Aug 152012
During January Stephen Batchelor wrote a 10,000 word article entitled “A Secular Buddhism”. He says that this is the most detailed and scholarly statement he has made so far in defining what a secular Buddhism might be:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/102934129/A-Secular-Buddhism
Hopefully it should generate some interesting discussion
Barry Daniel
17 comments on “A Secular Buddhism by Stephen Batchelor”
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It’s good to see this at last, as you mentioned its existence before, Barry. I’m glad that Batchelor has assembled his ideas on secular Buddhism in this way, in this highly readable and yet organised form. There were some things I really liked about it:
1. The very audacity of ‘Buddhism 2.0′: although I also cringed at the form of the metaphor, the audacity it represents is also what we need.
2. His recognition of the drawbacks of making claims about truth, with his distinction between Buddhism as doctrine and as praxis.
3. The public recognition of a major previous mistake (p.18), showing how Batchelor’s thinking is evolving. This point particularly raised my personal respect for him, and sets him apart from many other contemporary Buddhist teachers.
4. The closing recognition that it doesn’t really matter whether we call it Buddhism.
However, there’s also quite a lot here that makes me feel this is all still work in progress. I like the direction he’s moving in, but it’s by no means fully worked out, and leaves some important questions unanswered. These are particularly some of my questions and doubts about Batchelor’s approach here:
1. From p.9: “Clearly, it would need to be founded upon canonical source texts, be able to offer a coherent interpretation of key practices, doctrines and ethical precepts, and provide a sufficiently rich and integrated theoretical model of the dharma to serve as the basis for a flourishing human existence.” The third of these does seem very important, and the second fairly important, but why the first? Batchelor nowhere gives us any reason why canonical source texts should be so important. If the criteria are really pragmatic, as his closing remarks suggest, this seems inconsistent with his emphasis on source texts.
2. Given the retreat from claims about truth, we are offered no alternative philosophical basis to guide judgement, and ethics in the broadest sense are a crucial aspect of Buddhism which gets no mention here. This is where I am very uncomfortable with the influence of postmodernists like Richard Rorty and Don Cupitt on Batchelor. These thinkers have dismantled old truths (in a way I approve of), but given us no account of objectivity to put in their place. Ethics in general are just a huge inconvenience to these thinkers, because they can give no account of how we ought to live, beyond convention or personal choice. Buddhism 2.0 needs an ethics!
3. This is also the key limitation on Batchelor’s account of the 4 Noble Truths or ‘The 4′ as he calls them here. Beyond the distancing and reflective benefits of meditation, we are offered no guidance on the kind of judgements we need to negotiate dukkha and tanha. It is not helpful only to stress ‘ceasing’ as a response to the flow of stress and desire – we are not always in meditative states or anywhere near them. The Buddha offers a wider teaching about balancing all our responses and judgements – the Middle Way – which is in the very sutta under discussion, but gets hardly a mention here, The Middle Way seems to me of much more relevance than ‘ceasing’ to how we apply the Buddha’s insights to the complexity of everyday modern life.
So, in sum, Batchelor is about halfway there, or perhaps a bit less. If this is a summary of the core of secular Buddhism as he conceives it, it contains gaping wholes. Its philosophical approach offers us little alternative to postmodern relativism; it neglects the Middle Way; and of the Threefold Path it has far more to say about meditation than about ethics or wisdom, both of which are just as important as practical aspects of the path. If Buddhism 2.0 was just meditative techniques interpreted in a context of postmodernism, it would be more like Buddhism 0.3: about a third of what Buddhism offers us separated and put in a new context.
Hi Rob
I’ve been mulling over what you and Stephen Batchelor have written and its set me off on a bit of a tangent. I’m a bit hesitant re responding as I don’t think I think about things as rigorously/meticulously as either you or Stephen.
