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When a human is gaining knowledge how does he or she do from childhood on?

How do we come to understand the world once we are born?

What is this inner proces of coming to knowledge, how does it looks like ?

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Posted (edited)

I'm not sure if I totally understand your post, but knowledge is gained through external experience. Knowledge is just merely understanding objective facts,and has very little to do with the subjective self. Knowledge is not the same as intellect. Intellect being the capacity to understand and develop abstract thoughts, insight, reasoning, problem solving, as well as gaining knowledge. To sum it up if one does not develop intellect then knowledge cannot be gained. Even new borns start developing their intellect fresh from the womb.

The "Vedanta Treatise" by A. Parthasarathy deals extensively with the issue of knowledge and intellect. It is probably the best non Buddhist book I have read about Buddhism. (excuse the paradox). The Vedanta deals with the true nature of Self, and is aimed toward reaching enlightenment.

Edited by mizzi39
Posted

Buddhist epistemology is a weighty subject, bit of the 'poisoned arrow' category. Here is a source that dares to wade into those waters:

http://www.buddhistethics.org/15/tzohar-review.pdf

There are lots of others around but it gets to be like counting angels on a pinhead, most of the time.

In any case, as far as I can tell all of the claims and conclusions are inferred, as the Buddha taught virtually nothing about epistemology. When asked questions related to that field or any other field of philosophy, he gave answers such as the one when Malunkyaputta asked whether the world was eternal or not eternal:

"The religious life, Malunkyaputta does not depend on the dogma that the world is eternal; nor does the religious life, Malunkyaputta, depend on the dogma that the world is not eternal. Whether the dogma obtained, Malunkyaputta that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, there still remain birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief and despair, for the extinction of which in the present life I am prescribing . ....."

One might regret the lack of Buddhist knowledge about acquiring knowledge, but then modern philosophers have yet to come up with a single unified cognitive theory either.

Posted

It might be easy, though rather facile for practical purposes, to respond that we don't acquire knowledge. Knowledge is a chimera. We can never be really sure that we know anything other than tautologies, e.g. black cats are black. There is always a possible element of doubt in a conclusion or belief. If a conclusion or any proposition cannot possibly be invalidated then it is a tautology or an ad hoc hypothesis, ("God is Love") not knowledge. If it can possibly be invalidated, then it isn't knowledge, though it may be a justified belief and it may be true. The Cow in the Field anecdote, below, is a good illustration of when justified true belief is not in fact knowledge.

Farmer Franco is concerned about his prize cow, Daisy. In fact, he is so concerned that when his dairyman tells him that Daisy is in the field, happily grazing, he says he needs to know for certain. He doesn't want merely to have a 99 percent probability that Daisy is safe, he wants to be able to say that he knows Daisy is safe.

Farmer Franco goes out to the field and standing by the gate sees in the distance, behind some trees, a white and black shape that he recognizes as his favorite cow. He goes back to the dairy and tells his friend that he knows Daisy is in the field.

Yet, at this point, does Farmer Franco really know it?

The dairyman says he will check too, and goes to the field. There he finds Daisy, having a nap in a hollow, behind a bush, well out of sight of the gate. He also spots a large piece of black and white paper that has got caught in a tree.

Daisy is in the field, as Farmer Franco thought. But was he right to say that he knew she was?

There's a whole lot about this, if you have the interest and the patience, in the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia....Gettier_problem

Perhaps we can conclude with the Logical Positivists that we don't actually ever attain "knowledge" expressed as a synthetic proposition (e.g. "My wife is sitting opposite me"; "Bangkok is the capital of Thailand"). The best we can do, on the basis of our experience and ability to reason, is have a justified true belief (JTB) in or about something. Normally that would be sufficient, but knowing that something is both justified and true can be tricky. For many years people believed the sun travelled round the earth, and this belief was justified by their experience of standing on an apparently stationary earth and watching the sun move across the sky. All sorts of ad hoc hypotheses (e.g. epicycles) as recently as those of Tycho Brahe (16th century), a fastidious observer, were invoked to justify this ancient belief. For a contemporary example, consider that many people may justifiably believe that English is the official language of the United Kingdom, but it is not true (nor is it true of the US or Australia).

Posted

thanks for your contributions.

I see it would be a good thing to go more into detail with my question.

When a human is born one could consider the world for the newborn is a world of complete 'chaos', and by this I mean: nothing in the world is known. This born human is complete empty (?)with regard to knowledge. Everything has the same meaning, the same value, so this human see nothing that is cause or effected by cause. Since nothing is known, nothing is categorised.

When we would like to comprehend the proces of knowledge we have to go back to a situation where in we know nothing about the world we meet.

I do not think the story of the Farmer Franco contributes anything to this question since this story tells about a wrong way of indicating, of handling gained knowledge, (all the concepts within this story are based on or gained knowledge).

I am talking about the start where a person is completeley blank towards the outside world, towards concepts like soul, self, I, other, knowledge, awareness, unawareness.

In this situation we have a situtation in wich a person also doesnot know anything about , subjective, objective, truth, illusion, lie and so on becos we talk about a person that is blank towards the world he or she lives in.

So with my question I do not near knowledge out of awareness, but I would like to look at gaining awareness out of knowledge.

We could look also at this from the point where we imagine we do have no knowledge at all about the world given to us.

For this we should have to leave all understanding, all concepts, all awareness we have collected in time and try to look at the world as if it was a complete new experienced world.

How do we come to know, what is the proces of knowing the world, becoming aware of the world?

When we meet the world we experience the world, One can say it is a matter of merely understanding the given world, my question is: what is this proces of understanding objective or subjective given facts of this given world?

My question is not: What is knowledge and What is intellect, and What is the function of cappacity but what is the proces of coming to know, gaining knowledge?

When we would consider the world of knowledge is given, a priori, then the question stays about the same.

Because with 'a priori knowledge' my question would be: What is the proces in a human of relating one a priori fact to other a priori facts?

My question is also not the question if knowledge, once being revealed, must be or has to be prooved to be true knowledge by confirmation by other knowledge, so it is not about valuing knowledge, but as said before, the proces of gaining knowledge is the core of my question.

Since there is no Buddhist knowledge about acquiring knowledge, I would like to know more about this subject since it is my opinion now, answering this question is a key to high awareness.

.

Posted

It might be easy, though rather facile for practical purposes, to respond that we don't acquire knowledge. Knowledge is a chimera. We can never be really sure that we know anything other than tautologies, e.g. black cats are black. There is always a possible element of doubt in a conclusion or belief. If a conclusion or any proposition cannot possibly be invalidated then it is a tautology or an ad hoc hypothesis, ("God is Love") not knowledge. If it can possibly be invalidated, then it isn't knowledge, though it may be a justified belief and it may be true.

When we would consider knowledge to be a chimera, then we have, when we are consequent in this way of thinking, also to conclude that al our idea's, concepts and understanding are chimera's. That would mean the concept I or self also are chimera. And then we have the situation that a chimera is thinking it is a chimera, And by this this whole easy way of thinking is dissolved.

When we are thinking knowledge are tautologie's or ad hoc hypothesis, we pass the fact that both are consisting out of acquired knowledge (knowledge 'God', knowledge 'to be', knowledge 'love') and so here we have again a situation where knowledge is confirmed but indicated/handled in the wrong way. It makes me think somebody is telling his bike is not a bike but a chair, because you can sit on it.

Posted (edited)
I do not think the story of the Farmer Franco contributes anything to this question since this story tells about a wrong way of indicating, of handling gained knowledge, (all the concepts within this story are based on or gained knowledge).

The Cow in the Field story simply illustrates the limits of knowledge defined as justified true belief. One has to define knowledge in order to ask and answer questions about it.

What is this process of understanding objective or subjective given facts of this given world?

My question is not: What is knowledge and What is intellect, and What is the function of capacity but what is the process of coming to know, gaining knowledge?

I'm sure there are better sources for advice on how cognition proceeds than in this forum. As Sabaijai has said, there doesn't appear to be a distinctively Buddhist perspective on this question.

When we would consider the world of knowledge is given, a priori, then the question stays about the same.

Because with 'a priori knowledge' my question would be: What is the proces in a human of relating one a priori fact to other a priori facts?

Since there is no Buddhist knowledge about acquiring knowledge, I would like to know more about this subject since it is my opinion now, answering this question is a key to high awareness.

If you believe that the question of how cognition arises from awareness (e.g. in a new-born child) is critical to high awareness, then I suspect you may have some hypothetical answers you could share with us.

