In Early Buddhism, they speak of the six senses, with the intellect being the sixth. And if you look at the suttas, they talk about taking pleasure in ideas/thoughts as being simply yet another pleasure, like the pleasure of eating or engaging in sex. They do talk about gross and refined pleasures (and gross and subtle forms of suffering); but the point is that these pleasures (or sufferings) are considered as being on a spectrum, not different categories.Eudomonia in Aristotelian philosophy is linked with virtue and with fulfilling your life's purpose (telos). I don't think it's difficult to differentiate those kinds of aims from the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure. Nor do I find it difficult to differentiate the faculty of reason from that of sensation. — Wayfarer
Humans also have a social dimension; they are epistemically dependent on other humans; they have internalized and have access to knowledge accumulated by other humans, which can help them navigate individual deficiencies.So the premise of hedonism that pleasure and pain determine what is good and bad seems to me inherently flawed. Our senses are simply too easy to fool. — Tzeentch
How do you think this can be put into practice?To sum it all up, we need to move on/away from what, by my analysis, is a rather superficial understanding, perhaps even a total misunderstanding, of happiness/sorrow which is to think that happiness/sorrow are themselves objectives either to attain/avoid and arrive at the truth that the state of wellbeing is the real goal. With this realization we can perhaps get rid of the go-betweens viz. happiness/sorrow and all the complications/paradoxes/problems/dilemmas that go with them. — TheMadFool
Reasoning PLUS experience can, sure, but you were just doubting the reliability of experience, and when pressed for what grounds we have to doubt it, gave just reasoning alone as an answer.
My point overall is that while the conclusions reached from some experiences can indeed turn out to be wrong, the way we find that out is via more experiences, so it’s still ultimately experience that we’re relying on. — Pfhorrest
In Early Buddhism, they speak of the six senses, with the intellect being the sixth. And if you look at the suttas, they talk about taking pleasure in ideas/thoughts as being simply yet another pleasure, like the pleasure of eating or engaging in sex. — baker
But your moral objectivism amounts to the same thing. — baker
we can use reasoning alone to come to conclusions about what is good and bad — Tzeentch
Only when we already have some known-true propositions about what's good or bad to reason from. But when we're starting from scratch, or are lost in radical doubt, where do we get any such moral propositions to start that reasoning process from? I can think of nothing other than experience, or else just taking someone's word for it. — Pfhorrest
Ok, but how does this make a case for hedonism? — Tzeentch
Which is not incompatible with considering the intellect to be a sense.There nevertheless must be an element that discerns the meaning of dharma and elects to pursue it. — Wayfarer
Why should there be a problem with considering the intellect to be a sense? — baker
What started off this tangent was this:What does the Euclidean theorem look like? The ability to grasp a rational idea of that kind is different to a sensory impression, surely.
/.../
Also the Buddhist ‘manas’ is something like ‘organ of perception of ideas’. There are other terms for intellect in the Buddhist lexicon, notably, Buddhi, and also Citta, but considering all of those details are out of scope for this thread. The key word in western philosophy was ‘nous’ which has sadly fallen out of use. — Wayfarer
And we're back to the problem of who gets to be the arbiter of what is virtue and what isn't.Seems to me that hedonism always wants to avoid this conclusion - to say there’s no real difference between pleasant sensations and eudomonaic happiness (which is the happiness that comes from the pursuit of virtue.) One can, for example, attain happiness in the contemplation of verities, which surely can’t be reduced to sensation alone, and which only a rational mind can entertain. — Wayfarer
I think that depends on the measure of epistemic autonomy that an individual person is assumed to have.What does the Euclidean theorem look like? The ability to grasp a rational idea of that kind is different to a sensory impression, surely. — Wayfarer
But how does a particular person know what their life's purpose is?Eudomonia in Aristotelian philosophy is linked with virtue and with fulfilling your life's purpose (telos). — Wayfarer
I think it depends on the particular life purpose for the particular person.I don't think it's difficult to differentiate those kinds of aims from the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure.
