L’incohérence de Bouddhisme
October 14, 2021 – 9:05 amLe 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 vers laquelle tous devraient s’efforcer est nirvana – c’est-à-dire le néant absolu. (Il est important de garder à l’esprit que le nirvana n’est pas un paradis ou un au-delà.) Les Bouddhistes disent aussi (c’est l’un des trois signes d’existence, anatta) que le soi n’existe pas. Il n’y a aucune entité dans l’univers qu’on peut identifier comme le soi ; et, donc, personne ne peut pas dire qu’il existe. Donc, si je n’existe pas, comment puis-je m’efforcer d’atteindre le nirvana¸ et de plus, pourquoi ?
Ou considérons la prétention que notre existence dans le monde continue (ignorons le signe d’anatta pour le moment) parce que nous (encore, qui ?) souffrons les effets de nos désirs. Par conséquent ils disent que nous devrions nous efforcer de rejeter nos désirs. Mais ils ne peuvent pas nous donner ce conseil sans admettre qu’ils désirent nirvana et que nous devrions le désirer. Le désir est donc en même temps nécessaire et interdit. Il y a beaucoup d’autres paradoxes tout aussi évidents et flagrants et non résolus dans cette philosophie ; en fait tous les efforts des soi-disant philosophes bouddhistes n’ont eu l’effet que de confondre les questions de plus en plus. En dépit de tous cela ils n’ont pas laissé tomber les prétentions contradictoires de leur philosophie. Et pourquoi pas ? Parce que le Bouddhisme est avant tout une religion et non pas une philosophie.
Tags:The Mystery of the Trinity Solved
September 30, 2021 – 10:07 amThus are God the Circle, God the Triangle, and God the Square all One God
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_ new pronouns
September 15, 2021 – 8:27 pm_ pronouns are _, _, and _. They may not be written or pronounced, for you are not worthy.
Tags:Daosheng On Buddha-Nature and Sudden Enlightenment
September 8, 2021 – 9:55 amThe 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 made it possible for the being to achieve the enlightenment that the Buddha achieved. It was thus that part of the Being’s nature that approximated to (shared in / was identical with / what you will) the essential nature of the Buddha. Although most schools would agree on the purely functional characterization just given, yet there is little agreement on what exactly it was that instantiated the function or realised the potential. Some considered it to be a quality of Mind, or the undefiled mind, or (in the Lankavatarasutra) the universal mind (of the Yogacaras,) while others considered it to be simply nothingness or non-being itself. In any case, it was disputed whether every sentient being possessed the Buddha-nature and was thus able to achieve enlightenment. Daosheng was amongst those who thought that it was a universal quality of sentient beings and that certain important consequences followed from this fact.
Since his treatise on this has not survived his relevant arguments have to be extrapolated from his other commentaries, but they seem clear enough in general. From his reading of the various sutras he concludes that every being does have the Buddha-nature, although not every being realises that they do. The task for each being is to achieve this realisation and to use that realisation to become enlightened and thus fully actualise their Buddha-nature. Daosheng envisioned the Buddha-nature as being whatever it was that was able to enjoy nirvana given that according to the most basic truth of anatman there was ‘no self.’ He further held that Buddha-nature was identical with nirvana and sunyata. His arguments for this point are not specified but we might assume that since nirvana (extinction) and sunyata (emptiness) are without characteristics or parts it is not possible to enjoy them or to participate in them while having characteristics and parts; therefore this thing, if it was to ‘enjoy’ extinction and emptiness could only do so as a kind of participation – and by the nature of extinction and emptiness, participation in them could only be identification with them. This being the case, and Buddha-nature being thus without characteristics, there would be two further consequences. First, being indivisible into parts, it could not be grasped in parts: it was all or nothing, which supported the claim of sudden enlightenment. Second, being inapprehensible from outside – since it has no qualities for any perception or comprehension to grasp – to know the Buddha-nature is to participate in it; so that the understanding of the Buddha-nature leads to instant enlightenment and liberation.
Tags:Sengzhao’s Arguments are Weak
August 10, 2021 – 8:57 amThe 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 far as we can be sure of them, however, their arguments for these doctrines are rather weak.