Chiefly, I’m not sure why it’s necessary to create a ‘version 2’. Isn’t it possible to embrace Buddhist thought and practice with regard to cultivating ‘what is best in us’, in this one brief precious life – our capacity for empathy, equanimity and kindness, for wise attention, contentment, generosity, for restraining our instinctive greed, anger and hatred and acting compassionately, recognising that we all suffer in this uncertain, fragile world, that what we think, say and do arises in this moment due to numerous interrelating causes and conditions over which we have limited control – we are all more ‘permeable’, less ‘solid’ than we instinctively think we are – and all wish to be happy? This does not seem to require – at least to me – the belief that some aspect of ourselves survives death and is reborn in a condition determined by our previous actions. Across the world, there are many Buddhists who do not focus solely on ‘mental suffering’ or ‘escaping the wheel of life’ – for example the engaged Buddhist movements in Asia who are deeply involved in improving the lives of ordinary people, focussing on objectives that can be achieved and recognised in this lifetime, in this world (Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist liberation movements in Asia edited by CS Queen and SB King).
I think some things just are ‘fuzzy’ – indistinct – like ‘religion’ – Iris Murdoch’s husband John Bayley described Iris as being ‘religious without religion’. If I define religion as helping us to see compassion, love, forgiveness as the core of life, cultivating a reverence for life, a practical method for dealing with the reality of suffering – providing practices such as chanting, bowing, mindful walking, meditating, going on retreat, ethical principles which can help us to change ourselves – to ‘de-throne the self’, express our sense of the sacredness of life, of our shared humanity/interconnection with the world around us, then I might define my practice as ‘religious’ – whereas, if I define religion as adhering to particular certainties/beliefs, then not… . I also think that religions do not have a monopoly’ on feelings of awe, wonder, love, a sense of mystery, the wish to be ‘good’ and so on. So it’s all very convoluted here in my fragmented, inconsistent, deluded heart/mind/body!
Robert and Nina,
I can’t yet comment in detail on what Stephen has to say in his article, as I haven’t read it. I think that it was intended to be published in final form as an article in the Journal of Global Buddhism; perhaps that will still happen, and I have been delaying until then. But I do want to chuck out some advance thoughts about the possibility (mentioned in his abstract) of a Secular ‘redefinition’ or ‘reformation’ of Buddhism. His attention may not have been concentrated on the full implication these terms, so please don’t consider my comments to be about his article as such.
Underlying these two terms, redefinition and reformation, is a quasi-distinction between definition-as-explanation (putting into place by means of language) and reformation-of-experience (changing a cultural form that affects how other people act in the world). A more underlying distinction, between explanation and experience, wouldn’t be vexing at all, if we hadn’t evolved the capability for complicated communion by means of language.
However, having developed the capability for linguistic forms of thought to ourselves and explanation to others, we spend a lot of time trying to persuade other people to think and to experience the world in the same way. Successful origination of a persuasive text grants authorship, success in persuasion grants authority; success in both grants the dubious and vertiginous blessing of historical perdurance in the memory of others.
To the Buddha is ascribed authorship and authority, together with an enduring belief that he once existed, amongst other ways, by virtue of words that are reported in the Pali Canon, the Sanskrit Agamas and in early Mahayana texts as coming from him. For the last two and a half thousand years, any corresponding explanations may reasonably be called Buddhist explanations, to the extent that they derive from ideas in those early texts (by including all reasonably-early texts I hope to set to one side the epistemological problems of communal authorship, fallible memorisation, transmission and transcription, followed by opportunities for redaction over repeat copying in tropical regions where surrogates for paper were hardly long-lasting).
To Stephen is ascribed authorship of the term ‘Secular Buddhism’ as a label for a modern attitude towards this hoary old religion. That, together with the rest of his writings around the topic, has bestowed on him some degree of authority. Without always agreeing with his explanations, I’m sufficiently indebted to acknowledge his authority and to acknowledge him, alongside John Crook, as one of my teachers.
That doesn’t entail that Stephen, or any one else, is the author of ‘Secular Buddhism’ in the sense of an attitude or tendency that is denoted by ‘Secular Buddhism’ as a term: after all, there were secular-minded western Buddhists long before any of us were born. I want to go further in suggesting that from earliest times there has always been a tension in the Buddhist tradition between a Brahmanic sort of spirituality and an indefinable sort of realism that is comparable to a secular attitude towards religion: a sort of religious naturalism, although Robert might not appreciate that term, preferring pragmatism.