To me the fact that we have consciousness and are aware is a mystery, as is the ability to proceed from awareness to cognition and ratiocination. It's just a given. The Greeks speculated that these capacities proceeded from memory (anamnesis), didn't they? Consider Socrates' answer to Meno's question:

Meno: And how are you going to search for [the nature of virtue] when you don't know at all what it is, Socrates? Which of all the things you don't know will you set up as target for your search? And even if you actually come across it, how will you know that it is that thing which you don't know?

Socrates' response is to develop his theory of anamnesis. He suggests that the soul is immortal, and repeatedly incarnated; knowledge is actually in the soul from eternity, but each time the soul is incarnated its knowledge is forgotten in the shock of birth. What one perceives to be learning, then, is actually the recovery of what one has forgotten. (Wikipedia: Anamnesis)

Is your question one that can only be answered by an ad hoc hypothesis, i.e. speculation? How would we know that the answer constitutes knowledge?

I think you have some ideas already, Christiaan.wink.gif What do you think are some possible answers to your question?

Edited by Xangsamhua
Posted

Since my english is not sufficient to summarise the text I hereby give the text , when allowed, to support looking at this question.

THE STARTING POINT OF EPISTEMOLOGY

AS WE HAVE SEEN in the preceding chapters, an epistemological investigation must begin by rejecting existing knowledge. Knowledge is something brought into existence by man, something that has arisen through his activity. If a theory of knowledge is really to explain the whole sphere of knowledge, then it must start from something still quite untouched by the activity of thinking, and what is more, from something which lends to this activity its first impulse. This starting point must lie outside the act of cognition, it must not itself be knowledge. But it must be sought immediately prior to cognition, so that the very next step man takes beyond it is the activity of cognition. This absolute starting point must be determined in such a way that it admits nothing already derived from cognition.

Only our directly given world-picture can offer such a starting point, i.e. that picture of the world which presents itself to man before he has subjected it to the processes of knowledge in any way, before he has asserted or decided anything at all about it by means of thinking. This “directly given” picture is what flits past us, disconnected, but still undifferentiated. [Differentiation of the given, indistinct, world picture into distinct entities is already an act of thought-activity.] In it, nothing appears distinguished from, related to, or determined by, anything else. At this stage, so to speak, no object or event is yet more important or significant than any other. The most rudimentary organ of an animal, which, in the light of further knowledge may turn out to be quite unimportant for its development and life, appears before us with the same claims for our attention as the noblest and most essential part of the organism. Before our conceptual activity begins, the world-picture contains neither substance, quality nor cause and effect; distinctions between matter and spirit, body and soul, do not yet exist. Furthermore, any other predicate must also be excluded from the world-picture at this stage. The picture can be considered neither as reality nor as appearance, neither subjective nor objective, neither as chance nor as necessity; whether it is “thing-in-itself,” or mere representation, cannot be decided at this stage. For, as we have seen, knowledge of physics and physiology which leads to a classification of the “given” under one or the other of the above headings, cannot be a basis for a theory of knowledge.

If a being with a fully developed human intelligence were suddenly created out of nothing and then confronted the world, the first impression made on his senses and his thinking would be something like what I have just characterized as the directly given world-picture. In practice, man never encounters this world-picture in this form at any time in his life; he never experiences a division between a purely passive awareness of the “directly-given” and a thinking recognition of it. This fact could lead to doubt about my description of the starting point for a theory of knowledge. Hartmann says for example:

“We are not concerned with the hypothetical content of consciousness in a child which is just becoming conscious or in an animal at the lowest level of life, since the philosophizing human being has no experience of this; if he tries to reconstruct the content of consciousness of beings on primitive biogenetic or ontogenetic levels, he must base his conclusions on the way he experiences his own consciousness. Our first task, therefore, is to establish the content of man's consciousness when he begins philosophical reflection.” [ 108 ]

The objection to this, however, is that the world-picture with which we begin philosophical reflection already contains predicates mediated through cognition. These cannot be accepted uncritically, but must be carefully removed from the world-picture so that it can be considered free of anything introduced through the process of knowledge. This division between the “given” and the “known” will not in fact, coincide with any stage of human development; the boundary must be drawn artificially. But this can be done at every level of development so long as we draw the dividing line correctly between what confronts us free of all conceptual definitions, and what cognition subsequently makes of it.

It might be objected here that I have already made use of a number of conceptual definitions in order to extract from the world-picture as it appears when completed by man, that other world-picture which I described as the directly given. However, what we have extracted by means of thought does not characterize the directly given world-picture, nor define nor express anything about it; what it does is to guide our attention to the dividing line where the starting point for cognition is to be found. The question of truth or error, correctness or incorrectness, does not enter into this statement, which is concerned with the moment preceding the point where a theory of knowledge begins. It serves merely to guide us deliberately to this starting point. No one proceeding to consider epistemological questions could possibly be said to be standing at the starting point of cognition, for he already possesses a certain amount of knowledge. To remove from this all that has been contributed by cognition, and to establish a pre-cognitive starting point, can only be done conceptually. But such concepts are not of value as knowledge; they have the purely negative function of removing from sight all that belongs to knowledge and of leading us to the point where knowledge begins. These considerations act as signposts pointing to where the act of cognition first appears, but at this stage, do not themselves form part of the act of cognition. Whatever the epistemologist proposes in order to establish his starting point raises, to begin with, no question of truth or error, but only of its suitability for this task. From the starting point, too, all error is excluded, for error can only begin with cognition, and therefore cannot arise before cognition sets in.

Only a theory of knowledge that starts from considerations of this kind can claim to observe this last principle. For if the starting point is some object (or subject) to which is attached any conceptual definition, then the possibility of error is already present in the starting point, namely in the definition itself. Justification of the definition will then depend upon the laws inherent in the act of cognition. But these laws can be discovered only in the course of the epistemological investigation itself. Error is wholly excluded only by saying: I eliminate from my world-picture all conceptual definitions arrived at through cognition and retain only what enters my field of observation without any activity on my part. When on principle I refrain from making any statement, I cannot make a mistake.

Error, in relation to knowledge, i.e. epistemologically, can occur only within the act of cognition. Sense deceptions are not errors. That the moon upon rising appears larger than it does at its zenith is not an error but a fact governed by the laws of nature. A mistake in knowledge would occur only if, in using thinking to combine the given perceptions, we misinterpreted “larger” and “smaller.” But this interpretation is part of the act of cognition.

To understand cognition exactly in all its details, its origin and starting point must first be grasped. It is clear, furthermore, that what precedes this primary starting point must not be included in an explanation of cognition, but must be presupposed. Investigation of the essence of what is here presupposed, is the task of the various branches of scientific knowledge. The present aim, however, is not to acquire specific knowledge of this or that element, but to investigate cognition itself. Until we have understood the act of knowledge, we cannot judge the significance of statements about the content of the world arrived at through the act of cognition.

This is why the directly given is not defined as long as the relation of such a definition to what is defined is not known. Even the concept: “directly given” includes no statement about what precedes cognition. Its only purpose is to point to this given, to turn our attention to it. At the starting point of a theory of knowledge, the concept is only the first initial relation between cognition and world-content. This description even allows for the possibility that the total world-content would turn out to be only a figment of our own “I,” which would mean that extreme subjectivism would be true; subjectivism is not something that exists as given. It can only be a conclusion drawn from considerations based on cognition, i.e. it would have to be confirmed by the theory of knowledge; it could not be assumed as its basis.

This directly given world-content includes everything that enters our experience in the widest sense: sensations. perceptions, opinions, feelings, deeds, pictures of dreams and imaginations, representations, concepts and ideas. Illusions and hallucinations too, at this stage are equal to the rest of the world-content. For their relation to other perceptions can be revealed only through observation based on cognition.

When epistemology starts from the assumption that all the elements just mentioned constitute the content of our consciousness, the following question immediately arises: How is it possible for us to go beyond our consciousness and recognize actual existence; where can the leap be made from our subjective experiences to what lies beyond them? When such an assumption is not made, the situation is different. Both consciousness and the representation of the “I” are, to begin with, only parts of the directly given and the relationship of the latter to the two former must be discovered by means of cognition. Cognition is not to be defined in terms of consciousness, but vice versa: both consciousness and the relation between subject and object in terms of cognition. Since the “given” is left without predicate, to begin with, the question arises as to how it is defined at all; how can any start be made with cognition? How does one part of the world-picture come to be designated as perception and the other as concept, one thing as existence, another as appearance, this as cause and that as effect; how is it that we can separate ourselves from what is objective and regard ourselves as “I” in contrast to the “not-I?”

