Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
Monday, October 18th, 2021
I was reading and listening to some Steven Pinker articles and podcasts (for Quillette, I believe) talking about his new book on rationality, and one of the throwaway points he makes is that relativism about truth is a bad position. I don’t doubt that, but I’m not so sure that ...
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Thursday, October 14th, 2021
Le bouddhisme a la réputation d’être à la fois une religion et une philosophie : en fait, beaucoup de philosophes pensent que c’est une philosophie admirable. Il y en a cependant d’autres qui pensent que c’est un mélange des pseudo-profondeurs et d’incohérences. Par exemple, les bouddhistes disent que la fin ...
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Thursday, September 30th, 2021
Thus are God the Circle, God the Triangle, and God the Square all One God
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Wednesday, September 8th, 2021
The Buddha-nature (fóxìng – which translates Sanskrit tathAgatagarbha meaning the ‘matrix of the thus gone’ or buddhadhAtu meaning ‘the realm of the enlightened one’) was the subject of the second of Daosheng’s teachings that we will consider. The Buddha-nature was supposed to be that part of a being’s nature which ...
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Tuesday, August 10th, 2021
The doctrines and attitudes and practices that are thought of as typical of the Chan school arose early but gradually after Buddhism had been introduced to China. In particular, the early Chinese Buddhist scholars Sengzhao and Daosheng are considered to have laid the philosophical groundwork for the Chan school. So ...
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Friday, July 9th, 2021
Chacun a le sentiment d’un libre arbitre même si il n’y croit pas. Chacun a le sentiment que c’est possible à faire autrement que ce qu’il fait ; il n’a qu’à choisir autrement que ce qu’il a choisi. Enfin, il a le sentiment que ce qu’il fait est la conséquence d’un ...
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Friday, July 9th, 2021
La logique a été découverte par Aristote, ou peut-être il l’a inventé. Selon la version traditionnelle, il avait remarqué que parmi certains arguments les raisons garantissent la conclusion. Il n’est pas possible que les raisons soient vraies et la conclusion fausse. Un argument de cette sorte nous appelons maintenant ‘valide’. ...
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Friday, July 9th, 2021
Qu’est-ce qu’un athée ? Quelqu’un qui croit qu’il n’y a pas de Dieu. Pourquoi croit-il cela ? Dans la littérature il y a pas mal de raisons et d’arguments données, mais pour un philosophe il n’y a qu’un seul argument significatif : qu’il n’y a aucune raison suffisante à justifier la croyance en ...
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Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
The idea that phenomena and noumena are the same thing also featured in the doctrines of the Huáyán (??) school, in which it appears as a consequence of a more general claim concerning the interpenetration of all levels of reality. This school is another of those Chinese schools which made ...
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Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
Nagarjuna’s (2nd-3rd C) doctrine of Two Truths is accepted by all Mahayanists. It refers to a method of instruction in which statements were open to alternative possible interpretations depending on the level of sophistication of the audience; a method that Buddha used in order to make his doctrines accessible. The ...
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