What I find particularly interesting about what Stephen has to say is not so much that he attempts definition or reformation for today, but that his method is to search for clues in early texts, including the Pali Canon. That is a very traditional approach to reform, although any turn towards the originating authority of early Buddhist texts risks the academic criticism of ‘orientalism’. That risk is worthwhile, if the secular tendency can be firmly grounded within the Buddhist tradition. Otherwise, we are dealing with some other sort of religious tendency, and ‘Secular Buddhism’ is a misnomer.
Nobody today possesses sufficient authority to define or give form to a religious tendency, because one of the characteristics of modernity is something quite like a perfect market in persuasive explanations. I mean that, where once authority used to reside in priestly, legal, regal or academic elites, it now resides in individuals. Readers now make judgements for themselves, for example, on what Stephen has to say, or what Robert, Nina or I have to say about what Stephen has to say. Of course, there may be as much indifference out there as considered judgement: there may not be much assessment as to whether Stephen’s article, all unbeknownst, falls short of Robert’s systematic version of the middle way and ‘moral objectivity’.
Whatever Stephen, Robert, Nina, I or anyone else might say, Buddhism generally, and Secular Buddhism particularly, will redefine and reform itself much more democratically than in the past, perhaps ignoring the very idea of progress towards a pre-determined definition or form.
I’m relatively content with that sort of quasi-democratic randomness because it avoids the spectre of totalising explanations, although I do worry about the privileging of experience over explanation in much Secular Buddhist discourse, firstly because I remain interested in some metaphysical questions; secondly, I still find the word ‘truth’ useful in carefully circumscribed circumstances; thirdly, because explanation is another form of experience, even if a special form. Like it or not, we do use language for communication, and doing so makes it part of experience.
To refer back to earlier comments form Nina on 05.05.2012 at 7.11pm, and 11.05.2012 at 8.21pm:
“…For myself, what matters with regard to the various interpretations of Buddhist thought and practice on offer, is discovering which ones best support my capacity to be more open-hearted, less anxious and so on – and I’m more than happy to take ideas from all over the place – Buddhism, sociology, science, art, literature, philosophy, psychology…”
“When I first came across Buddhism over 20 years ago I was entranced by the teachings – and not so interested in the practice – now although I still enjoy the ideas, I’m somehow more realistic about them – and it’s the practice I appreciate most…”
These are Nina’s choices of emphasis. It seems to me that in Secular Buddhism there are various degrees of emphasis to be placed on Buddhist explanation, non-Buddhist explanation, ordinary daily experience, and (hopefully) on the sort of extraordinary-ordinary experience, as a result of careful meditative attention, which Stephen calls the ‘everyday sublime’. The authority to determine those emphases now resides in individuals, whether or not freedom of choice is bad news for the coherent social organisation of religion.
Hi Andrew,
I agree with you that explanation is a form of experience, but would also add that the way we define and explain things shapes our other experiences. As for being interested in ‘truth’ and metaphysical questions, our experience here is shaped more than anything by these definitions. I am also ‘interested’ in truth and metaphysics in the sense of wanting to understand the meaning of metaphysical terms and how they relate to people’s experience. I just think that commitment to metaphysical positions is unhelpful.
I think the “quasi-democratic randomness” you speak of is very much a product of the web. Further agreement on secular Buddhist goals, if it ever happens, is likely to be driven by the pragmatic requirements of action beyond the web.
“Acknowledging someone as your teacher” is one of those aspects of Western Buddhism as I have encountered it in the TBO that I find baffling. In the traditional context, it undoubtedly means accepting the teacher’s beliefs uncritically in the belief that this is the only way to overcome delusion. In the modern context it seems to be merely acknowledging an influence. If one is merely acknowledging influence, there are a great many people I could acknowledge as my teachers. Why only do this in relation to Buddhism? Are writers or philosophers or politicians that one finds inspiring one’s teachers? Are good and helpful personal friends one’s teachers? If so, then I acknowledge them all, but it doesn’t seem to add a great deal to just acknowledging them as sources of inspiration or friendship, apart from fulfilling traditionalist Buddhist sentiment.