We must find the bridge from the world-picture as given, to that other world-picture which we build up by means of cognition. Here, however, we meet with the following difficulty: As long as we merely stare passively at the given we shall never find a point of attack where we can gain a foothold, and from where we can then proceed with cognition. Somewhere in the given we must find a place where we can set to work, where something exists which is akin to cognition. If everything were really only given, we could do no more than merely stare into the external world and stare indifferently into the inner world of our individuality. We would at most be able todescribe things as something external to us; we should never be able to understand them. Our concepts would have a purely external relation to that to which they referred; they would not be inwardly related to it. For real cognition depends on finding a sphere somewhere in the given where our cognizing activity does not merely presuppose something given, but finds itself active in the very essence of the given. In other words: precisely through strict adherence to the given as merely given, it must become apparent that not everything is given. Insistence on the given alone must lead to the discovery of something which goes beyond the given. The reason for so insisting is not to establish some arbitrary starting point for a theory of knowledge, but to discover the true one. In this sense, the given also includes what according to its very nature is not-given. The latter would appear, to begin with, as formally a part of the given, but on closer scrutiny, would reveal its true nature of its own accord.

The whole difficulty in understanding cognition comes from the fact that we ourselves do not create the content of the world. If we did this, cognition would not exist at all. I can only ask questions about something which is given to me. Something which I create myself, I also determine myself, so that I do not need to ask for an explanation for it.

This is the second step in our theory of knowledge. It consists in the postulate: In the sphere of the given there must be something in relation to which our activity does not hover in emptiness, but where the content of the world itself enters this activity.

The starting point for our theory of knowledge was placed so that it completely precedes the cognizing activity, and thus cannot prejudice cognition and obscure it; in the same way, the next step has been defined so that there can be no question of either error or incorrectness. For this step does not prejudge any issue, but merely shows what conditions are necessary if knowledge is to arise at all. It is essential to remember that it is we ourselves who postulate what characteristic feature that part of the world-content must possess with which our activity of cognition can make a start.

This, in fact, is the only thing we can do. For the world-content as given is completely undefined. No part of it of its own accord can provide the occasion for setting it up as the starting point for bringing order into chaos. The activity of cognition must therefore issue a decree and declare what characteristics this starting point must manifest. Such a decree in no way infringes on the quality of the given. It does not introduce any arbitrary assertion into the science of epistemology. In fact, it asserts nothing, but claims only that if knowledge is to be made explainable, then we must look for some part of the given which can provide a starting point for cognition, as described above. If this exists, cognition can be explained, but not otherwise. Thus, while the given provides the general starting point for our theory of knowledge, it must now be narrowed down to some particular point of the given.

Let us now take a closer look at this demand. Where, within the world-picture, do we find something that is not merely given, but only given insofar as it is being produced in the actual act of cognition?

It is essential to realize that the activity of producing something in the act of cognition must present itself to us as something also directly given. It must not be necessary to draw conclusions before recognizing it. This at once indicates that sense impressions do not meet our requirements. For we cannot know directly but only indirectly that sense impressions do not occur without activity on our part; this we discover only by considering physical and physiological factors. But we do know absolutely directly that concepts and ideas appear only in the act of cognition and through this enter the sphere of the directly given. In this respect concepts and ideas do not deceive anyone. A hallucination may appear as something externally given, but one would never take one's own concepts to be something given without one's own thinking activity. A lunatic regards things and relations as real to which are applied the predicate “reality,” although in fact they are not real; but he would never say that his concepts and ideas entered the sphere of the given without his own activity. It is a characteristic feature of all the rest of our world-picture that it must be given if we are to experience it; the only case in which the opposite occurs is that of concepts and ideas: these we must produce if we are to experience them. Concepts and ideas alone are given us in a form that could be called intellectual seeing. Kant and the later philosophers who follow in his steps, completely deny this ability to man, because it is said that all thinking refers only to objects and does not itself produce anything. In intellectual seeing the content must be contained within the thought-form itself. But is this not precisely the case with pure concepts and ideas? (By concept, I mean a principle according to which the disconnected elements of perception become joined into a unity. Causality, for example, is a concept. An idea is a concept with a greater content. Organism, considered quite abstractly, is an idea.) However, they must be considered in the form which they possess while still quite free of any empirical content. If, for example, the pure idea of causality is to be grasped, then one must not choose a particular instance of causality or the sum total of all causality; it is essential to take hold of the pure concept, Causality. Cause and effect must be sought in the world, but before we can discover it in the world we ourselves must first produce causality as a thought-form. If one clings to the Kantian assertion that of themselves concepts are empty, it would be impossible to use concepts to determine anything about the given world. Suppose two elements of the world-content were given: a and b. If I am to find a relation between them, I must do so with the help of a principle which has a definite content; I can only produce this principle myself in the act of cognition; I cannot derive it from the objects, for the definition of the objects is only to be obtained by means of the principle. Thus a principle by means of which we define objects belongs entirely to the conceptual sphere alone.

Before proceeding further, a possible objection must be considered. It might appear that this discussion is unconsciously introducing the representation of the “I,” of the “personal subject,” and using it without first justifying it. For example, in statements like “we produce concepts” or “we insist on this or that.” But, in fact, my explanation contains nothing which implies that such statements are more than turns of phrase. As shown earlier, the fact that the act of cognition depends upon and proceeds from an “I,” can be established only through considerations which themselves make use of cognition. Thus, to begin with, the discussion must be limited to the act of cognition alone, without considering the cognizing subject. All that has been established thus far is the fact that something “given” exists; and that somewhere in this “given” the above described postulate arises; and lastly, that this postulate corresponds to the sphere of concepts and ideas. This is not to deny that its source is the “I.” But these two initial steps in the theory of knowledge must first be defined in their pure form.

COGNITION AND REALITY

CONCEPTS AND IDEAS, therefore, comprise part of the given and at the same time lead beyond it. This makes it possible to define what other activity is concerned in attaining knowledge.

Through a postulate we have separated from the rest of the given world-picture a particular part of it; this was done because it lies in the nature of cognition to start from just this particular part. Thus we separated it out only to enable us to understand the act of cognition. In so doing, it must be clear that we have artificially torn apart the unity of the world-picture. We must realize that what we have separated out from the given has an essential connection with the world content, irrespective of our postulate. This provides the next step in the theory of knowledge: it must consist in restoring that unity which we tore apart in order to make knowledge possible. The act of restoration consists in thinking about the world as given. Our thinking consideration of the world brings about the actual union of the two parts of the world content: the part we survey as given on the horizon of our experience, and the part which has to be produced in the act of cognition before that can be given also. The act of cognition is the synthesis of these two elements. Indeed, in every single act of cognition, one part appears as something produced within that act itself, and, through the act, as added to the merely given. This part, in actual fact, is always so produced, and only appears as something given at the beginning of epistemological theory.

To permeate the world, as given, with concepts and ideas, is a thinking consideration of things. Therefore, thinking is the act which mediates knowledge. It is only when thinking arranges the world-picture by means of its own activity that knowledge can come about. Thinking itself is an activity which, in the moment of cognition, produces a content of its own. Therefore, insofar as the content that is cognized issues from thinking, it contains no problem for cognition. We have only to observe it; the very nature of what we observe is given us directly. Adescription of thinking is also at the same time the science of thinking. Logic, too, has always been a description of thought-forms, never a science that proves anything. Proof is only called for when the content of thought is synthesized with some other content of the world. Gideon Spicker is therefore quite right when he says in his book,Lessings Weltanschauung, (Lessing's World-View), page 5, “We can never experience, either empirically or logically, whether thinking in itself is correct.” One could add to this that with thinking, all proof ceases. For proof presupposes thinking. One may be able to prove a particular fact, but one can never prove proof as such. We can only describe what a proof is. In logic, all theory is pure empiricism; in the science of logic there is only observation. But when we want to know something other than thinking, we can do so only with the help of thinking; this means that thinking has to approach something given and transform its chaotic relationship with the world-picture into a systematic one. This means that thinking approaches the given world-content as an organizing principle. The process takes place as follows: Thinking first lifts out certain entities from the totality of the world-whole. In the given nothing is really separate; everything is a connected continuum. Then thinking relates these separate entities to each other in accordance with the thought-forms it produces, and also determines the outcome of this relationship. When thinking restores a relationship between two separate sections of the world-content, it does not do so arbitrarily. Thinking waits for what comes to light of its own accord as the result of restoring the relationship. And it is this result alone which is knowledge of that particular section of the world content. If the latter were unable to express anything about itself through that particular relationship established by thinking, then this attempt made by thinking would fail, and one would have to try again. All knowledge depends on man's establishing a correct relationship between two or more elements of reality, and comprehending the result of this.

