So just what is the good life, according to Buddhism, according to Flanagan, according to this post I'm writing right now? (...According to the inner, private language that my attempts to write are meant to reflect, according to the reality as perceived which my inner words are attempting to express, according to the reality itself to which my reality as perceived is meant to correspond, according to... what was I talking about?)
Ah, yes, so you want to read something brief by Mr. OJ Flanagan that you needn't purchase that is relevant to our great interview with him, do you?
Well take a look at this article he posted, called Buddhist Persons and EudaimoniaBuddha. In it, Owen lays out what a philosophical psychology is supposed to do and gives the Buddhist version of it:
EudaimoniaBuddha = a stable sense of serenity and contentment (not the sort of happy-happy/joy-joy/click-your-heels feeling state that is widely sought and promoted in the West as the best kind of happiness) where this... state is caused or constituted by enlightenment/wisdom and virtue...
So, as we were saying on the 'cast, happiness (according to not just the Buddhist, but Aristotle and any other kind of eudaimonism) is not just "in the head," but has to have certain causes, and more generally certain relations to the world (a certain range of contexts, certain effects, etc.). All this is supposed to rule out a philosophy that says that true happiness could be achieved just by taking a pill that makes you feel good all the time, or immersing in a Matrix-like world of illusion that is fully satisfying subjectively. Well, what do you folks think of this? Anyone want to pick a fight with it?
In the article, Owen also goes into the personhood issue (how can you have "virtues" if you don't have a stable "self" to have those virtues?), the four noble truths (which we'll deal with explicitly, though still pretty briefly, in our follow-up episode #54), the three poisons (delusion, greedy desire, and hatred), a bit of the Abhidhamma, the four virtues (compassion, loving kindness, appreciative joy, and equanimity), and more of the story about neurobiological research that claims to demonstrate the happiness-giving character of Buddhism (and why, given what's been said about eudaimonia, this is obviously bogus).
-Mark Linsenmayer
A stable, virtuous peace of mind sounds like the ticket. Seeking the extremes of ecstasy in the sublime or nihilism of the mundane are equally narcissistic excess with open doors to the obscene.
Eudamonia, the buddhist middle way, and the Pirsig’s motorcycle maintenance as peace of mind all seem related to another well-known philosophies for right-living – Stoicism.
From Wiki — The Stoics taught that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgement, and that a sage, or person of “moral and intellectual perfection,” would not suffer such emotions.[1]
Stoics were concerned with the active relationship between cosmic determinism and human freedom, and the belief that it is virtuous to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is in accord with nature. Because of this, the Stoics presented their philosophy as a way of life, and they thought that the best indication of an individual’s philosophy was not what a person said but how he behaved.
Thinking of philosophy as a means to a good life, Irvine has written a book http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06harrison.html?pagewanted=all
Stoicism is my philosophy of life, I encourage anyone that is interested to check out our Reddit group at http://www.reddit.com/r/stoicism People post links and text related to Stoicism and then comment on the post or text. It’s a wonderful community and I’ve learned quite a bit participating there.
The book reviewed in my post above deals a lot with the nature of desire, and its physiology.
This is Irvine’s other book on philosophy toward a good life, where he likes the Stoics http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/0195374614
Video of Irvine on the good life
leaving aside the questionable details of the models of thriving it would be better if they didn’t try and tie these prescriptions into something like the goal/purpose of a human nature. If they just left it at here are some human capacities/skills that you can develop and here are some outcomes that some people have enjoyed by way of them than they would be on more solid ground. Dreyfus and SDKelly are among a number of people trying to revive something like phronesis in terms of virtue ethics, but they never really take into account the kinds of social forces we will see when we get to Marx and co.
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201101031000
ps maybe we would be better off, clearer, by dropping terms of generalization like “Buddhism” as if there was any one such things (when there as many buddhisms as there are buddhists) and just stick to talking in terms of specific people and or texts/objects. I think we should do the same for Philosophy but that may well be another matter.
Dmf
Listening to kqed and looking at this comment on buddhism and phil…Is it problematic to put forth a bunch of ‘how to’ heuristics while not placing them within a framework that can generally justify and thus satisfy the question ‘why?’
I think the why is in relations to the results and not in the physics, meta or otherwise, why the need/desire for a general justification, why import any Necessity into such matters?
Indeed, why do we seem to search for universals? It seems evident we are prone to this behavior.
I recall a commercial for cereal, where a guy is going on about all the justifications for him to prefer, say corn flakes. When handed a box of raisin bran, he takes a sample and instantly starts rattling on about why raisin bran is the best.