We shall consider just the first of these. Sengzhao (384-416,) was, so it is said, originally a Taoist who upon reading an old translation of the Vimalakirti Sutra became an enthusiastic Buddhist, and eventually a disciple of Kumarajiva – one of the most productive of the earliest translators and interpreters of Buddhist documents. In Xi’an (which was then the capital Chang’an) Sengzhao assisted his master in the translation and interpretation of Indian texts but he also began to make his own contributions. These can be found in his Book of Zhao (Zhao Lun,) a collection of essays, of which three are of primary significance in preparing the ground for Chan. It is particularly worth noticing that the arguments made in all three essays might be made in essentially the same way by a Neotaoist as easily as by a Buddhist.
- Objects Do Not Move
In the essay on mutability and immutability Sengzhao argued the paradoxical point that there is at once no change and no immutability; or equivalently, that everything is both changeful and immutable; or even better that changefulness and immutability are equally vacuous terms referring to nothing. To make this claim he observes that any entity that is in the past never becomes an entity in the present because it is always in the past. Everything is therefore absolutely immutable, frozen in the instant of its existence (whether present or past.) On the other hand, since the passage of time must necessarily involve the sequential being and non-being of all things absolutely, there is nothing but mutability. By way of a clarifying example he gives us the man who left his village as a youth and returns as an old monk. We observe here that everything about the man has changed so he is a different entity, but he is nevertheless still the same man (called Fanzhi) so he is the same entity, so what is the same and immutable is also different and mutable. Unfortunately, this is just the old problem of the preservation of identity through change that we recognise from such classic examples as the Ship of Theseus, and rather detracts from than advances the purely conceptual argument that it is supposed to illustrate.
- Unreal Emptiness
In the essay on Being and Not-being he argues that nothing purely exists or does not exist; in everything that exists there is the quality of non-existence and in everything that does not exist there is the quality of existence. Of everything, whether it exists or not, it may therefore be said that it both exists and does not exist. His argument is that if something purely exists and has no quality of non-existence, then it would always be so qualified and so could never fail to exist. In particular, its origination is not dependent on the operation of causes in the world – contrary to what the Buddha claimed about all existent things. Similarly, for anything that does not exist, if it has no quality of existence within it then it can never do other than not exist, with all the same unwelcome consequences as for necessary existence. This is a marvellously paradoxical result, but its conviction for modern audiences is undermined by the inadmissibility of the assumption upon which the argument is based: that existence – and non-existence too, for that matter – may be treated in the same way as property predicates like ‘tall’, ‘happy’, or ‘blue.’ This assumption is known to lead to all sorts of problems and is almost universally rejected now.
- Wisdom Has No Knowing
Finally, in the essay on wisdom he argued that that could not be considered as a kind of knowledge – or at least not any kind of propositional knowledge. Such knowledge, we observe, is knowledge of something – we cannot speak of having that sort of knowledge without acknowledging that there is an object of knowledge. Such knowledge essentially involves an apprehension of the qualities of a known thing. If prajña (bo re), or sage-wisdom (shèng zhi) as Sengzhao calls it, is an apprehension of the Absolute Truth, then, given that the Absolute Truth is that there is nothing to be apprehended, sage-wisdom cannot involve the apprehension of the qualities of some object, and therefore cannot count as knowledge in the normal sense. In fact sage-wisdom is more like knowledge by acquaintance of Non-being, or even an actual identification with that state, a kind of knowing how to be non-existent. Of course, it was not established that any such knowledge was possible at all, so the move to understand what form that knowledge could take rather begs the question.
Tags:Le Libre arbitre
July 9, 2021 – 10:06 pmChacun 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 choix et la responsabilité de ce choix est à lui. Voilà pour ses sentiments. D’autre part, certains pensent que nous sommes tous des objets physiques et toutes nos actions sont ordonnées par les lois de la Nature. Ces lois n’admettent qu’un seul résultat pour leur application sur une situation donnée. Pas de place ici pour un choix parmi des possibilités. Face à ce choix entre notre connaissance scientifique du monde et nos simples sentiments de liberté, nous choisissons forcement le première choix, et nions la possibilité d’un libre arbitre.