There is no doubt that many of our attempts to grasp things by means of thinking, fail; this is apparent not only in the history of science, but also in ordinary life; it is just that in the simple cases we usually encounter, the right concept replaces the wrong one so quickly that we seldom or never become aware of the latter.

When Kant speaks of “the synthetic unity of apperception” it is evident that he had some inkling of what we have shown here to be an activity of thinking, the purpose of which is to organize the world-content systematically. But the fact that he believed that the a priori laws of pure science could be derived from the rules according to which this synthesis takes place, shows how little this inkling brought to his consciousness the essential task of thinking. He did not realize that this synthetic activity of thinking is only a preparation for discovering natural laws as such. Suppose, for example, that we detach one content, a, from the world-picture, and likewise another, b. If we are to gain knowledge of the law connecting a and b, then thinking must first relate a to bso that through this relationship the connection between them presents itself as given. Therefore, the actual content of a law of nature is derived from the given, and the task of thinking is merely to provide the opportunity for relating the elements of the world-picture so that the laws connecting them come to light. Thus there is no question of objective laws resulting from the synthetic activity of thinking alone.

We must now ask what part thinking plays in building up our scientific world-picture, in contrast to the merely given world-picture. Our discussion shows that thinking provides the thought-forms to which the laws that govern the world correspond. In the example given above, let us assume a to be the cause and b the effect. The fact that aand b are causally connected could never become knowledge if thinking were not able to form the concept of causality. Yet in order to recognize, in a given case, that a is the cause and b the effect, it is necessary for a and b to correspond to what we understand by cause and effect. And this is true of all other categories of thinking as well.

At this point it will be useful to refer briefly to Hume's description of the concept of causality. Hume said that our concepts of cause and effect are due solely to habit. We so often notice that a particular event is followed by another that accordingly we form the habit of thinking of them as causally connected, i.e. we expect the second event to occur whenever we observe the first. But this viewpoint stems from a mistaken representation of the relationship concerned in causality. Suppose that I always meet the same people every day for a number of days when I leave my house; it is true that I shall then gradually come to expect the two events to follow one another, but in this case it would never occur to me to look for a causal connection between the other persons and my own appearance at the same spot. I would look to quite different elements of the world-content in order to explain the facts involved. In fact, we never do determine a causal connection to be such from its sequence in time, but from its own content as part of the world-content which is that of cause and effect.

The activity of thinking is only a formal one in the upbuilding of our scientific world-picture, and from this it follows that no cognition can have a content which is a priori, in that it is established prior to observation (thinking divorced from the given); rather must the content be acquired wholly through observation. In this sense all our knowledge is empirical. Nor is it possible to see how this could be otherwise. Kant's judgments a priori fundamentally are not cognition, but are only postulates. In the Kantian sense, one can always only say: If a thing is to be the object of any kind of experience, then it must conform to certain laws. Laws in this sense are regulations which the subject prescribes for the objects. Yet one would expect that if we are to attain knowledge of the given then it must be derived, not from the subject, but from the object.

Thinking says nothing a priori about the given; it produces a posteriori, i.e. the thought-form, on the basis of which the conformity to law of the phenomena becomes apparent.

Seen in this light, it is obvious that one can say nothing a priori about the degree of certainty of a judgment attained through cognition. For certainty, too, can be derived only from the given. To this it could be objected that observation only shows that some connection between phenomena once occurred, but not that such a connectionmust occur, and in similar cases always will occur. This assumption is also wrong. When I recognize some particular connection between elements of the world-picture, this connection is provided by these elements themselves; it is not something I think into them, but is an essential part of them, and must necessarily be present whenever the elements themselves are present.

Only if it is considered that scientific effort is merely a matter of combining facts of experience according to subjective principles which are quite external to the facts themselves, — only such an outlook could believe that aand b may be connected by one law to-day and by another to-morrow (John Stuart Mill). [ 109 ] Someone who recognizes that the laws of nature originate in the given and therefore themselves constitute the connection between the phenomena and determine them, will not describe laws discovered by observation as merely of comparative universality. This is not to assert that a natural law which at one stage we assume to be correct must therefore be universally valid as well. When a later event disproves a law, this does not imply that the law had only a limited validity when first discovered, but rather that we failed to ascertain it with complete accuracy. A true law of nature is simply the expression of a connection within the given world-picture, and it exists as little without the facts it governs as the facts exist without the law.

We have established that the nature of the activity of cognition is to permeate the given world-picture with concepts and ideas by means of thinking. What follows from this fact? If the directly-given were a totality, complete in itself, then such an elaboration of it by means of cognition would be both impossible and unnecessary. We should then simply accept the given as it is, and would be satisfied with it in that form. The act of cognition is possible only because the given contains something hidden; this hidden does not appear as long as we consider only its immediate aspect; the hidden aspect only reveals itself through the order that thinking brings into the given. In other words, what the given appears to be before it has been elaborated by thinking, is not its full totality.

This becomes clearer when we consider more closely the factors concerned in the act of cognition. The first of these is the given. That it is given is not a feature of the given, but is only an expression for its relation to the second factor in the act of cognition. Thus what the given is as such remains quite undecided by this definition. The second factor is the conceptual content of the given; it is found by thinking, in the act of cognition, to be necessarily connected with the given. Let us now ask: 1) Where is the division between given and concept? 2) And where are they united? The answers to both of these questions are undoubtedly to be found in the preceding discussion. The division occurs solely in the act of cognition. In the given they are united. This shows that the conceptual content must necessarily be a part of the given, and also that the act of cognition consists in re-uniting the two parts of the world-picture, which to begin with are given to cognition separated from each other. Therefore, the given world-picture becomes complete only through that other, indirect kind of given which is brought to it by thinking. The immediate aspect of the world-picture reveals itself as quite incomplete to begin with.

If, in the world-content, the thought-content were united with the given from the first, no knowledge would exist, and the need to go beyond the given would never arise. If, on the other hand, we were to produce the whole content of the world in and by means of thinking alone, no knowledge would exist either. What we ourselves produce we have no need to know. Knowledge therefore rests upon the fact that the world-content is originally given to us in incomplete form; it possesses another essential aspect, apart from what is directly present. This second aspect of the world-content, which is not originally given, is revealed through thinking. Therefore the content of thinking, which appears to us to be something separate, is not a sum of empty thought-forms, but comprises determinations (categories); however, in relation to the rest of the world-content, these determinations represent the organizing principle. The world-content can be called reality only in the form it attains when the two aspects of it described above have been united through knowledge.

Posted

Christiaan, I really think you should cite the source of your quotes, especially very long passages.

It looks to me that the passages above are two chapters from Rudolf Steiner's Truth and Knowledge (1902/1981), which I retrieved from http://wn.rsarchive....A003_index.html

I'll have a look at the passages because I'm interested to see what Steiner has to say, but I'm not sure how appropriate it is to post big slabs of material like this on a Buddhism forum. It looks like proselytizing to me, in this case for Anthroposophy.

Anthroposophy may be well worth investigating, but I doubt this is the forum for it. You might consider "Outside the Box" in the Bedlam sub-forum, but you'll need to get up to 500 postings to access Bedlam.

Had you summarized the passages and cited your source it would have been more helpful and could have generated responses from a Buddhist perspective. I think you have the English ability to do this.

Posted

I tried but had to admit I was not able, so that is why I coose to do the way I did.

Then I am all the time paying attention to what I can contribute or what I cannot and for this also would not like to contrbute.

Allthough this is out of a book of Rudolf Steiner it is not anthroposophy as some of his other and mostly later publications.

I consider it to be incorrect to have anthroposophic publications brought in to this forum.

Studying philosophy in my way over a period of time now, I am well aware this is a pure philosophical publication all about epistemology, all about cognition and knowledge, so I would say very well suitable in a forum about Buddhisme in general.

It is especially when I can read some people suggest no philosopher did contribute to epistemology in an important way.

So my contribution is as same as other people referring to Popper, Russel, Nietzsche, Moore and other philosophers.

I do not proselytise, I do as other people I correct when I see there is a lack in awareness so an interesting dialogue could be possible to have a broader awareness.