I’m really interested in how we can be honest with one another, avoiding a facile goodness and continuing to co-operate.
I like the general thrust of Stephen’s treatise –and also have disagreement- and find that I take something really quite helpful from each of the three comments posted without feeling identified with any one.
I’ve been playing with this, “Modern Dhamma is the co-operative of those living an evolving personal understanding of the Buddha’s teaching, derived from their evolving practice of the Buddha’s teaching.” as a simple statement of my idea of modern Buddhism. Stephen’s ideas plus your 3 diverse comments really reflects this for me.
I’m not intellectually equipped to comment on Mr Batchelor’s piece in rigorous detail, neither can I claim a sufficient familiarity with Buddhist texts to allow me to judge the accuracy or validity of the statements he makes. But what he writes chimes with what I understand: that ‘belief’ in ‘noble truths’ is a chimera requiring faith rather than judgment; that if Buddhism is a philosophy/religion rather than a practical path towards liberation then it is nothing to follow; that the four propositions put forward by Gautama are valuable only when they are taken as the prelude to thought about how the path to liberation can be walked – and that the thought must be resolved into action for it to have any validity. In short, I’ve never thought of Buddhism as anything other than secular, and I’m glad to find that I’m not alone (though I’m not sure that it was entirely necessary for Mr Batchelor to write 10 000 words to demonstrate the proposition).
10,000 words probably was necessary, if the text was written to the prior requirements for an academic article. The precision of your remarks here, and a dip into your blog there, suggests that you could do something similar in seventeen syllables, yet any saying, short or long, raises doubts in other minds. Why can’t a philosophy/religion contain a practical path towards liberation? What is liberation? Is liberation a way-station, or the destination? Is the path necessary and sufficient, with or without a destination? In the business of understanding, what is it to act? Is it fictional, valid, both, or just a cliche, to analogise understanding as walking a path? Which is most effective, a saying that raises doubts or one that provides answers? I don’t know.
Thanks for taking the time to reply Andrew. The precision is, I think, more apparent than real, and the 17 syllables elsewhere are merely an indulgence that gives me passing pleasure, no more. I didn’t intend to imply that a religion or philosophy cannot include a practical path to liberation, but it’s the practical path that seems to me to be of value rather than 2nd order conceptualising, moralising, or – in the case of a religion – worship or veneration. What is liberation? To me, freedom from illusion and its consequences – and it’s neither a way station nor a destination, simply a recognition of the reality I already inhabit – a removal of the fog, if you like. To act in the way I mean it is simply to undertake that process.
Nick,
On passing pleasure: all makers are equivocal about what the’ve produced, whether by hand or by mind: haiku in particular seem to invoke some flavour of that feeling in their readers. Yours are well worth the indulgence of a wider audience.
Categories are most efficient when they are mutually exclusive: I’m not sure if they are in this case. Is philosophical religious explanation not part of the practical path of experience?
The Buddhist tradition makes frequent use of actional or process metaphors: of the path, of polishing a mirror, of removing a fog of delusion, of ‘going beyond’. Occasionally, these metaphorsb are negated, as if liberation were the outright not-doing of any such activities. Seems like this is a case of category overlap: I don’t know if it is the metaphors that are inefficient, or the activities they seek to describe.
Hi Andrew
I’m not sure about the efficiency (or desirability) of categories; they seem to me merely our way of separating out the indivisible for our own convenience, and are not otherwise very significant. But I agree that the explanation you mention can be part of a practical path – as long as it isn’t put on a pedestal as a ‘truth’ of some kind.
As for the haiku, my thanks for your kind comment; they’re there to be found (as you evidently did) if anyone’s interested, but it doesn’t matter if no-one is.
Robert,
I’m glad you agree with me that explanation is a form of experience. I agree with you that the way we define and explain things shapes our other experiences. But I also think that our other experiences shape the way we define and explain things. In other words, there is general mutual interaction between all our faculties, and particular two-way traffic between more cognitive and more sensory faculties. I don’t entirely accept that commitment to metaphysical positions is unhelpful. Such a commitment may often, but not always, be unhelpful, depending on what sort of commitment to what sort of metaphysics. On this topic, I expect to be isolated in this forum: your view is closer to that of both Stephen and the reported view of ‘Mr. Gotama.’