Mais cet argument, tel qu’il est, doit nous mettre un peu mal à l’aise. Selon l’argument, si nos actions ont une cause, alors on ne peut pas nous les attribuer. Autrement, si nos actions n’ont pas une cause ? Sont-elles en ce cas à notre crédit ? Non ? Alors, que nos actions soient causées ou non elles ne sont pas notre responsabilité. C’est une conséquence un peu trop bizarre même pour un philosophe ; mais où est le problème fondamental ? Il y a pas mal de réponses que les philosophes offrent : mais peut-être qu’il n’y a qu’une simple erreur de raisonnement. On peut construire d’autres arguments similaires à celui ci-dessus qui ne sont pas convaincants. Par exemple, supposons que le moteur de ma voiture cesse de marcher parce que sa batterie est à plat. Peut-on vraiment attribuer le problème à la batterie ? Non, parce-que l’opération de la batterie est déterminé par les lois de la Nature et il y a une autre cause antérieure pour ce changement dans son opération. Pensons-nous donc que nous ne pouvons pas dire que la batterie est responsable ? Non, nous ne le pensons pas. Alors, pensons-nous que l’argument contre le libre arbitre est de la même nature et échoue de la même façon ?
Tags:La Logique
July 9, 2021 – 10:05 pmLa 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’. Aristote a en outre noté que pour certains des arguments, c’était la forme elle-même de l’argument qui garantissait la validité. C’est évident par exemple qu’un argument avec la forme ‘si A alors B, et A, alors B’ est valide – en fait c’est valide ‘formellement’. le système de règles relatives à la validité formelle est ce que nous appelons la logique. Et maintenant, on peut utiliser la logique pour découvrir si un argument dans la langue courante est valide ou non : tout simplement, si l’argument original puisse être mis dans une forme valide, sans perdre le sens de l’original, l’argument doit être valide.
Bon, mais comment savons-nous qu’une forme est valide ? C’est peut-être un fait de l’univers, mais ce n’est pas une chose que nous avons découverte par l’observation comme nous avons découvert la forme du monde. Nous pouvons admettre la possibilité que le monde soit plat, mais nous ne pouvons pas même comprendre la proposition qu’une loi de la logique ne tienne pas. C’est peut-être donc une loi de la pensée – c’est-à-dire, psychologique. Mais non, parce que personne n’accepterait que les arguments valides pour un singe, un chien, ou un extraterrestre soient différents que les arguments valides pour nous. Encore, on ne peut pas même comprendre la possibilité. Donc nous nous retrouvons avec un mystère. Les plus surs de nos arguments reposent elles-mêmes sur des fondations sans support.
Tags:L’antidote à l’athéisme
July 9, 2021 – 10:04 pmQu’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 un dieu. L’athée accepte qu’il est impossible à prouver soit que Dieu existe ou non, donc la question de la croyance doit être résolue par d’autre moyens, par les considérations autres que la raison pure ou la preuve. Le plus souvent le philosophe raisonne en cette façon : si les raisons à croire en Dieu sont de la même force que les raisons à croire en des fantômes ou des gobelins, et c’est ridicule les accepter, alors c’est ridicule à accepter Dieu, donc je dois le nier.
Le philosophe en ce cas fait un choix et suivant les règles générales qui détermine si que l’on puisse croire ou non en une idée la croyance en dieu est rejetée. Mais ‘Dieu’ n’est pas une idée comme les autres et il y a peut-être des considérations spéciales qu’il faut qu’on prenne en compte. Par exemple si il n’y a pas un Dieu le monde n’a pas une raison d’être. On n’accepterait point pour aucune chose autre qu’il existe tout simplement sans raison. Pourquoi accepterions-nous cela pour le monde entier. En plus, si le monde n’a pas une raison d’être, nous n’en avons non plus. Est-ce que le philosophe pense qu’une vie sans but ni raison vaut la peine de vivre ? Pense-t-il que l’idée d’une vie sans but l’aidera à vivre sa vie ? Non ? Donc on peut douter que le choix d’accepter cette idée est la meilleure que l’on puisse faire.
Tags:The Ruling Bullshits of Our Time
July 2, 2021 – 8:49 pmI put this together in just a half hour or so after talking to a friend who remarked upon how much nonsense we were supposed to believe. Note that I didn’t even have to talk about the temporary bullshits of the current news cycle, and I haven’t mentioned any of the bullshits of the ‘pandemic’.
Western civilisation/society is White Supremacist
- It suffers from Systemic Racism
- Or maybe it’s Structural
- White Privilege
- Whiteness
- Implicit Bias Tests measure something real
- Blacks are over-represented in prison populations
- Blacks are killed disproportionately by Police
- Racism is power + prejudice
- Any racial disparity in outcomes is evidence of racism
- ‘Critical Race Theory’
- All/Only whites are racist
- X is racist (for all values of X)
- Affirmative Action is the opposite of racial discrimination
- The ‘Stolen Generations’
- Race doesn’t exist
- It’s a ‘social construction’
We live in a patriarchy
- Possibly even a “cisheteropatriarchy”
- Any sexual disparity in outcomes is evidence of sexism
- There are no differences between men and women’s psychologies, preferences, capabilities
- “Believe all women!”