Epistemology, awareness, philosophy, enlightment are in many contributions subject of discussion and this publication of Steiner is completely in line with it.

I , by purpose, do not refer to the source, I would surely do when asked for this, because handling a topic is in my view not about persons but about knowledge, idea's, concepts and arguments.

When I would have to or must understand this forum about Buddhisme is a forum merely or mainly dedicated to describing, consolidating, conserving, spreading, advocating, etc. Buddhist institutions and activities you could be right this - and some other contributions - are out of line here, but I didnot understand this out of the title of this forum and I did not got the impression by some other contributions - where different philosophical views also are brought in.

When I am wrong in understanding the purpose of this sub forum I have no problem when people tell me so, and also no problem to stop contributing to it.

Posted

christiaan, here's the thing, as pointed out in the welcome message and posting guidelines pinned to the top of the first page of this subforum: it's cool to bring in Western philosophy, other religions, science and so on in this subforum just as long as you relate those subjects to Buddhism. Otherwise there would be no point in having a Buddhism subforum, you could just as well participate in one of the many philosophy forums out there.

Everyone has their own idea of the truth, great to hear about it, but here we don't want to drag the subforum away from what most members come here for, which is to discuss Buddhism.

Perhaps we could re-pose your question more simply and directly, with regard to Buddhism. Something along the lines of "What are some Buddhist theories of learning, cognition and knowledge?"

In that case, the discussion might grow thin. Buddhism really doesn't have a systematic epistemology as far as I know. It's one of the poison arrow issues in the Suttas: a question that tends not to edification and which does not further the human aim in Buddhism.

The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, "Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same." Another time he said, "Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first." Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.

- Thich Nhat Hanh, in Zen Keys

I think your topic is fascinating, just not sure that it's an answerable question, whether for modern philosophy or for Buddhism.

Posted

Sabaijai, thanks for your elucidation to the meaning of this forum. It explains to me Buddhism is looked upon as a closed system within certain borders. By this we enter another limited system of believing and not: knowing. I do interprete the teachings of Buddha in another way: consequently asking questions consequently gaining knowledge., active compassion.

So I stop contributing on this topic here, I do not look for a 'circling around the same spot the same way all the time'. I would like to close my contributions with a comment to the arrow story.

I find it hard to believe Buddha told this story but if he did it could have been done out of for us unknown reasons. I read this story some time ago in a book in Thailand for the first time and at that time I immediately realised this is no advertisement for awareness. When somebody is shot with a poisoned arrow he or she knows the first thing to do is to remove the arrow. When somebody does not like to do, he or she has a mental problem and is in great need of psychiatric help.

In a normal situation, the arrow, or bullet or anyhting else is removed and then we look to answer the questions as mentioned in the story.

The way this story is told is explaining: When you cannot do both things at the same time, you do the first thing and leave to do the other things.

Well I would say such an attitude can be very enlightening to value the present situation in Thailand and so Buddhisme in Thailand.

Such a story is offending the reality of life and healthy human thinking.

As I wrote before: 2500 years have past and it shows in Thailand people are still hit by poisoned arrows all the time and nobody looks to become aware of the cause and to solve this situation.

It makes me think about a part in the book of "Broken Buddha", where is told in the North of Thailand monks help in their way to recrute young girls for brothels in Bangkok.

The writer of the book suggests this was/is still continuing.

Horrible, what to tell more?

This is a situation of: do not ask questions, do not become aware, do not act, just sleep on in religious autisme.

Thanks for all contributions.

Posted (edited)

Sabaijai, thanks for your elucidation to the meaning of this forum. It explains to me Buddhism is looked upon as a closed system within certain borders. By this we enter another limited system of believing and not: knowing. I do interprete the teachings of Buddha in another way: consequently asking questions consequently gaining knowledge., active compassion.

So I stop contributing on this topic here, I do not look for a 'circling around the same spot the same way all the time'. I would like to close my contributions with a comment to the arrow story.

I find it hard to believe Buddha told this story but if he did it could have been done out of for us unknown reasons. I read this story some time ago in a book in Thailand for the first time and at that time I immediately realised this is no advertisement for awareness. When somebody is shot with a poisoned arrow he or she knows the first thing to do is to remove the arrow. When somebody does not like to do, he or she has a mental problem and is in great need of psychiatric help.

In a normal situation, the arrow, or bullet or anyhting else is removed and then we look to answer the questions as mentioned in the story.

The way this story is told is explaining: When you cannot do both things at the same time, you do the first thing and leave to do the other things.

Well I would say such an attitude can be very enlightening to value the present situation in Thailand and so Buddhisme in Thailand.

Such a story is offending the reality of life and healthy human thinking.

As I wrote before: 2500 years have past and it shows in Thailand people are still hit by poisoned arrows all the time and nobody looks to become aware of the cause and to solve this situation.

It makes me think about a part in the book of "Broken Buddha", where is told in the North of Thailand monks help in their way to recrute young girls for brothels in Bangkok.

The writer of the book suggests this was/is still continuing.

Horrible, what to tell more?

This is a situation of: do not ask questions, do not become aware, do not act, just sleep on in religious autisme.

Thanks for all contributions.

Hi christiaan.

I hope you can reconsider as it would be sad to lose your contributions.

Perhaps it's the language barrier but I think what was said was that you can include non Buddhist thoughts & ideas as long as they tie in with Buddhism.

I agree with you that it is sad that many in the community who claim to be Buddhist, are far from anything resembling what the Buddha taught.

It is caused by ignorance, superstition & poor education.

Even those who have good knowledge of dhamma stray from the path.

Desire for life and attachment to sensual & material craving fuels the ego causing most to fall from the path.

I wouldn't judge Buddhism by the conduct of those who fail to travel on the Buddhist path.

Until we have mastered a certain level of practice we are all victims of our egos nature.

A Monk who is involved in the recruitment of prostitution will reap much suffering in due course if khamma is true..

Stick around.

Rather than speaking in circles I'm finding there is much to learn within the detail.

Edited by rockyysdt
Posted

Hello rockyy

Thanks for your contribution.

I will give some more information about my view regarding 'working' with the concept and experience of Buddhism so you could more understand the background of my writings.

Buddhism, in my view, showed 2500 years ago, an important step in the evolution of human awareness.

The religious cultural traditions, often similar to authoritarian societies, in the time of Buddha, where based on the continuing dreaming awareness of the people of those times- in fact an unconscious rememberance of the times where people still were living inside a selfevident truth. Living inside a selfevident truth is not exactly the same but to comprehend when we look to life in nature around us; plants and animals.

At the time of Buddha almost all cultures in the world where more or less religious, traditional, ritual cultures based on revelations to intermediars like Gurus, Oracles, Priests, and other initiated persons. Wisdom and knowledge before the times of Buddha came from the outside. When ordinary people wanted to know, they asked their Gurus and Priests. Often 'kings' (Pharao's) where intiated leaders of their cultures. The old testament tells many stories about this.

People became aware of this selfevident truth and more and more lived with this awareness. But in becoming aware of this self evident truth it showed at the same time this also was a departure of it, a departure of the selfevidency.

This all is in fact the awakening of the individuality of the human.

This all is in fact the start of the manifestation of the I in the human, being the selfreflective spiritual power inside every human.

When reading about Buddhism most of the information is about what Buddhisme is. And Buddhism is described as a complex collection of teachings of Buddha, and within this there are several interpretations. When being familiar with the old traditions; the Brahman and Hindu traditions, it is not difficult to become aware of the roots of Buddhism. So with regard to the teachings of Buddha they where no revolutionary, shocking or dramatic teachings. It is even difficult to state they were new to the world.

So in my view it is far more important to look at the question 'how' in relation to Buddhism. And then the question could be; how did Buddhism come into this world?

And with this question we direct our attention to a proces, and, studying the biography of Siddhartha Gautama we can see this was a continuing proces of evolving personal awareness inside a person in that time of history in Asia. And when we are talking about a proces , we are talking about action taking place, dynamic, life.

So there is this difference between what and how and I woud say in general people are more occupied with the 'what ' as with the 'how'.

The 'what' is product, result, past experience and past time, so in fact dead, a museum piece.

The 'what' can only be new when we relive it again, but when we merely use it as a fact, it is a dead fact.

When we look at the 'how' in relation to Siddhartha Gautama we have to realise He was philosophizing about the world he lived in and especially about human existence. So this can explain why many people look upon Buddhism as being a philosophy, and by many is described as a philosophy, but for the most people it is considered to be a religion. And this is because in Buddhisme the concept of rebirth has a place. And this concept is methaphysical, something people say you cannot proove but have to believe or not.

