What do they think about ethics?

Shot in the dark but anyone hear or read anything from the Kyoto School of philosophy? — Dermot Griffin

Sorry, I can't help, but I'm interested. I have noted similarities between the writings of western philosophers and the understanding expressed in the Tao Te Ching, e.g. similarities between Kant's noumena and the Tao, but I never thought about the other way round. I hope someone responds. I'd be interested in following the discussion.

And welcome to the forum.

These four have a tendency to try and stick with a classical view of virtue ethics, stemming from an Aristotelian and Confucian-Buddhist background, while attempting to combine this with the deontological theory of ethics as discussed by Kant. I will note that they stick with the traditional Kierkegaardian view of life being totally absurd without a concept of God and just about all of the, stuck with divine command theory (ethics come from God). Hajime Tanabe formulated his philosophy, what he calls Metanoetics, from the idea that one needs to experience nihilism in its purest form in order to realize that God is the only source of salvation for the human person. I don’t know if this is a convincing argument for God because of its subjectivity but it’s definitely interesting.

will note that they stick with the traditional Kierkegaardian view of life being totally absurd without a concept of God — Dermot Griffin

Woe. Kierkegaard wasn't saying that. Where did that idea come from?

Let me rephrase this: He believed that faith in God (“The Religious Life”) was the answer to a persons battle with anxiety and despair, leading to sin. He did believe that society was full of absurdity, though.

Let me rephrase this: He believed that faith in God (“The Religious Life”) was the answer to a persons battle with anxiety and despair, leading to sin. — Dermot Griffin

:chin:

Anxiety and despair are the result of one's sin. Recognizing your sin leads you to reject yourself.

So the battle with anxiety and despair ends in something few would recognize as "religious life.". It's more in the land Beyond Good and Evil.

Kierkegaard was much more astonishing than you're making him out to be.

He’s an unbelievably profound thinker; I'm writing my graduate thesis on him. I think he’s one of the most important modern philosophers to read. Unfortunately I feel many circles of academia don’t give him much attention (at least in my experience).

SK is awesome. :up:

Maybe I could get your opinion on this… Could you potentially break down for his idea of the “teleological suspension of the ethical?” I find it to be a difficult concept to understand.

I think it's pointed to here:

"There was one who was great by virtue of his power,

" and one who was great by virtue of his wisdom,

"and one who was great by reason of his hope,

" and one who was great by reason of his love;

"but Abraham was greater than these,

" great by virtue of power which is impotence,

"great by virtue of wisdom whose secret is foolishness,

" great by reason of a hope that takes the
form is madness,

"and great by reason of a love which is hatred of oneself."
___________________
If you're in the ocean and you're fighting it, you're tiny and weak. If you fuse with the ocean, you become gigantic. There's an ocean running through you. It's the deeper imperatives of your being. Fight against it (often this is done to satisfy other people) and you're weak. Every obstacle is a mountain. But let that ocean animate you and through this impotence, foolishness, madness, and hatred of your own ego, you become like Abraham, who could do no other than the will of God.

That's my two cents worth.

Maybe forgetting yourself leads you to try to kill your son in hiding

I appreciate the input. Which work is this from? I’m primarily using Robert Bretall’s A Kierkegaard Anthology when it comes to mapping his works out.

I will note that they stick with the traditional Kierkegaardian view of life being totally absurd without a concept of God — Dermot Griffin

Maybe a digression, but I have often wondered why god or no god makes any difference to absurdity. Isn't the idea of god in a world such as ours absurd in itself? Is there anything inherent in the idea of god/s (deities being a pretty incoherent notion at best anyway) that diminishes the world's absurdity in any tangible way? Tentative notions of purpose and meaning as the consequence of a god belief seems more like whistling in the dark and you have to work very hard for any notion of god/s to add anything more to the mystery of life than yet a further mystery. That's absurd. :wink:

:up:

I appreciate the input. Which work is this from? I’m primarily using Robert Bretall’s A Kierkegaard Anthology when it comes to mapping his works out. — Dermot Griffin

It's from Fear and Trembling. :up:

Yes studied them as part of both Comparative Religion and Buddhist Studies. There have been some interesting comparative studies of Heidegger with Asian philosophers also. Masao Abe is particularly interesting.

Maybe a digression, but I have often wondered why god or no god makes any difference to absurdity. Isn't the idea of god in a world such as ours absurd in itself? — Tom Storm

Well, only if your idea of God is absurd. And the kind of absurd idea I have in mind, is God as a kind of uber-director, standing behind the scenes directing everything. Or, God as the ultimate CEO, responsible for all the dreadful things that happen in the world. ("Oh my God! Children are DYING! There's a WAR! Who's RESPONSIBLE?!?)

Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

This, not some super-manufacturing, is what is traditionally meant by the claim that God is Creator. — Terrey Eagleton, Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching

Also, a couple of relevant/interesting books:

Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East-Asian Influences on his Work:

In this groundbreaking study, Reinhard May shows conclusively that Martin Heidegger borrowed some of the major ideas of his philosophy - on occasion almost word for word - from German translations of Chinese Daoist and Zen Buddhist classics.

zen and the art of postmodern philosophy

This book examines and compares the philosophical positions of various postmodern thinkers and Zen Buddhist philosophers on: language and play; modes of thinking; skepticism and doubt; self and other; time and death; nihilism and metaphysics; and the conception of the end of philosophy. The Zen thinkers dealt with are Dogen and Nishitani, and the Western thinkers are Derrida, Lacan, Heidegger, Lyotard, Foucault, Deleuze and Guatarri, Kristeva, and Levinas.

Well, only if your idea of God is absurd. And the kind of absurd idea I have in mind, is God as a kind of uber-director, standing behind the scenes directing everything. — Wayfarer

Now don't go being rude about the millions of literalists around the world. :wink: Just because you went to university doesn't mean you can look down on all those believers who have a more simple faith. You know well that this is how god is widely understood. By those who cause most of the problems. And they are a vast number in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the USA. We know that they dominate health policy, politics and shape legal systems. Call them 'absurd' if you wish but they are legion. :pray:

Call them 'absurd' if you wish but they are legion. — Tom Storm

That's not at all who I had in mind but I'll shut up.