‘Quasi-democratic randomness’ is not just a product of the web. It and the web are both products of the expansion of individualism under the western Enlightenment, and we have won’t do justice to that issue without discussion of the ideas of a host of sociological and cultural theorists, from Weber to Vattimo, who have already ploughed this field.
In this era of modern democratic individualism, acknowledgement of teachers does sound counter-intuitive. But I kick against the constraints of this era, by being Buddhist, by noticing the ways in which I’m an interrelated, rather than an individual being, and by having the common decency to acknowledge those whose influence I especially value.
From Nina’s quotation, it follows that one’s teachers in any discipline are worthy of acknowledgement. I don’t want to bore you with a long-list but here’s a short-list of: sociologists, (Simmel), scientists (Crick), artists (Hodgkin), writers (Becket), philosophers (Wittgenstein), and psychologists (Bion).
With respect to this Secular Buddhist web-forum and the current topic, I think it best to acknowledge that I am greatly indebted to Stephen Batchelor, as a precursor to the many future occasions when, my disparate thoughts and influences having coalesced, I have the temerity to disagree with him – for instance, about metaphysics. At risk of coming across as too sycophantic, here’s the full list of persons who have had such a formative influence that (however much we now disagree) I must acknowledge as my Buddhist teachers: Aryamitra, Narapriya, Samanatha and Rijumitra of Leeds Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (as it then was), David Midgley of Leeds Jamyang, Tony Adam, Ken Jones, Jake Lyne, John Crook, Martine and Stephen Batchelor.
Hi Andrew,
Could you give an example of a metaphysical belief you take to be helpful? Also, perhaps a definition of ‘quasi-democratic randomness’? I suspect that I have misunderstood what you meant by it, and wrongly assumed that I did understand it.
I’m happy that there’s a generous impulse behind the acknowledgement of teachers, and that you extend this beyond the Buddhist tradition. I can very much see the point of acknowledging one’s gratitude to the people themselves in private, but it seems to me that such declarations made in public and mainly for others, can quickly become a badge of group identity: at least that’s my experience in the TBO. Also, the people receiving massive amounts of positive feedback in this kind of way are generally those who need it least, and whose egos are quite often big enough already: a bit like giving a knighthood to a billionaire banker. Perhaps we should save our generous public praise for those who are struggling or marginal and need it most.
Robert,
Here’s my example of a helpful metaphysical belief:
I believe (meaning that I am persuaded by the available evidence, which is almost, but not quite, conclusive enough to warrant knowledge) that the activity of the whole brain correlates with consciousness or ‘mind’, so long as the brain is structurally-coupled, by means of embodiment, to a world, meaning everything else that is the case. Correlation is the buzz-word, but I go further, believing that the difference between brain events and mind events is not an ontological difference, but a difference of access. The upshot is that my being is constrained by my physical existence in time, and outwith those circumstances it is fictional. From these beliefs, it does not follow that neuroscientific explanations supercede psychological (or any other) explanations.
By ‘quasi-democratic randomness’ I mean to suggest that the future form taken by Secular Buddhism will be decided by the opinions and practice of people, wherever they are, who identify to some degree with that label. I say quasi-democratic, because there is some scope for influence to be exerted by people like Stephen (or you, or even me) who choose to broadcast their views. The web is an increasingly influential broadcast medium, but not overwhelmingly so. Personally, I still prefer the real to the virtual. I wasn’t deliberate in choosing the word ‘randomness’, but it indicates uncertainty about the outcome of a process that is unstructured and based on practice as much as opinion. I’m not sure if this is also a metaphysical belief, but I feel that practice (experience) exerts more influence on opinion (explanation) than vice versa: so in the beginning was not the word.
