Defining Buddhism in relation to Western philosophy

[honu]

I recently wrote a blog post about Kant's take on tea tasting (not directly related to this post), and joined a couple of Facebook philosophy groups as a follow-up to getting back into the subject of Western philosophy (a long story).

It was frustrating how few people had any idea what the scope of Western philosophy is, at all, so I wrote a post about that, and touched on how Buddhism is related in that (all just my own take, of course):

http://2monkeysbuddhism.blogspot.com/2016/05/what-is-western-philosophy-also.html

I'll touch on the basics here, so someone can know if the post would be interesting to them or not. Western philosophy is an investigation of a relatively broad set of somewhat vague subjects that underlie human experience. Ethics and aesthetics are relatively clear sub-themes, the study of the basis of morality and beauty, essentially. Subjects closer to the core of the topic go into the nature of reality (in different senses), related to the nature of mind and self, use of language, logic, etc.

My take is that Buddhism is a different thing, but there are two ways that it can overlap. One is by describing philosophy broadly enough, including anything vaguely related. That sort of works, it just doesn't match ordinary conventions in Western philosophy, where range of topics scope is limited, discussion form is based on arguments (typically, not always), etc. It's also possible to seek out sub-branches of philosophy where the scope of discussion and approach matches what is going on in Western philosophy better, for example, Madhyamika Buddhism, an older Indian school of thought based mainly on the works of Nagarjuna, or on some more academic forms of Tibetan Buddhism.

But to me, most interpretations of Buddhism, most schools and most natural reads, are really something else, closer to religion perhaps, or at least different than Western philosophy. There still might be courses on Zen offered in Western philosophy academic programs, which they call a philosophy course, so the subject scope isn't really clearly defined.

In philosophy circles there is the idea that once the understanding of some scope of human mental reality developed enough within philosophy it split off to become psychology (a point I didn't actually bring up in that article). That really seems beside the point of my own attempt at sketching out what Western philosophy is, which wasn't to clearly define the boundaries, but just to pass on some idea of what the subject is.

Buddhism is also diverse. To some extent it really is a religion, of course, but it crosses over into what we tend to see as philosophy and psychology in the West as well, or maybe even to self-development range, Dale Carnegie and Tony Robbins sorts of ideas, which I mean in a very positive sense.

[VincentRJ]

That's a very long blog post, Honu (the Two Monkeys Buddhism).

I have a general interest in philosophy, but no academic qualifications in the subject, so perhaps I am lucky in being free of formal, academic conditioning which might interfere with my understanding of Buddhism.

My general attitude is a bit like that expressed by Alain de Botton in one of his books on philosophy, that one should treat all religions like a smorgasbord, and pick and choose what appeals.

However, such an analogy breaks down if one's attitude to food is based purely on appearance and taste. Mine is based on nutritional value, so the analogy works for me.

I also find the analogy is consistent with the advice in the Kalama Sutta. For example, 'Is this particular food good for oneself and others?'

[nausea]

Read Sartre. The only real differerence between Existentialism and Buddhism is reincarnation. Everything else is based on experential experience. Reincarnation was necessary because Buddhism came out of the Indian religeous experience, and without it no ethics are possible. Sartre based his ethics on the Christian religeous experience, except you are not responsible before God, but before all men. IMHO both give a very stark view of the world, and both tried to mitigate this in order to make their philosophies more palatible to ordinary people. Not everybody is a Sartre or a Buddha.

[rockyysdt]

On 26/09/2016 at 11:19 PM, nausea said:

Read Sartre. The only real differerence between Existentialism and Buddhism is reincarnation. Everything else is based on experential experience. Reincarnation was necessary because Buddhism came out of the Indian religeous experience, and without it no ethics are possible. Sartre based his ethics on the Christian religeous experience, except you are not responsible before God, but before all men. IMHO both give a very stark view of the world, and both tried to mitigate this in order to make their philosophies more palatible to ordinary people. Not everybody is a Sartre or a Buddha.

Hello Nausea.

 

A major part of your position (difference between  Existentialism and Buddhism) revolves around Reincarnation.

 

Far from it (Reincarnation) the Buddha taught ReBirth.

 

These are subtle but totally unrelated.

 

Reincarnation requires a soul/spirit to reincarnate.

 

The Buddha did not teach of soul or anything enduring.

 

We are impermanent & conditioned (that which is born dies).

 

Many ascribe ReBirth as a process in which each  Contact, leads to Feelings, leads to Cravings/longings/desires, leads to Clinging, leads to generation of Re Birth, leads to Birth a Moment to Moment continuum, and that realms (God, Demi God, Human, animal, hungry ghost, Hell) are mind states.

 

 

This would appear to undermine the difference you claim?

 

 

 

[nausea]

And the experential experience for this is?

[nausea]

And the experential experience for this is?