the adherents of those faiths would say that it's not simply a matter of comforting oneself through belief, but that the belief is actually efficacious.
It is obvious to anyone with two shits for brains that you are not against religion. Even if anyone thought that, remember, the most religious dudes in history were thought to be infidels by their culture/peers.
Absolutely, the imposture of faith becomes an ethical matter rather than a matter of relating to what one believes in (by faith). "Killing in the name of" is most justified under those terms.
Yes, it is specifically the believer's belief that is efficacious. No disagreement.
Now, for pretend purposes, let us qualify and quantify every believers belief in a stated system. Let us hold each and every individual believers belief up to the light and compare them. Are they equal, insofar as doctrine/authority command. I say no.
All this bullshit is to say, the believers are, so to speak, comforting themselves with "belief itself", not necessarily "belief in something". If there is a something for the believer, it is only significant insofar as it sustains his belief.
Totally dude!
Perhaps it is indeed positivism. But those are the definitive criterion for objective knowledge in our age, and they cannot presently demonstrate what "really is the case". By other standards we might be afforded other avenues.
Positivism is the claim that theism and metaphysics are incoherent; I haven't claimed that. I am merely pointing out that they can't yield falsifiable or verifiable knowledge in the sense that logic, math and science can.
As to the Buddha being completely lacking in self-interest; that is certainly an article of faith, since no one today has any chance of meeting him, and even if they did it would still be a questionable claim. Similar claims have been made for Sri Aurobindo, Ramana Maharshi, Meher Baba, Da Free John, Osho and many others, but I have no doubt you would reject at least some of those as being charlatans. It's much easier to accept someone as an "The Enlightened One" when there is 2000 years of tradition backing up the belief.
I know you have accepted the Buddhist vows, which means that you accept Gautama as "The Enlightened One"; but how can this possibly be anything other than an article of faith? You don't even know for sure that Gautama actually existed.
I don't think it's right to say that rational thinking can be illogical. But unsound beliefs can be supported by logically valid arguments with unsound premises.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
:up: Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Not sure which is the former and which the latter here.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Yes, by "empirical data" I am referring to what can be observed by anyone with the requisite senses.
It's not - it's the claim that they're not the basis of valid knowledge claims. It is what you're saying.
Quoting Janus
Whether I believe it, is beside the point: the philosophical point, is that the tradition itself recognises the problem of bias and addresses it. Actually the idea of detachment was central to all philosophical traditions even before the development of modern science. You find it in the teachings of Eckhardt also.
I think the question which most people will ask, is How could the Buddha understand the 'nature of reality' when in his day, there weren't even scientific instruments?
You mentioned Buddhist cosmology. There are some aspects of it that have been plainly shown to be mistaken by science. This is one of the reasons the Dalai Lama said in his philosophy of science book that, should science show any dogma of Buddhism to be mistaken, then it ought to be abandoned. (Chief amongst them is the mythology of Mount Meru, which is the Buddhist 'axis mundi'). But on the other hand, Mah?y?na Buddhist mythology has long accepted that the Universe is vast in extent and populated by countless 'life-bearing orbs', and that the Universe goes through aeons-long cycles of creation and destruction. Bishop Usher, it ain't. ;-)
But, as I understand it, the Buddha(s) must see something about 'the nature of reality' which rest of us don't. I suppose you can call that an article of faith, if you like, but again, it's not the Nicene Creed.
No, you're misunderstanding both me and the definition of positivism. A valid claim is a coherent and consistent claim; it doesn't have to be true to count as valid. Positivism says that claims like "God exists" are not even wrong, because they are incoherent. Such claims are seen as senseless, which means "without sense", or without any means of verification. They are not, properly speaking, propositions because there is no determinable referent there.
The early Wittgenstein has a similar but subtly different view; if someone makes a metaphysical claim we should show that some of their terms have no reference, not sense; we are then literally speaking nonsense. Unlike the positivists he allowed for the mystical and for its great importance, but warned that we cannot, and should not try to, say anything about it. Kant made a very similar point re metaphysics and theology.