I accept your caution about badges of group identity and public/private acknowledgement, and should not have responded with my own list. I’m a serial partial-joiner and eventual leaver of groups. Some independence of thought and expression forces me into the position of an outsider. As an inherently social human being, that’s a matter for profound regret. Excuse me for not explaining further, but I’m having to rush off for a couple of weeks.
Hi Andrew,
Hope you enjoy/ have enjoyed whatever you’re rushing off to. I’m a serial group-joiner and group leaver too. The main consolation I have observed is that the intervals within which I either stick with a group or manage without one are getting longer, so perhaps my conflicting desires for independence and social support are integrating slightly.
Your example of a metaphysical belief is not what I would define as metaphysical, and your point in brackets “(meaning that I am persuaded by the available evidence, which is almost, but not quite, conclusive enough to warrant knowledge)” confirms this. If you’re persuaded by available evidence, then this belief is a generalisation from experience, not a metaphysical belief. If you recognise that the evidence is not enough to warrant knowledge, then this is further evidence that your belief is not metaphysical: it would be the reverse case of thinking that your evidence did warrant the assertion of an absolute truth that would be metaphysical.
When you also go on “From these beliefs, it does not follow that neuroscientific explanations supercede psychological (or any other) explanation” then I would take this as a further indication that your belief is not metaphysical, because, again, if you did believe what you take not to follow here it would be metaphysical – you would be accepting neurocience as providing a totalising explanation of a kind that no experience could justify.
I recognise that my definition of metaphysics is unconventional (for a reminder of it see http://www.moralobjectivity.net/concept%20-%20metaphysics.html), but then I also find the conventional definitions of it in philosophy incoherent and unhelpful. It would be interesting to hear in exactly what sense you think your example belief is metaphysical, and what sense of metaphysics you would want to maintain if you don’t accept mine.
“Quasi-democratic randomness” is beginning to sound more like consensus to me. That is certainly how I would hope secular Buddhism will emerge – by a consensual process.
Hi Robert and Andrew,
I have tried to be very careful about what I say in regard to the future development of Secular Buddhism UK. I may have set the ball rolling but see myself as being another member of SBUK. The original vision I had was for loose organization that works as much as possible by consensus. For me it is important that the members ‘own’ SBUK. I hope that each of the local groups as independent entities, will be the driving force from which a more representative SUBK will emerge. The loose model Stephen Batchelor suggested to me was the Quakers. (I am sure there are some problems inherent in this model) However there will be some people who are not able to be in a group or who do not wish to be, so they will need a voice. As yet I have not got a fixed idea about how this would work. I suspect it will need people who are prepared to organizing in the early stages. What I would like to avoid is the feeling of a large organization with a distant leadership deciding matters on others behalf and not pay attention to the wishes of the membership. This is probably why organizations get drift as described by Andrew.
Anantacitta
Robert (and Anantacitta),
Thank you; I enjoyed Mull, including its relative indifference to the internet, mobile signal and ferry reliability. Not another metaphysical world, but still refreshing.
It would suit my purposes to argue that neuroscientific findings had reached the point at which the nature of mind could be removed from the usual list of metaphysical questions. However, I think you are saying that only the grounds for my particular belief are not metaphysical – rather than that the nature of mind is not a metaphysical question. Certain matters that are considered metaphysical may perhaps escape that category, if it turns out that they are open to empirical investigation. The mind becomes a case in point if it is reasonable to suggest, as does Delaney, that the infamous ‘hard’ problem is no more than a difference in mode of access. Time may be another area where science can assist in resolving a problem in metaphysics, but I accept that there remains lots of scope for disagreement on both mind and time.
On whether I agree with your definition of metaphysics:
A definition tends to create an impermeable boundary to a category 1) by exhaustively listing what falls inside and outside; 2) by establishing a principle for determining what falls inside and outside. I prefer definitions that set up a more permeable boundary by listing only the key or general features of the category: this is Eleanor Rosch’s description of the way in which definitions work in ordinary language. The first method is cumbersome enough to be useless, the second adds the proposed principle to other matters for contention. I think the third, less restrictive type of definition is sufficient for most purposes, but is it sufficient for metaphysical questions? I hope so, otherwise the second method prevails, and discussion of metaphysics remains a specialist philosophical activity. Your definition seems to be a principle based on the warrant for any metaphysical belief (the epistemological grounds): it may be acceptable in some cases, for some people, but not in other cases, for other people. For instance, I could conscript your definition to justify an argument that the nature of mind is no longer a matter for metaphysical belief. But others might argue that Dempsey is wrong: that the ‘hard’ problem remains unresolved merely by reformulation as a difference in mode of access, therefore the nature of mind remains a metaphysical belief.