Your sexual identity is whatever you say it is
- There are more than two genders
- Gender is a continuum
- Gender is fluid
- Gender is unrelated to sex
- Trans-women are real women (ditto men)
- My pronouns are …
Diversity is an absolute moral good
- ‘Diversity is our strength’
Multiculturalism is the only justifiable option (ITW (=In the West))
- All (other) cultures are equal
- Who are we to judge them or criticize?
- All migrants are net positives for the receiving society (ITW)
- No common culture (ITW) is required or possible or should be defended
- There is no upper limit on the number of immigrants that can be accommodated (ITW)
- Immigration has no downsides – regardless of source, culture, numbers, legality, …
- There is especially no problem with unregulated, unrestricted mass-immigration of Muslims from backward countries
- There are no ‘No-Go Zones’
- Ethnic criminal gangs are not a problem/barely exist
- There is especially no problem with unregulated, unrestricted mass-immigration of Muslims from backward countries
- Migrant assimilation (ITW) is an unjust expectation
- Morality is relative to culture
The environment is deteriorating
- There are too many people
- The planet cannot support us
- Plastic bags! Plastic bags everywhere! They have to be stopped!
- Sustainability is a coherent concept – and an absolute moral good
- Recycling is always worth doing – and an absolute moral good
- We face Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warning
- The Barrier Reef is dying
- Pacific Islands are sinking
- Climate refugees
- The North Pole will be ice-free by [current date + 10]
- The world is doomed because of X (X= acid rain/organophosphates/ozone hole/CAGW/…)
- In order to prevent environmental disaster X, the economic system has to be overthrown
We are too rich (= greedy/selfish)
- Our material preferences are morally contemptible – so ‘middle class’
- the planet cannot support our lifestyle
- Our lifestyle causes environmental deterioration
- We must face the ‘Limits to Growth’
- Economic growth cannot continue because the planet is finite
- The rest of the world can’t become as rich as us
- It is evidence of structural injustice that the rest f the world isn’t as rich as us
- Our wealth is gotten by exploitation of the third world
- We deliberately keep them poor
- The economy is a zero-sum game
Coal, oil, and gas power are too dangerous (they cause CAGW)
- Fracking is dangerous
- Our energy needs can be met with wind and solar power
- Nuclear power is too dangerous
- “No blood for Oil!”
We’re running out of resources
- Peak oil
Organic farming can feed us
- Organic produce is ‘natural’ and so better
GMOs are too dangerous
Chemicals are bad
- Pesticides/herbicides/fertilizers/… are bad
- Plastics are bad
- Plastic bags are filling the oceans
- Medical drugs are bad
- ‘Traditional’ medicines work
- ‘Big Pharma’ suppresses effective alternative treatments to profit from sickness
Modern Art
‘Continental Philosophy’
- ‘Post-Modernism’
- “There is nothing outside the text”
- Reality is a set of discourses
- Discourses are structured to advantage powerful groups
- There is no such thing as objective truth
- Truth is determined by power (Foucault etc.)
- Knowledge is socially constructed
Islam is a religion of peace
- Jihad is a ‘personal struggle’
- They hate us because of the Crusades
- Islamophobia
- We wouldn’t have the Renaissance or Science without Islam
One man’s ‘Terrorist’ is another man’s ‘Freedom Fighter’
Imperialism/Colonialism is only a Western thing
- It’s always bad
- I/C explains why most non-western countries are shitholes
- Most non-western countries are not shitholes
Nationalism is a bad thing and nation-states are bad
- ‘Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel’
- (National) flags are problematic
- Any act to secure (our) borders is immoral
- It’s a ‘refugee crisis’
- ‘Push factors’
- (Other) people have a right to live wherever they want
- The UN has superior moral and legal authority
- ‘International law’ is law
- Palestine is a nation
- Poor, poor Palestinians. They only want justice.
- Israel is a colonial/settler/apartheid state
Hate speech isn’t free speech
IQ scores don’t measure anything – certainly not intelligence
- ‘Intelligence’ isn’t a thing
- There are no group differences in intelligence
- There are especially no ‘racial’ differences in intelligence
- Evolution stops at the neck