The later Wittgenstein saw metaphysics and theology as "language games" which we play and within which we can find internal coherence and consistency. But again he warns that we should not imagine that such games can tell us anything about the nature of reality. In a way the same goes for math, logic and science but those games are different than metaphysics and theology because of the stricter rules that govern math and logic, and in the case of science because of falsifiability and verifiabilty, neither of which are, however, absolute in any sense we might imagine them to be. But at least in those investigations there are, relatively speaking, determinably correct and incorrect answers.
There have been comparisons between W. and his 'ladder' - something 'discarded after climbing it' - and Buddhism, which compares it's own teachings to a raft which are to be discarded after crossing over.
(Of course, in practice, Ch'an or Zen has nothing to say about any of that, it is not philosophy and is not concerned with philosophizing, although some scholars and academics like to make these comparisons.)
The whole point about 'the transcendent' is that one of the things it transcends is discursive reason. But as we're in the predicament of being human, stuck between being apes and angels, we can't help but try to seek it.
Anyway, I have always been struck by some of Wittgenstein's aphorisms towards the end of TLP.
I feel that he is still 'pointing towards' or 'pointing out' something of vast importance. He's not saying 'there's nothing to be understood there' but that what must be understood transcends discursive reason (which again is where his approach is rather like Zen.)
I think the Vienna Circle misinterpreted Wittgenstein - see Wittgenstein, Tolstoy and the Folly of Logical Positivism Philosophy Now.
Likewise there have been comparisons between Kant's 'antinomies of reason' and the Buddha's ten 'unanswered questions'. T R V Murti's book 'Central Philosophy of Buddhism', although out of favour with more recent scholarship, compared Madhymaka (N?g?rjuna) with Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy, and on similar grounds; the Buddha's reticence to indulge in 'metaphysical speculation' (whether the Buddha exists after death or not, whether the world is eternal or not) are very much in the spirit of Kant's antinomies. These questions, when asked of the Buddha, would always be met with a 'noble silence' ('that of which we cannot speak...').
Quoting Janus
'The nature of empirical reality', perhaps.
If memory serves, Ch'an is Zen in Japanese Buddhism, right? I remember my early encounters with Zen mainly involving Koans. Koans, again if memory serves, are generally intended to be paradoxes or, if not, extremely (allow me to exaggerate a bit) difficult puzzles constructed by those who've seen the light so to speak and aimed at the novice with the specific purpose of enlightening faer.
To my knowledge, koans, at their core, are about two aspects of life and living, well, actually thinking but humans are defined as sapient, so, viz. 1) language and 2) logic. These two qualities if you'll allow me to label them as such define us for they constitute the essence of sapience - thought, thinking, rumination, cogitation, etc.
Koans put into their service both language and logic but the resulting products, the koans themselves, defy both in the sense that their solutions, assuming koans have solutions, can't, or are supposed not to, be expressible with words in a logical manner. In different words, the "solutions" to koans can't be, or are not intended to be, found in either language or logic or both.
A penny for your thoughts...
I'm not claiming the least expertise or experience in Zen training, my own knowledge is all second hand and gained from books, apart from a few meditation retreats. The well-known Penguin book Zen Flesh Zen Bones was floating around my house all the sixties and seventies, it contains many koans and other 'teaching stories'. That's about the extent of my knowledge of it. You can find many of them here.
There are also videos on youtube about the subject, such as this.
The only one I can remember is this:
[quote=Zen]What is the sound of one hand clapping?[/quote]
Joshu began the study of Zen when he was sixty years old and continued until he was eighty, when he realized Zen.
He taught from the age of eighty until he was one hundred and twenty.
A student once asked him: “If I haven’t anything in my mind, what shall I do?”
Joshu replied: “Throw it out.”
“But if I haven’t anything, how can I throw it out?” continued the questioner.
“Well,” said Joshu, “then carry it out.”
//ps// I don't think that is an official Ko-an. It's one of the anecdotes in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones that I particularly liked.//
Yes, it was, totally agree. My apologies. I wore myself out on the forum yesterday and by end of the day my brain had turned to toxic applesauce. Sorry, my bad!