It is very important to realise that at the same time when Siddhartha Gautama is coming to his philosophical ponderings and results, in the western world people were doing the same. Becos about 2500 years ago philosophy was born into the world. 2500 years ago on several places in the world people started to ask questions and looking for answers and they started to look for answers inside themself. They did without refering to religion, revelation, authority or tradition. They did as a result of asking questions , contemplation and meditation.

It is very important to realise not only was philosophy born at that time in the world but there was a similarity in the ideas also and Greek Philosophers also walked around and had their students folowing them.

And like Buddha still is a significant figure in the world after 2500 years, also Parminedes, Pythagoras, Aristoteles and Plato, in their ideas, still are as significant after the same time.

Looking at the proces I would say in the western world there has been a continuing evolving awareness with regard to the material world. At first this went very slow but in modern history we can see there has been a tremendous accelerating of this proces culminating in the 'birth' of the computer, the outside material brain of the human, a machine of combinative (artificial) thinking based on dead facts.

Looking at the development of awareness with regard to the world of matter, over a period of almost 2500 years , we can say about all scientific material discoveries in the world are done in the western world.

In the Asian buddhist world in fact not much evolved. It could be possible there are relatively spoken the same numbers of self involved personal enlightments now as in the days of Buddha.

Many people in Asia continue to suffer as if they live hundreds of years ago,

The way the proces of Siddhartha Gautama was and is handled in Asia did not change the world.

Awareness of the material world did. Thanks to this we now have dentists, even in Thailand, and Mercedes cars to drive Monks around, what could be even possible in the rainy season.

Allover Asia, also in Thailand, animism, being old unconscious awareness from even long time before Buddha however continued. With it plain authority, tradition, superstition, ghosts and so on continues to dominate culture and the political and social system in Thailand seems to be organised in such a way that this situation must continue.

Being an anachronism however it will not continue.

In this situation Buddhism in Thailand is not based on 'how' , not based on a proces modeled by Siddhartha Gautama, but on 'what', the products. The teachings of Buddha became facts of the outer world. And allthough many people fondle the idea this is all very spiritual, it is not.

Because Buddhisme is handled with the same kind of material brain activity western people use to handle their facts of life. Life in Thailand is dominated by material thinking like in any other country in the world. Allthough the subject is different, being the world of matter and the world of spirituallity, the way of thinking, in fact a dead way, is the same.

In the western worlds and in the asian worlds in general all information is used to control life, control the personal life and for this, if possible, to control other peoples life.

In Thailand this is the case on political, economical, religious and social level.

In this, Buddhism has become also very atractive to many 'non-material' westerners because Buddhisme makes it possible to be highly self involved and at the same time respected and honoured for doing so.

For this act of control we use combinative thinking based on facts. The teachings of Buddha in general have become rules, dogmas, facts of combinative thinking/reactive thinking. As we can see everywhere in the world and history, dogmas kill spiritual progress.

Buddha himself not only critisised the old religions - and its dogmas - at his time in a firm way, he even did bring a very important new aspect into human awareness in Asia at the same time this was happening also within the civilised world in the west. (Samos and old Greece) This new thing was: pure inner thinking activity, asking questions about phenomenon in the world (Socrates), including questions about your self, selfawareness, look for answers inside your self, reject the (answers of the) outside world, try to reach the level of self engendering thinking.

Buddha modeled a proces in human evolving awareness. a very important step in the evolution of humanity. This proces is my inspiration, not the results. The results are only interesting in refering to the proces. What the world needs is a continuation of this proces, we need self engendered thinking to make future possible.

I have ofcourse no objection to a forum dedicated to combinative reactive thinking about the true and possible untrue facts of Buddhisme. I think a forum like that can have an important function to learn about Buddhism in many ways.

I am however more interested in the proces as modeled by Siddhartha Gautama and that is why I like to aks questions and make remarks and 'statements' based on my own experiences. I like the proces to continue and feel no need to consolidate or conserve past experiences, facts or knowledge on a forum.

Posted

You equate Buddhism with the development of Western philosophy but I think the intentions and objectives are quite different. In fact Buddhism is much more concerned about 'how' than 'what.'

The reason epistemology in Buddhism has developed little (although the Steiner explanation bears remarkable similarity with some aspects of Abhidhamma) is, as has been stated, because it is not considered useful in attaining fruit of the path, which has been plainly elucidated.

I also think you confuse material progress with actual spiritual development.

If speculation and thought proliferation about the nature and origins of knowledge are able to liberate philosophers from samsara, I have yet to see it happen.

But don't let Buddhist hermeneutics distract you, please carry on and enlighten us, since obviously Buddha and Buddhism are obsolete, in your view.

"The notion that we’re continually bettering ourselves, through either technology or belief, may be the great myth of our time." -- Stephen Schettini

Posted

Sabaijai

Suppose the quality of painting would have been discovered 2500 years ago at different spots in the world at the same time.

I would have said regarding to this it is very interesting to see how this qualtiy of painting did came to existence in the world. That is the topic for me. When the quality of painting would have come to existence by one person in Asia (like the quality of philosophy in Buddha) and at about the same time by a painter in Europ (like the quality of philosophy in Parminedes) we can be sure the paintings they would have made would certainly not be the same product. I think when we would show both paintings to somebody who would not know who the painters are, this observant probably could tell wich one was made by the asian and wich by the western artist.

When we are going to talk about wich painting (philosophy) is the best and /or the most beautifull, people in general probably will have a very different meaning, sometimes this can even turn out to become a physical fight. But most people simply would tell:" it is just a matter of taste ".

I would say to come to a good observation and qualifacation of those paintings (philosophies) one needs to be without pre-judgement and without any form of sympathy or antipathy towards any of the subjects, and one has to decide by wich aspects one is going to judge the paintings.

Well, I tell one can only judge the paintings when knowing the proces, becos when knowing the proces one can see if the result are the manifestation of the laws of the proces.

When this is the case the specific painting or paintings (philosophies) are good.

And then in Thailand (but certainly not only in Thailand) most energy is put in 'what' to do with the paintings, the act of painting and the painters, and not in 'how' the new quality of painting came to life, came to existence in the world.

Philosophies have no intentions, people have.

Life does not depend on the philosophy but on the personal intentions

The actual intentions and objections are only noticeably when observed in actual reality and not within an academic dialogue.

Western material philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of other human beings.

Some people do not do this to compensate (a belief of) some bad Karma, they do out of their philosophy of love, and absence of self involvement.

Asian Buddhist philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of their own ego.

And writing this I do not deny there are people 'working' out of western philosophy only for personal profit without caring for the world they live in and often even just abusing that world and I do not deny there are people 'working' out of Buddhist philosophies just for pure buddhist ideals.

I just write this to show the real origin of the differences in the intentions and objectives, actual life, no academic theory

To say epistomology is not considered useful and fruitfull is just a repeated statement from 2500 years ago. After this there have been philosophers who very well explained it is usefull and very fruitfull and when we will not become aware of this we will have a problem with future..

Then, it is very interesting to look at the questions of epistomology , since the practice of Buddhisme is very much related to these questions:

What do we know? Buddhist say ignorance (of certain knowledge, not knowing) is to blame?

How is (higher)knowledge aquired? Buddhists say : By observation, contemplation, meditation.

What do people know? Buddhist, just like other people, know all they talk about to the personal level of awareness.

How do we know what we know? Buddhist, just like other people, show they know by their personal awareness as a result of personal observation, contemplation, meditation.

So answering these questions it is very obvious why it could be usefull to know how we aquire knowledge.

The whole life of Buddha is living epistemology.

I do not confuse material progress wit actual development, when I would be confused about it I would not be able to discriminate both concepts.

Only when someone 'lift up' suffering as a constant fact of life, 24 hours 7 days a week, only to be solved by the four noble truths and the eightold path one can make such statement.

The actual fact of life, and that is how it works, is that a monk will go to the dentist when he suffers from toothpain.

He can go to the dentist because many people have been inspired by material science philosophy to gain knowledge about tooth decay and how to treat this. The monk doesnot go in meditation or contemplation to cure his toothpain. He hopes other people in their suffering life will give him money so he can go to the dentist.

And when the dentist did help him well, he will be freed from this suffering by material science based on western philosophy.

And I would like to see it actually happen any person has freed him or herself from Samsara in any way, to be never born again.