But one cannot replicate others' experiences.It very explicitly does not. That's the point of replicating others' experiences: so we don't have to take their word for it. — Pfhorrest
Objectivisms are authoritarian and assume to be impersonal/suprapersonal. Yet, contrary to that, it is always a particular person, a Tom or a Dick who makes the claim that X is really such and such, and that Harry is in the wrong if he doesn't see it that way.You never explained your bizarre "empathy is incompatible with objectivism" comment, but I'd guess from that that you take "objectivism" to mean what I called "transcendentalism", which would require taking someone's word for it, which is why I'm against that, as I explicitly said. The only sense of "objectivism" I support is "universalism", the view that something being good or bad doesn't depend on what anyone thinks or says... because that would just be taking someone's word for it too.
But it still comes down to whose observation matters.Just like (according to a scientific worldview) reality doesn't depend on what anyone thinks about it, but there's still nothing about reality that's beyond observation: it's not relative, it's universal, but it's also not transcendent, it's entirely phenomenal.
And we've talked about how these experiences alone are too easy to fool to serve as a guide. — Tzeentch
But one cannot replicate others' experiences.
For example, I don't drink coffee, because it makes me sleepy. Many people drink coffee in the morning specifically for the purpose that it "wakes them up". So which is it? Who is right, who is wrong? Who has the right experience of drinking coffee in the morning? I or they? Is there an objectively right way to experience drinking coffee in the morning? — baker
Objectivisms are authoritarian — baker
But it still comes down to whose observation matters. — baker
But how does a particular person know what their life's purpose is? — baker
There nevertheless must be an element that discerns the meaning of dharma and elects to pursue it.
— Wayfarer
It's not clear how this is the case. — baker
An ethical science would have to do likewise. — Pfhorrest
Transcendentalisms...demand that you take someone's word for it, because nobody can check the results for themselves. — Pfhorrest
According to Pierre Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. 1
Isn’t that why Socrates died? He was condemned to death for his Socratic method of questioning. — Becky
we're not outside of or apart from the object of enquiry, 'we are what we seek to know.' — Wayfarer
In Buddhist ethical theory, the aspirant is presumed to be able to validate the teachings by first-hand insight, through their attaining of that insight in the living of the principles. The key term is 'ehi-passiko', 'seeing for oneself'. In practice there are obstacles to that, first and foremost the difficulties of realising such goals, but you can't say that in principle nobody it able to do so. — Wayfarer
That would not be transcendentalism in the sense I mean then, since if you can experience it for yourself it is definitionally phenomenal. — Pfhorrest
In Buddhism, we distinguish between spiritual experiences and spiritual realizations. Spiritual experiences are usually more vivid and intense than realizations because they are generally accompanied by physiological and psychological changes. Realizations, on the other hand, may be felt, but the experience is less pronounced. Realization is about acquiring insight. Therefore, while realizations arise out of our spiritual experiences, they are not identical to them. Spiritual realizations are considered vastly more important because they cannot fluctuate. 1
Which works if what we mean is that further experiences can tell us that some limited earlier experiences were not the full picture; I agree with that completely. But in that case you're still relying on experience generally. — Pfhorrest
I think what is supposed to become clear through Buddhism is not necessarily the subject of experience per se, but an understanding about, or insight into, the nature of experience, generally. — Wayfarer
These two experiences seperately do not tell us anything. We need another element, which I argue is reason, to connect the dots. — Tzeentch
And in the process of doing so, the person gets designated as "abnormal". "Wrong". "Defective". "Inferior".Physical science is universalist about reality in that if someone doesn't experience the same phenomena that everyone else does, even after completely controlling for the objects of said experience (the environment / experiment / etc), we go figure out what's different about the subject (the person) such that they experience the same object differently, and adjust our theories to correctly predict what that kind of subject will experience as well. An ethical science would have to do likewise. — Pfhorrest
Do you think that the Nazis didn't feel good about themselves and their ideas of what counts as virtue? That they didn't feel rewarded by what they considered virtuous behavior?In any case, Aristotelian ethics, or virtue ethics, aren't predicated on the idea that we have a pre-made destiny that we ought to fulfill. In that understanding, 'virtue is its own reward', because it instills habits, which become character, which become destiny. — Wayfarer
It's one's kamma that makes one attracted to the Buddha's teachings. -- So goes the Buddhist reasoning for conversion.There nevertheless must be an element that discerns the meaning of dharma and elects to pursue it.