As much as I'm fond of JK, I still wonder whether having nothing to say might have been an improvement.
Example, I once attended a talk by Amrit_Desai. I was in no way a follower, but rather a college sophomore skeptic, attending in the hopes of meeting hot hippy chicks. This fellow sat on the stage saying nothing at all, and filled the whole room with a fog of peace that was undeniably tangible. Eventually he began to talk, not a word of which I remember.
The counter argument is that had no talk been promised, I very likely wouldn't have shown up.
As you have said many times. And so my question would be, having discarded religiously generated conclusions as unreliable....
What's next?
The discarding seems reasonable to me. The apparent lack of any "whats next" does not.
Does this apply to you as well? Or just to other people?
Could we perhaps explore a distinction between the act of observation, and any conclusions which may arise from the observation?
OBSERVATION: The act of observation is aided enormously by setting thought aside, to the degree that is possible. This isn't some esoteric concept, it's simply a matter of what we are aiming our attention at. To the degree I'm distracted by my thoughts about reality, reality itself becomes harder to observe.
CONCLUSIONS: Conclusions which arise from observation often propagate like dividing cancer cells, constructing an ever larger conceptual edifice, real estate which is typically then hijacked by ego, which then comes in to conflict with other conceptual structures and their ego owners.
Observation takes us in the direct of peace, while conclusions take us in the direction of conflict.
This is the conclusion I've reached from observation. Should you dispute it in any way whatsoever, thus denting my cherished self image as a super concluder, evolved man of peace and merchant of the "one true way", I will have no choice but to totally kick your ass!!! :-)
I had no idea you felt that way!!
Uh oh, more snarky applesauce!
Poetry, music, dance, art, craft, learning about nature and developing a feeling of reverence, friendship, love, philosophy, in other words whatever impassions you.
Quoting Hippyhead
It's all cool, I don't take anything personally on here. :smile:
All of that's fine, but you're changing the subject now. Everything you quoted there from the Tractatus only goes to support my argument, not yours, as I see it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, they did. I'm well aware of the differences between the Logical Positivists and Wittgenstein, in fact I've been referring to that myself in some of my posts, and even outlined the differences; so I'm not sure what the point of this statement is. Perhaps you didn't read all of my responses; which would explain why you still haven't attempted to answer the question about different religions proposing different cosmologies etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right, that has been my whole argument; that religious experience can tell us nothing about empirical reality other than that people have such experiences and may be moved by them to believe various things. Bear in mind that, for example, if there really were an afterlife that would be an empirical reality. "empirical" just means 'shared'.
There is no other reality to be told about other than a shared reality. Think about it; when we're both dead, and if I met you in the afterlife; you would be able to say to me 'See I was right after all" and I would be forced to admit that you had been, because now I would have the evidence that had previously been impossible. But this wouldn't mean that you had had any prior evidence, because the afterlife cannot be experienced, if it all, until after life. You would have just guessed right is all.
What if it is 'empirical reality' itself that is the delusion? Then there would be no 'certain knowledge' obtainable of it. And that actually maps against the state of physics at this point in history, which is dissolving into enormous conundrums at every point. There is a massive search for the 'fundamental constituents of nature' - but what if there are none? What if the whole phenomenal domain is like a magic show, with no inherent reality? Maybe part of the 'religious experience' of Buddhism is based on understanding that. Then how would you accomodate that insight from within the framework of 'empiricism'?
Cosmology, both traditional and modern, is an enormous subject area, which has developed over tens of thousands of years; considering that early humans learned to navigate by the stars, identify the constellations, and so on. Many of the early cosmologies are simply myths about the ancestors and divine beings. So the religious cosmologies developed out of those over the millenia, some of them sophisticated, some of them simple-minded. They become associated with the different major cultural forms, such as Indian, Chinese, Ancient Greek, and are developed in various ways, retaining some elements of their mythical antecedents and replacing others. So it's hardly surprising that there is a vast diversity of views in respect of cosmology.