Nobody ever showed this happening, the only thing we actually now about it is the talking about it and these are death facts.

Talking about this is actually happening all the time like material progress still happens all the time.

I hope everybody who did read my contributions will be aware I never wrote Buddha and Buddhisme are obsolete, so then nobody will or can put these words in my mouth.

What I did wrote is that Buddha and Buddhism in the past 2500 years transformed to a higher level and this means Buddha and Buddhisme are not the same as they were 2500 years ago.

They transformed to a higher level and this means that included in this new spiritual reality are the Buddha and the Buddhism of 2500 years ago.

So obsolete with regard to this is not my concept.

The key to the future is: Human, Know Your Self . (saying of the Greek mysterie school)

Posted

Well, I noticed I forgot to ad to the first part of my former contributionthe following:

It is interesting to see that even when the two paintings (philosophies), as a result of painting (thinking) by two different painters (philosophers) in different parts of the world, will be very different, the proces by wich the (new) quality of painting (thinking) came to existence actually is the same for both painters (philosophers) .

Posted

I think it is difficult when one becomes wedded to Buddhism or any other specific point of perspective to clearly see "truth" because you are always filtering the truth through what you already believe in.

  • Like 1
Posted

I think it is difficult when one becomes wedded to Buddhism or any other specific point of perspective to clearly see "truth" because you are always filtering the truth through what you already believe in.

This is just a fact of life, how the human mind works.

The test is to look back over the last few years, is your view and understanding evolving or is it remaining static? If the former then you are still on the Buddhist path, if the latter then you've found a quiet and comfortable dead end.

Posted

Yes Petaroi that is one of the most important aspects of the proces of understanding. Pure thinking is no Buddhist, no Catholic thinking, no Islamic thinking but pure thinking is just pure thinking. And to talk about is is talking about a fact of life and doing so is to be in the actual proces of life. And everybody who is in this proces is not a Buddhist but a human on a human path. And Buddhism 2500 years ago did not became the patentholder of this faculty of thinking, every human did. In time Buddhisme became a way of life and in some stream of Buddhism this way of life is posessed by a kind of elite, and instead of stimulating people to step in their own thinking they tell people what to think and what their position in life is, what rules to obey, what rituals to perform and more of this ' I think for you' And as I understood out of a contribution it is now even possible to buy this way of life for some period of time.

About 2500 years ago the faculty of thinking entered human existence, now it is time for selfengendering thinking. How can people do this when they not even reached the situation and level of independent thinking as is the main characteristic in a country as Thailand?(and many other countries)

Posted

I think it is difficult when one becomes wedded to Buddhism or any other specific point of perspective to clearly see "truth" because you are always filtering the truth through what you already believe in.

Phetaroi, you may consider yourself free from all systems of prescribed thought, but then again you may be just as mired in your acquired philosophical system -- even if you're not aware of it - as anyone else.

It goes without saying, whether it's a Buddhist filter or any other, everyone perceives according to their conditioning. Nothing revolutionary in that idea. All epistemology is speculation, since there is no objective way in which to test each alternative model.

The central tenet of Buddhism, regardless of school or sect, is that once nibbana arises, filters no longer apply. Until then they are an expedient truth.

Philosophical issues make interesting rhetorical games, but philosophy is not science (nor is Buddhism). There are neurological bases for cognition, but "knowledge" is a concept, not a testable or quantifiable entity. Likewise nibbana is not testable.

Is western philosophy able to accomplish nibbana? Or must the system of thinking persist in order to ratify the philosophy?

Two different objectives.

Posted (edited)

I hope everybody who did read my contributions will be aware I never wrote Buddha and Buddhisme are obsolete, so then nobody will or can put these words in my mouth.

What I did wrote is that Buddha and Buddhism in the past 2500 years transformed to a higher level and this means Buddha and Buddhisme are not the same as they were 2500 years ago.

They transformed to a higher level and this means that included in this new spiritual reality are the Buddha and the Buddhism of 2500 years ago.

So obsolete with regard to this is not my concept.

The key to the future is: Human, Know Your Self . (saying of the Greek mysterie school)

Hi Christiaan.

Can you help me better understand the position you are making?

I know that some of Buddhism 2,500 years ago may be considered antique. Such things as discrimination towards women, dated wordings of the Dhamma, no reference to abstinence of nicotine in precepts (tobacco not being known then), and many others.

In summary, what has replaced or has been added to the 4 noble truths & 8 fold path for today's reality?

Also, can it be a matter of packaging or marketing?

Is the title Human, Know Your Self new packaging for the same path?

How do the techniques of Know Your Self differ to the Buddhas Dhamma & do they lead to freedom from suffering, enlightenment & Nibhana?

Edited by rockyysdt
Posted

Life does not depend on the philosophy but on the personal intentions.

Agreed. That's where kamma is born.

christiaan: The actual intentions and objections are only noticeably when observed in actual reality and not within an academic dialogue.

Western material philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of other human beings.

I've not heard of a 'material philosophy' before. Are you referring to materialism?

christiaan: Asian Buddhist philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of their own ego.

The same accusation may be levelled at any philosophical system applied by anyone else, including yourself. Egos are everywhere, not just in Asia.

christiaan: To say epistomology is not considered useful and fruitfull is just a repeated statement from 2500 years ago.

Hence the inference that you view Buddhism as obsolete. Just because something was said 2500 years ago doesn't mean it isn't still true.

christiaan: I hope everybody who did read my contributions will be aware I never wrote Buddha and Buddhisme are obsolete, so then nobody will or can put these words in my mouth.

That's my inference from your statement "The way the proces of Siddhartha Gautama was and is handled in Asia did not change the world." It seems congruous with the previous claim, "just a repeated statement from 2500 years ago."

Apologies if I have misunderstood.

christiaan: The key to the future is: Human, Know Your Self . (saying of the Greek mysterie school)

Which is what Buddhism teaches, and is best practised in the present. ;)

Posted

life does not depend on the philosophy but on the personal intentions

Agreed. That's where kamma is born.

The topic is not Karma but knowledge, but no problem when you bring in Karma, the question could be: is - gaining - knowledge influenced by Karma. But I would prefer to leave that question for the moment here or have it in a topic somehwere else or later.

christiaan: The actual intentions and objections are only noticeably when observed in actual reality and not within an academic dialogue.

Western material philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of other human beings.

I've not heard of a 'material philosophy' before. Are you referring to materialism?

This is meant as: The philosophy that is directed to the world of matter opposite to the philosophy that is directed to the world of the spiritual.

christiaan: Asian Buddhist philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of their own ego.

The same accusation may be levelled at any philosophical system applied by anyone else, including yourself. Egos are everywhere, not just in Asia.

This is not an accusation but an observation, I did not exclude any other philosophical system by writing what I wrote about Asian Buddhist philosophies. My 'philosophical system' is however not based on just one intention.

christiaan: To say epistomology is not considered useful and fruitfull is just a repeated statement from 2500 years ago.

Hence the inference that you view Buddhism as obsolete. Just because something was said 2500 years ago doesn't mean it isn't still true.

As I wrote and explained before it are not my words Buddhisme is obsolete. So this has to be someones interpretation despite I had a broad explanation about this. The question is not if the statement of Buddhism about epistomology after 2500 years still is the (complete) truth, the question is if a person in independent pure thinking now could come to the same observation as Buddhists 2500 years ago. And if he would confirm or deny I would say the proces by wich he came to his or her observation is the most interesting and the topic where I am interested in. How do we gain knowledge?

When somebody just repeats the fact what Budha told about epistomology, without knowing where he or she got this knowledge from without knowing about gaining knowledge, with rejecting to study about how we gain knowledge, without , by personal experience, witnessing where and how Buddha got his knowledge (not being there 2500 years ago) I would say , by observation, this person is just a depending thinking follower, and by that just repeating in sympathy what he or she has heard.

And being an independent thinker also, like many other people have been and are in the last 2500 years, I can, for myself state that the statement of Buddha is not aplicable to actual reality the way it is done by many many Buddhist followers.

christiaan: I hope everybody who did read my contributions will be aware I never wrote Buddha and Buddhisme are obsolete, so then nobody will or can put these words in my mouth.

That's my inference from your statement "The way the proces of Siddhartha Gautama was and is handled in Asia did not change the world." It seems congruous with the previous claim, "just a repeated statement from 2500 years ago."

My statement is congruent with my observation. The way Buddha and Buddhism is handled in Asia ( do you see I am writing about the way it is handled?) did not change the world. I do think the way it is handled in many places in

Asia is obsolete and I tend to think thjis way is even a plain insult to Buddha and Buddhisme. Just read Broken Buddha.