Kinda like Man vs Food explaining why every hamburger in every town is the best he’s ever had.
http://www.philostv.com/shaun-gallagher-and-karsten-stueber/
philo of neuroscience on empathy
http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/weblog/2008/11/cscp-podcast-owen-flanagan.html
Thank you for your valuable content. In connection with your two episodes on Flanagan’s work on Buddhism, I would like to share some of my own thoughts:
1. Is there really a conflict between subjective experience and the accounts of scientific epistemology? But aren’t the latter just as unavoidably constructed from our subjective experience as any other model? They are merely embedded more deeply and indirectly in the layers of our experience. There may well be conflicts between the conclusions of different channels of subjective epistemology (some direct and compelling, others indirect and subtle). We can fruitfully ask how to settle such conflicts, but it may not be accurate to frame them as a conflict between subjective experience and something else.
2. Of course it’s quite possible that Buddhism is not a doctrine fit for application to social or political organization. But “Buddhist” nations may not even be the best implementations of Buddhism to base our judgement on.
Eudaimonia (buddhist or otherwise) need not be just about a pleasant state of mind as an end in itself. A mental state of acceptance and equanimity is arguably the most conducive to effective compassion and, indeed, to the attainment of many other potential virtues or goals. Of course, it’s an interesting line of inquiry whether all possible goals are better attained in such a mental state: what about impassioned art? What about the intense experience of emotion as a virtue in itself? Also, what if attaining a goal (even if more efficaciously) doesn’t feel as fulfilling when executed without passion? (More on this below.)
3. Compassion and loving kindness: perhaps we don’t have to cultivate these qualities ad-hoc, but rather out of a consideration of the limits of other beings’ agency. Detachment and liberation may not compel one to compassion, but may well free one’s mind up for effectively channeling compassion. Buddhism, stoicism and pragmatism seem to have much common ground in this spirit.
Indeed, the Hindu doctrine of “attachment-free engagement”, exhorted most famously in the bhagavadgita, exemplifies this very spirit. It is not unlikely that the Buddha was influenced by it. It is unfortunate that many popular interpretations of the Buddha’s teachings tend to be somewhat nihilistic, ascetic and “unworldly”. In reality, his teachings are eminently compatible with a life-affirming outlook, much the same way that the Hindu doctrine of non-attachment is. The point is not to give up the world for its illusory nature. Rather, it is to engage with it earnestly, yet without taking it seriously as an “ultimate reality”. To learn not to inflict suffering on oneself on account of the world, but to nevertheless engage “playfully” and practice compassion towards beings that do suffer. In Hindu thought, there is supposed to be the universal “self-created” being whose act of creation and engagement with the product thereof are in the spirit of “leelaa” (“play”). That is, the being immerses itself in the passions of its creation, suffers itself to love and be loved, hate and be hated, etc., but all with a sort of meta-awareness that this is all play. We manifest beings are supposed to be illusory and transient playthings of this universal being, but with the ability to realize our identity with it and to share in its experience of playful bliss. (Of course there are different schools of thought with regard to whether there is duality between this being and us, etc., with associated hair-splitting schisms.)
4. I would like to register my agreement with Dylan’s point: materialism isn’t reductionism, broadly speaking. Within a materialistic account of the world, there is ample scope for explanations that don’t reduce phenomena to some constituent elements.
5. Schrödinger etc.’s eastern connections: I admit I haven’t read these, although I am a little more familiar with their contemporary counterparts. You see, I’m a working expert in quantum physics, and I am not a fan of the air of mystique around it. It irritates me that even experts in the science indulge in mystifying it and drawing untenable or unwarranted analogies to ancient eastern mystical traditions, theorizing on quantum consciousness woo, etc. One of my areas of active (if grudging) research is to engage with instances of such mystification and rebut them with entirely materialist accounts.
6. I note my agreement with the distinction between “suffering from attachment” (a form of suffering that falls exclusively to the lot of beings with complex inner lives) vs. suffering in general (animals suffering hunger, pain, etc.). The Buddhist’s quest seems to be focused on the former, although the cultivation of compassion would also be relevant for the latter.
7. Rebirth as a loosely-defined concept: it is tenable, if one squints a bit, to interpret the concept of rebirth (and trans-birth karma) in Hindu and allied thought systems as an account of the impact of one’s actions on one’s progeny and legacy. It is not uncommon in Hindu literature to encounter statements like “a man dies and later returns in the form of his progeny”.