As for the inherent contradiction between religions - it's a fact of life and of human history. My interpretation is that they're all attempts to assimilate the insights of individual sages, prophets, visionaries, along with the historical and mythological accounts of the Creation. John Hick is an exemplary philosopher of religion with respect to the issues of religious pluralism.
Who or What is God?
He doesn't understand that his position is as faith based as anyone else's, on issues of this scale. He believes in the qualifications of his chosen methodology as a matter of faith, but doesn't know he's using faith. To him, those qualifications are an obvious given. Thus it never occurs to him to challenge them. So therefore he feels in a position to challenge faith, as if he's outside of it.
Extremely common sincere misunderstanding which powers the entire atheist internet. Nothing can be done about it. Once one's personal image is attached to this misunderstanding, it's game over.
Example: When will science end? When we have learned all there is to learn? Thousands of years? Never? If it's true that science will continue at an ever accelerating pace for a very long time it logically follows that we currently know almost nothing, in comparison to what humans can know. And then there's all the stuff we'll never be able to know because of the limits built in to the human condition.
Philosophy can be very sophisticated, articulate, intelligent and educated. But is it rational? Is it rational to have centuries of endless debate when we probably only currently possess .0000001% of the information? Ok, fun. But rational?
If we are willing to consider such a debate as one would a game of bridge which is meaningless but entertaining, then I withdraw the complaint. Even Mr. GrouchyPants isn't against fun.
First, define yourself as a primate species. Then, proceed solely on the basis of what you can touch, see, hear, feel and smell, and mathematics grounded in that. Good luck, and fare thee well!
I don't know what that could even mean. All human ideas of knowledge are derived from empirical knowledge. There is no absolutely certain knowledge if you take into account the human possibility of radical skepticism.
The only knowledge we have is relative knowledge, and the only inter-subjectively determinable propositional knowledge (knowing that) is empirical, logical and mathematical. Unless you can offer an example of some other kind of propositional knowledge.
This thread is about Ch'an or Zen Buddhism. It has generated a vast literature but it is not concerned with 'propositional knowledge' as such.
Quoting Janus
There is an historical connection between Buddhism and the Greek Sceptics. This goes back to Pyrrho of Elis who is said to have travelled to Gandhara, then a centre of Buddhist learning. 'Scepticism' in the original form was not doubting that any knowledge is possible, but 'withholding judgement regarding that which is not evident'. Their aim was ataraxia, which is a Greek counterpart of the Buddhist 'nirodha'('cessation'). A passage purportedly by Pyrrho that I found on Wikipedia is this:
With respect to the last passage, there is an unmistakeably Buddhist influence:
[quote=The Buddha]By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "non-existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, "existence" with reference to the world does not occur to one.[/quote]
The theory behind this is that the 'the world' (i.e. objects of perception) have no absolute existence, as they arise dependent on causes and conditions and so have no 'own-being'. But it's also incorrect to say that they're simply non-existent.
So to return to the OP, whether Ch'an is based on 'logic' - the answer is, it is based on the logic of the 'two truths' of Mah?y?na Buddhism:
Radical or absolute scepticism of the kind you encounter in Internet discussions is generally meaningless.
:lol: Good one!
Yes, and that fact speaks to the argument I've been making, that you have been failing to address and that you are now apparently agreeing with. 'God exists", "there is an afterlife" "karma is real" etc. are propositions that are imagined by some to be justified by religious experience.
Quoting Wayfarer
I agree that the advocation of radical skepticism is a performative contradiction, and as such incoherent. But the point is there is no absolute knowledge, only knowledge relative to conceptual and practical contexts. From this it follows that there can be no transcendental knowledge. No one can know the "true answers" to the "great questions" , in other words; but the questions remain valuable as stimulants to the poetic and mystical imagination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS3mMZblq0U
That's how you will see it, but that in itself is also a statement of belief.