Apologies if I have misunderstood.

any apologies always accepted, no one overhere is perfect or even near perfect, we are all 'searchers'

christiaan: The key to the future is: Human, Know Your Self . (saying of the Greek mysterie school)

Which is what Buddhism teaches, and is best practised in the present. ;)

So we can agree about the fact that at different spots in the world the same knowledge came into the awareness of humans by the independent thinking, the new faculty of human mankind from that time on.

This " Know your Self " can be best practiced in the present in independent thinking, without being attached to anything and also no thing like catholicisme, humanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and so on.

Buddha talked about the thinking: Without being attached to anything at all

Posted

Hello Rocky,

I hope my contribution above answers the question in your last contribution.

The way Buddhism is handled in many places in Asia (and other places in the world) very often is antique.

This doesnot tell Buddhisme in the pure form teached by Buddha is antique.

So you can ask if the four noble truths did change and the eightfold path, but you can only find acceptable answers for your self when you think independently about these subjects, without being attached.

Read also Krishnamurti when you want to learn about detached thinking, he was no Buddhist.

And the trut of your answers is recognisable when the answers are no anachronisme and aplicable to the actuality of life without any force to anything in life, giving you strength and energy.

The saying: "Human know your Self" is out of the same time as the teachings of Buddha, so no new package, for a still and more and more valuable truth.

And ofcourse there is more added to the four noble truths and the eightfolded path, becos awareness remarkably did grow in 2500 years and it still grows and grows and grows.

When you want to find the additions you will find them, you just have to take your questions serious and develop more an more independent thinking.

Posted
The way Buddhism is handled in many places in Asia (and other places in the world) very often is antique.

This doesnot tell Buddhisme in the pure form teached by Buddha is antique.

So you can ask if the four noble truths did change and the eightfold path, but you can only find acceptable answers for your self when you think independently about these subjects, without being attached.

And ofcourse there is more added to the four noble truths and the eightfolded path, becos awareness remarkably did grow in 2500 years and it still grows and grows and grows.

When you want to find the additions you will find them, you just have to take your questions serious and develop more an more independent thinking.

So, Christiaan, out of the thousands of words you have posted on this topic (one posting alone of 5500 words), including references to "higher awareness" etc., is the core of your message for Buddhism that:

1. Buddhism as practised in many parts of Asia is antiquated, but the "pure", fundamental teachings of the Buddha (as found in the Pali Canon?) may not be?

2. Whether you think the teachings about the four noble truths and eightfold path are unchanging depends on the way you think about them? and

3. As human "awareness" (knowledge? understanding?) has grown over 2500 years, so the fundamental teachings of the Buddha have been justifiably reinterpreted and the original canon augmented?

I don't want to misinterpret you, but if 1 - 3 above does represent your thinking (and I suspect I've misread you in 2.), then it suggests that Buddhism, like the Church, is semper reformanda ("always in need of reform", or reinterpretation, or re-application). I for one have no problem with that, and if we look at Buddhism globally, for almost its entire history it has been variously interpreted, reinterpreted and augmented (with the disapproval of "purists"), but I've lost track of the other things you were saying about "knowledge" viewed as the subject of epistemology. Perhaps Buddhism, with its core principle of impermanence, views knowledge as impermanent (except in the case of "empty knowledge", i.e. tautological knowledge). That is, there is nothing that we really "know" - all is in flux, including both knower and known. There is no essence, no permanent core to any proposition, including the proposition that one cannot know that one knows something.

Posted

If Christiaan is arguing that the Buddha did indeed uncover profound truths, but what followed was the development of a religion and therefore the truths were undermined by empty dogma/rules/ceremony, than I can see his point and I would agree.

But he also seems to have an impression that man is on a path to enlightenment mainly through curiosity and rejection of tradition. I would say that that he is acting on faith alone by making this assumption. I wonder how he can put on his pure thinking without first rejecting his preconception.

Posted

life does not depend on the philosophy but on the personal intentions

Agreed. That's where kamma is born.

The topic is not Karma but knowledge, but no problem when you bring in Karma, the question could be: is - gaining - knowledge influenced by Karma. But I would prefer to leave that question for the moment here or have it in a topic somehwere else or later.

christiaan: The actual intentions and objections are only noticeably when observed in actual reality and not within an academic dialogue.

Western material philosophies are applied by a number of people with just one intention: the welfare of other human beings.

I've not heard of a 'material philosophy' before. Are you referring to materialism?

This is meant as: The philosophy that is directed to the world of matter opposite to the philosophy that is directed to the world of the spiritual.

christiaan: To say epistomology is not considered useful and fruitfull is just a repeated statement from 2500 years ago.

Hence the inference that you view Buddhism as obsolete. Just because something was said 2500 years ago doesn't mean it isn't still true.

As I wrote and explained before it are not my words Buddhisme is obsolete. So this has to be someones interpretation despite I had a broad explanation about this. The question is not if the statement of Buddhism about epistomology after 2500 years still is the (complete) truth, the question is if a person in independent pure thinking now could come to the same observation as Buddhists 2500 years ago. And if he would confirm or deny I would say the proces by wich he came to his or her observation is the most interesting and the topic where I am interested in. How do we gain knowledge?

When somebody just repeats the fact what Budha told about epistomology, without knowing where he or she got this knowledge from without knowing about gaining knowledge, with rejecting to study about how we gain knowledge, without , by personal experience, witnessing where and how Buddha got his knowledge (not being there 2500 years ago) I would say , by observation, this person is just a depending thinking follower, and by that just repeating in sympathy what he or she has heard.

Materialistic thought has done much to better mankind's lot. It has also done much to harm mankind's - and other species' - lot. Buddhism and material development are not opposed. One doesn't have to make the choice between 'Asian philosophy' and 'material philosophy.' That they coexist is already self-evident.

Kamma is inseparable from knowledge; one cannot cognise - or acquire knowledge - without kamma. All action, even thinking, is kamma.

My thoughts on the ephemeral, unsatisfactory and unsubstantial nature of epistemology come directly from personal experience. If you experience life differently, that's fine. Right there we have an example of how 'knowledge' can never be codified by you or me or anyone else.

I would suggest - this is just my opinion, nothing to do with Buddhism - that the questions you asked in your original post cannot be answered by philosophy or religion. If you really want to understand 'knowledge' I would think the materialistic approach is the only way to find something verifiable and reliable, ie cognitive science, neurophysiology, etc.

Posted
I would suggest - this is just my opinion, nothing to do with Buddhism - that the questions you asked in your original post cannot be answered by philosophy or religion. If you really want to understand 'knowledge' I would think the materialistic approach is the only way to find something verifiable and reliable, ie cognitive science, neurophysiology, etc.

Sabaijai, isn't this just Comtean Positivism ("knowledge is that which is based on sense experience and positive verification" - Wikipedia)? And if so, although perhaps a good "working" form of knowledge, it is limited. Sense experience is potentially unreliable, and the findings of the sciences are only verifiable until such time as they may be falsified. As I say, a good working model, but still vulnerable to as yet unknown possible new findings.

In contention with positivist claims that science always gives you truth, Karl Popper put forward the criterion of falsifiability, i.e. the potential of a claim to be rendered false at some point in the future by virtue of its openness to empirical investigation and judgement. The falsifiability criterion, therefore, implies that hypotheses which survive the attempt to falsify them are only less false than those which have been falsified already. So, although we may be confident that we have synthetic knowledge, i.e. conclusions that are based on empirical data and where the conclusion is not implicit in the premise, we may not in fact have it to an unchallengeable extent.

There are certain core beliefs in Buddhism that are not falsifiable and are, therefore, articles of faith, though we may find levels of empirical support for them. We don't really know and can't demonstrate that the universe of phenomena is infinite in time and space, though it's a reasonable working hypothesis. We don't really know if there is no irreducible state of being underlying phenomena, though we haven't found one yet, so sunyata is a faith-based concept, though so far a reasonable one. And karma is still not unchallengeably demonstrable, though we can consider the remarkable cases of Shanti Devi and others (evidence for reincarnation rather than karma?). Really, in empirical terms, we are probably on safer epistemological ground to say that Buddhists believe empirical knowledge to be ultimately "unsoundable" in the sense that we'll never really get to the bottom of the deep mysteries of existence. In the meantime we proceed with working knowledge and the evidence of our own experience, as the Buddha advised.

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