— Wayfarer
It's not clear how this is the case.
— baker
If it were not the case, Buddhism would never have come into existence. Recall the story of the ascetic that walked past the Buddha after the enlightenment and more or less shrugged it off, saying 'it could be' that he had realised the goal. Then at the Deer Park sermon in Benares, five other ascetics took the Buddha at his word and so the Sangha was formed.
I don't understand what you mean here.I think we are indoctrinated by empiricism, that only knowledge based on sensation is for real. That is why it seems so awfully difficult to differentiate rational knowledge and sensation when really the difference ought to be obvious.
This is a westernized verificationist approach. A cradle Buddhist would never set out to "validate the teachings" or to "verify" them.In Buddhist ethical theory, the aspirant is presumed to be able to validate the teachings by first-hand insight, through their attaining of that insight in the living of the principles. The key term is 'ehi-passiko', 'seeing for oneself'. In practice there are obstacles to that, first and foremost the difficulties of realising such goals, but you can't say that in principle nobody it able to do so.
It doesn't make your point. Look what Sariputta says:(See this verse for discussion of the difference between 'taking on conviction' and 'direct discernment'.)
The holy grail -- epistemic autonomy.And there are, or there have been in the past, similar kinds of insights in Western philosophy.
IOW, it's about training oneself, developing oneself, cultivating oneself into becoming a particular type of person. This is how one "sees for oneself". It's not about verifying whether some claims are true or not. It's about making oneself be such that one comes to see those claims as true, as good.According to Pierre Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, wasto cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. 1
I think the problem is, rather, that the matter is approached in a pseudoscientific manner of "experimenting, testing, and verifying claims for yourself". Such experimenting etc. is impossible, at least as long as one doesn't have epistemic autonomy. And if one had it, one wouldn't need to test etc. anything anyway.So the results 'can be checked for yourself' although if such possibilities are rejected out of hand, then it remains a practical impossibility. In other words, it requires a certain kind of openness to those modes of discourse. (Maybe it's the case that we've been inoculated against any idea of 'higher truth' by dogmatic religion, specifically Protestantism.)
And in the process of doing so, the person gets designated as "abnormal". "Wrong". "Defective". "Inferior". — baker
If virtue would somehow be something that is baked into the fabric of the universe, so that it would operate by laws similar to those in physics, then there'd be no problem. So, for example, if you did X, you'd feel good, and if you did Y, you'd feel crappy. But it doesn't work that way. — baker
Cultivation in accordance with the Buddha's teachings leads to a particular and irreversible ability to discern Dhamma. Without this cultivation, a person cannot rightfully be said to be able to choose between Dhamma and adhamma (because they can't tell the difference).Regarding wether there is a faculty of discrimination, as distinct from mind/manas, I posed this question on Stack Exchange, and was told there is a term Paṭisambhidā: formed from paṭi- + saṃ- + bhid, where paṭi + saṃ should probably be understood as 'back together', and the verbal root bhid means 'to break, split, sever'. Rhys Davids and Stede propose that a literal rendering would be "resolving continuous breaking up", and gloss this as 'analysis, analytic insight, discriminating knowledge'; moreover, they associate it with the idea of 'logical analysis' (Pali-English Dictionary, p. 400.2). Bhikkhu Nyanatiloka similarly renders the term as 'analytical knowledge', but also as 'discrimination' (Buddhist Dictionary, p. 137). Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli voices a divergent view in a note to his translation of in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga, XIV.8, where he renders paṭisambhidā as 'discrimination': — Wayfarer
It seems that for the psychologically normal person, morality is never a matter of choice -- such a person "just knows what the right thing to do" is (for such a person, the issue is only whether they are able to do it).If virtue would somehow be something that is baked into the fabric of the universe, so that it would operate by laws similar to those in physics, then there'd be no problem. So, for example, if you did X, you'd feel good, and if you did Y, you'd feel crappy. But it doesn't work that way.
— baker
It's because we can choose. Not only can choose, but have to choose. — Wayfarer
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