[quote=The Buddha]Those who have not known, seen, penetrated, realized, or attained it by means of discernment would have to take it on conviction in others that the faculty of conviction... persistence... mindfulness... concentration... discernment, when developed & pursued, gains a footing in the Deathless, has the Deathless as its goal & consummation; whereas those who have known, seen, penetrated, realized, & attained it by means of discernment would have no doubt or uncertainty that the faculty of conviction... persistence... mindfulness... concentration... discernment, when developed & pursued, gains a footing in the Deathless, has the Deathless as its goal & consummation.[/quote]
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.044.than.html
As I have said - there's no way from the perspective of the demand for 'empirical, mathematically verified knowledge' to view this as anything other than a 'faith statement'. But from within the Buddhist domain of discourse, although it acknowledges that faith is required at the outset, it claims that it culminates in certain knowledge (i.e. 'of the deathless'). But these two domains have what Thomas Kuhn called 'incommensurable standards', which is why I keep saying, and will say again, it's pointless to argue about it, and will henceforth cease.
You are using a comparative without an object. Is Ch'an Buddhism more about observation and using logic, than WHAT? Your sentence screams for an anchor to which you are comparing Ch'an Buddhism.
No it's not; it's merely putting assertions in their proper category. I don't understand why you are apparently so confused by this; any statement in the form 'such and such is the case' is a proposition. The statement 'God exists' is proposing that it is the case that God exists; it is thus a proposition. If you think this is wrong then please explain your reasons. Otherwise there will simply be no discussion. Isn't discussion what you are here for?
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you have certain knowledge of the deathless? IF not, then you are relying on faith; faith that it is possible, and that others have it and can show you how to get it. These are things you have no way of checking, so how could they be anything but faith? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with believing those things; but intellectual honesty demands that you should acknowledge that they are faith-based.
Ask yourself why you resist acknowledging that, and why you won't address the questions that present difficulties for your position, and you, and this discussion, might get somewhere. Otherwise your thinking, and this discussion, will just be nothing more than, to quote Dostoevsky "pouring from the empty into the void".
Quoting Wayfarer
To which you replied:
Quoting Janus
Yet, somehow, I'm accused of 'ducking questions'.
You then repeat the positivist assertion: ' All human ideas of knowledge are derived from empirical knowledge' - only to then deny you're positivist! But through all this, I'm the one who is accused of 'intellectually dishonesty'.
Where I took issue with you is your first post in this thread.
Quoting Janus
A statement not made abouit yourself or about me - but humanity generally! All claims to 'revealed truth' or 'spiritual insight' are, we're being told, 'acts of groundless faith'. Yet this is somehow also not positivism:
'Positivism: a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism.'
Quoting Janus
Indeed!
You just keep changing the subject. The idea of the empirical being a delusion is your example of radical skepticism, about which you earlier said Quoting Wayfarer so now you seem to be contradicting yourself.
Quoting Wayfarer
Even Kant held that all knowledge derives from experience (the empirical), so this is not an exclusively positivist statement. What's the point of continually trying to paint me as a positivist, anyway, when I have given good reasons to show that is not the case. You should be trying to refute my actual arguments instead of using ad hominem assertions, apparently to try to discredit what I'm saying. This is a low tactic.
Quoting Wayfarer
I have no reason to believe that all humans are not fallible, and yet you for some reason, that you cannot give apparently, think that some humans are infallible. If you cannot give a reason for thinking that, then your thinking that is groundless; merely an act of faith.
If all humans are fallible, then all claims to direct knowledge are questionable, and if they cannot be supported by evidence or logic, then they are groundless. If you think they can be supported by evidence or logic, then explain how that would work. In any case if they claim to be direct knowledge, then they claim not to need support from evidence or logic. The point then is that that claim about direct knowledge not requiring evidence or reason to support it must itself be grounded in evidence or reason, and if it isn't then we have circular reasoning; which just shows again that the claim is groundless.
Your position is either inconsistent or groundless, why not simply admit that, and get on with your life? You can believe whatever you want; you don't have to justify it on here, but if you do come on here then you should be prepared to discuss your ideas in good faith, and submit your ideas to critical scrutiny; which you obviously are not.