I don’t follow your argument about what would follow from my believing in something that I don’t believe, with respect to neuroscience and other sorts of explanation. What I do follow is Fodor’s view that science is not reductive of other discourses that are more explanatory of their own fields.
In a much earlier post, Julian Adkins characterised the Dharma as ‘a pragmatic system of ideas without metaphysical baggage’. By now it should be evident from my previous posts that I disagree with this characterisation, not because ‘baggage’ is a rhetorical device, but because I find metaphysics to form part of Buddhist explanation, and not always an objectionable part. Stephen Batchelor’s ‘A Secular Buddhism’ article (which this thread began by discussing), your own work, Robert, as well as most western Buddhists I have met, are all opposed to metaphysical thinking. This seems to be a corollary of the general valorization of experience. While I acknowledge the primacy of experience, I don’t accept the corollary, on the grounds that explanation is itself part of experience. So this is a consensus from which I stand apart.
Hopefully, the sort of evolving consensus and group localism, which Anantacitta imagines for SBUK, will continue to allow space for differences of view, metaphysical or otherwise, to be openly contested. This sort of openness should not only encompass views or beliefs, but also style of language, since style affects content. For example, if Quakers didn’t surround their praxis with the language of spirituality, I might have become a Quaker. It is often suggested that Buddhists ought to imitate the Buddha’s refusal to answer metaphysical questions. In his biography of the Dalai Lama, Pico Iyer makes the more open suggestion that, because the Buddha refused to answer certain metaphysical questions, Buddhists remain free to make up their own minds.
Dempsey, L. P., 2004, ‘Conscious experience, reduction and identity: many explanatory gaps, one solution’, Philosophical Psychology, 17, (2), pp. 225-245.
Fodor, J., 1980 (1974), ‘Special Sciences, or the Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis’, Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, (ed.) N. Block, (London, Methuen).
Rosch, E., 1973, ‘On the internal structure of perceptual and semantic categories’, Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language (ed.) T. Moore, (NY, Academic Press).
Hi Andrew,
One of the things that has come to seem clear to me, but I find hard to get across to others, is the way that metaphysics has to be judged in its own absolute terms, whilst incremental matters that relate to experience need to be judged in their terms. That sounds like introducing a strong dualism: but actually I think it’s fair to treat dualism dualistically, and by that means to show its contradictoriness. Where we tend to go wrong is by treating increments dualistically – imposing absolute ideas on experience. I’m saying all this because your remarks about definitions seem to me to warrant this point. Metaphysics itself requires a left-brained, absolute, impermeable definition because that’s how metaphysics itself works. You can’t treat metaphysics itself non- metaphysically, or if you do it has a Midas-like tendency to appropriate all that it touches – as theology does, for example.
However, I fully agree with you about definitions if we are talking about anything non-metaphysical. If we were talking about birds, or trees, or meditation experiences, it would be very unhelpful to try to exhaustively list what falls inside and outside the scope of a particular term. The acceptance of vagueness then becomes a helpful value. Exhaustive definition in such cases itself turns into metaphysical belief about how things are essentially organised, denying our degree of ignorance and the approximateness of our understanding, as well as the constructed nature of the categories we use.
Just to clarify what I was saying about neuroscience: I wouldn’t say that neuroscientific explanation itself is metaphysical when it recognises its own limitations, but it becomes so when it is reductive or asserts that it has the sole or ultimate material explanation of mental phenomena. No question and no form of investigation can be metaphysical – so in that sense I don’t think there are any ‘metaphysical questions’. Metaphysics is composed only of pretended answers, of beliefs that surpass the means of justification.