8. One can reject the Pinkerian complacent optimism in a particular established system / institution of science (e.g. contemporary institutionalized scientific practice), but still subscribe to the scientific approach as methodologically applicable to all human endeavours and philosophical inquiry.
Thank you for your valuable content. In connection with your two episodes on Flanagan’s work on Buddhism, I would like to share some of my own thoughts:
1. Is there really a conflict between subjective experience and the accounts of scientific epistemology? But aren’t the latter just as unavoidably constructed from our subjective experience as any other model? They are merely embedded more deeply and indirectly in the layers of our experience. There may well be conflicts between the conclusions of different channels of subjective epistemology (some direct and compelling, others indirect and subtle). We can fruitfully ask how to settle such conflicts, but it may not be accurate to frame them as a conflict between subjective experience and something else.
2. Of course it’s quite possible that Buddhism is not a doctrine fit for application to social or political organization. But “Buddhist” nations may not even be the best implementations of Buddhism to base our judgement on.
3. Eudaimonia (buddhist or otherwise) need not be just about a pleasant state of mind as an end in itself. A mental state of acceptance and equanimity is arguably the most conducive to effective compassion and, indeed, to the attainment of many other potential virtues or goals. Of course, it’s an interesting line of inquiry whether all possible goals are better attained in such a mental state: what about impassioned art? What about the intense experience of emotion as a virtue in itself? Also, what if attaining a goal (even if more efficaciously) doesn’t feel as fulfilling when executed without passion? (More on this below.)
4. Compassion and loving kindness: perhaps we don’t have to cultivate these qualities ad-hoc, but rather out of a consideration of the limits of other beings’ agency. Detachment and liberation may not compel one to compassion, but may well free one’s mind up for effectively channeling compassion. Buddhism, stoicism and pragmatism seem to have much common ground in this spirit.
Indeed, the Hindu doctrine of “attachment-free engagement”, exhorted most famously in the bhagavadgita, exemplifies this very spirit. It is not unlikely that the Buddha was influenced by it. It is unfortunate that many popular interpretations of the Buddha’s teachings tend to be somewhat nihilistic, ascetic and “unworldly”. In reality, his teachings are eminently compatible with a life-affirming outlook, much the same way that the Hindu doctrine of non-attachment is. The point is not to give up the world for its illusory nature. Rather, it is to engage with it earnestly, yet without taking it seriously as an “ultimate reality”. To learn not to inflict suffering on oneself on account of the world, but to nevertheless engage “playfully” and practice compassion towards beings that do suffer. In Hindu thought, there is supposed to be the universal “self-created” being whose act of creation and engagement with the product thereof are in the spirit of “leelaa” (“play”). That is, the being immerses itself in the passions of its creation, suffers itself to love and be loved, hate and be hated, etc., but all with a sort of meta-awareness that this is all play. We manifest beings are supposed to be illusory and transient playthings of this universal being, but with the ability to realize our identity with it and to share in its experience of playful bliss. (Of course there are different schools of thought with regard to whether there is duality between this being and us, etc., with associated hair-splitting schisms.)
5. I would like to register my agreement with Dylan’s point: materialism isn’t reductionism, broadly speaking. Within a materialistic account of the world, there is ample scope for explanations that don’t reduce phenomena to some constituent elements.
6. Schrödinger etc.’s eastern connections: I admit I haven’t read these, although I am a little more familiar with their contemporary counterparts. You see, I’m a working expert in quantum physics, and I am not a fan of the air of mystique around it. It irritates me that even experts in the science indulge in mystifying it and drawing untenable or unwarranted analogies to ancient eastern mystical traditions, theorizing on quantum consciousness woo, etc. One of my areas of active (if grudging) research is to engage with instances of such mystification and rebut them with entirely materialist accounts.
7. I note my agreement with the distinction between “suffering from attachment” (a form of suffering that falls exclusively to the lot of beings with complex inner lives) vs. suffering in general (animals suffering hunger, pain, etc.). The Buddhist’s quest seems to be focused on the former, although the cultivation of compassion would also be relevant for the latter.
8. Rebirth as a loosely-defined concept: it is tenable, if one squints a bit, to interpret the concept of rebirth (and trans-birth karma) in Hindu and allied thought systems as an account of the impact of one’s actions on one’s progeny and legacy. It is not uncommon in Hindu literature to encounter statements like “a man dies and later returns in the form of his progeny”.
9. One can reject the Pinkerian complacent optimism in a particular established system / institution of science (e.g. contemporary institutionalized scientific practice), but still subscribe to the scientific approach as methodologically applicable to all human endeavours and philosophical inquiry.