I’m not 'changing the subject'. We each have an idea of what is real - a worldview - that can be called into question without saying ‘nobody knows anything’ or ‘all propositions are false’, which is the internet scepticism I was referring to. The point about the ‘empirical as delusion’ was made by the Loy passage I quoted about the taken-for-grantedness of the secular worldview, which assumes that it sees the world ‘as it really is’ when ‘superstition’ (or ‘groundless belief’) has been shorn off of it. If it doesn’t mean anything to you, then forget about it, I won’t mention it again.
Quoting Janus
He did not. He said that there a facts that are known a priori, and the ‘categories of the understanding, and that without them, empiricism could not be sustained. ‘Percepts without concepts are blind, concepts without percepts are empty’.
Quoting Janus
Within Buddhism, it is a given that the Buddha is ‘the Buddha’. You’re not required to believe that, but your belief that ‘all humans are fallible’ is just as much a belief. You’re no more able to prove the non-existence or fallibility of the Buddha than I am the contrary, and requiring ‘scientific or mathematical proof’ is positivism, even if you keep denying it. As you keep saying to me, if you acknowledged at the outset, ‘as far as I’m concerned....’ then I would never taken issue in the first place. But you are declaring your position as a matter of fact, on the basis that you seek ‘scientific and mathematical reasons’ for why anyone should accept that the Buddha actually knew what he claimed to.
You know, decades ago I studied David Hume, the godfather of positivism, and the lecturer pointed something out. He referred to the famous last paragraph of Hume’s treatise:
He pointed out that the same could be said of Hume’s treatise!
And in that very spirit, Hui Neng, the legendary Sixth Patriach of Ch’an Buddhism, is depicted here ‘tearing up the Sutras’.
Thank you. Now break the news to him that it's a faith based belief.
Yes, this is VERY COMMON internet atheist dogma. Everyone should acknowledge their position is faith based, except for the atheist. There is a factory assembly line somewhere which cranks out such identical thinkers, each one thinking they are unique and special.
If only it were so. A philosophy aligned with the vast majority of reality would be rational.
Please provide us with the proof that the rules of reason created by a half insane semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies are automatically binding on questions about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere, a realm we can't currently define in even the most basic manner.
Submit your ideas to critical scrutiny.
Discuss them in good faith.
Personally, I think you are using good faith, but either aren't willing or able to do the critical scrutiny part.
And then we obtained a wider perspective which revealed that that taken to be obviously true was instead obviously wrong.
If I understand it, Buddhists and others are reaching for that wider perspective, and forming conclusions based on what they discover.
The Hippyheadists say that it is the wider perspective itself which matters, not any conclusions which may arise from it. Looking of sufficient quality resolves all such questions, without answering them. We ask the questions and seek the conclusions for some reason, out of some need. If that need is met by the looking itself, then the questions and sought conclusions are no longer needed, and so melt away on their own.
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason
Reason is developed by experience. Once we have a sufficient grasp on the generalities of experience, so-called a priori knowledge is possible; that is, we can say what basic forms any experience must take.
Kant rejected Spinoza's notion of "intellectual intuition"; which is exactly equivalent to "direct knowing". If you think direct knowing is supported by reason (the "highest: according to Kant) then please explain how that would work.
I'm tired of your failure to address questions and arguments. I won't respond further to you if you fail to address this.
Why do you seek to characterize your interlocutors arguments as something to be dismissed rather than addressing them directly?
Quoting Hippyhead
This is a self-defeating question. What could critical scrutiny possibly be based upon if not on reason?
According to Buddhism prajna is also a faculty, namely, that of insight into the interdependent nature of all phenomena. It is not the same as reason.
You typed this sentence instead of addressing any of my arguments. You are dismissed. Good luck Wayfarer.
Quoting Wayfarer
Right, so it doesn't yield the kind of knowledge ('knowing that') that reason does. It doesn't yield what is usually counted as discursive or propositional knowledge. Basically that's all I've been arguing, and now you're making my case for me.