Modern Philosophy: Empiricism - Locke & Hume

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) was an English doctor and philosopher who was very influential on the American Founding Fathers (Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson), the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  Thomas Jefferson considered him one of the greatest thinker who ever lived.
One passage of the Declaration of Independence is almost wholesale lifted from Locke’s political work.  He was friends with scientists such as Boyle and Newton.  He is famous for two works, the classic text of Empiricism, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and the political text, Two Treatises of Government.

We cover Locke’s political thought more extensively in the Social and Political Philosophy class, but a short summary is appropriate here.  Locke believed that the power of the king must not infringe on the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to property, and this must be achieved by establishing a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances.  Locke argues that the people have the right to rebel against the sovereign if the sovereign infringes on these rights.

As many critics have pointed out, neither Locke nor the American founding fathers believed that these rights extended to all of humanity and there resulted great contradictions between love of individual rights and the brutal practices of slavery and colonialism.  Locke was a major investor in the Royal African Company, a secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations and a member of the Board of Trade, all of which were central to the African slave trade that took Africans from West Africa to the Americas to benefit English plantations.  While he argued that labor gives the individual a natural right to property, he also argued that the work of servants and slaves rightfully belongs to their master.  Like the founding fathers wrote “All men are created equal” but owned slaves themselves, Locke was clearly in agreement with the racism of his times and was writing for the equality of Europeans who owned property, servants and slaves and not of all-inclusive humanity.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is Locke’s famous work on epistemology, the study of how we learn and understand things.  For many who lean towards skepticism, like myself, epistemology and ontology (the study of what exists) are one and the same, as our understanding is our reality.  On a winter afternoon in 1670, Locke met with friends to have a discussion about morality, ethics and religion, but the group could not come to much agreement on any subject.  This made Locke wonder about how we come to understand things.  He sat down later to write what he thought would be a single page on the subject, and instead spent much time for over twenty years writing his central philosophical work, publishing it in 1690.  The text significantly influenced Hume, who we will consider next, and Berkeley, who we will examine next time, both largely in agreement with Locke’s conclusions.  Leibniz, who we last covered, wrote a Rationalist rebuttal to the text, addressing Locke’s work point by point.

In the beginning of the text, Locke compares our faculty of understanding to the eye, an object that is invisible to us and difficult to put at a distance from which we can examine it properly.  The word ‘faculty’ is used by philosophers to refer to parts of the mind, similar to organs of the body, but in the brain, itself a single organ.  Locke has us consider the newborn baby, which gives us little reason to think there are innate ideas or understandings.  While Locke supposes that in later stages of prenatal development the fetus can have experiences, he stresses that it is through experience, being impressed by perceptions, that the child comes to have understandings.  Locke is attempting to refute Rationalism and the position of Descartes.  Locke argues that young children and the insane do not hold mathematics or identity to be true, but must learn these things.  It appears Locke is considering a child play acting, pretending to be a caped hero.  Children like sweet things, but they have no idea what sweetness is until they taste it.  Thus, while human anatomy may be predisposed to sweet tastes, the idea of sweetness must be acquired through experience.

To bring in an example from outside the text, we know that when animals and humans watch each other perform actions, their own brain lights up as if they themselves are performing the action with their own body and nervous system, but that this is repressed in a way such that the watcher does not mistakenly believe themselves to have acted.  Psychologists have observed that, after only two months of age, babies can follow the direction of others’ eyes, follow the gaze to see what the other is observing, and if they do not see anything significant they double check and try again.  It is not that the baby has an innate idea that they, like the one they observe, is a human being as opposed to a rock, but rather that the baby finds such things highly stimulating and only later comes to have conceptions of humanity and individual identity.

Locke famously argues that the individual mind is originally a blank slate, a ‘tabula rasa’, ‘blank slate’ in Latin.  In the early days of human writing, scribes would write by making impressions on a clay tablet.  As an Empiricist, Locke believed that there are no innate ideas in the human mind and that all ideas are acquired by experience, much like his fellow Empiricist Hume.  Locke had before this read a 12th century Arabic novel (translated into Latin) by Ibn Tufail entitled Living Son of Wakening which tells the story of a child isolated from human society on a desert island who grows naturally by experience and reason to human adulthood.  Another popular novel at the time was Robinson Crusoe, which features a civilized gentleman and native ‘savage’ on an island in the state of nature.  Locke believed that education is central to all development and that the mind is an empty cabinet waiting to be filled, a white piece of paper waiting to be written upon, a dark room waiting to be filled with light.

If we are each a blank slate, what constitutes our identity, our sense of self?  Locke argued that the self is a continuity of consciousness, an extension of Descartes’, “I think, therefore I am”.  Recall that Avicenna and Descartes each argued that our consciousness is the one thing about which we cannot be deceived.  Locke takes the idea further by considering consciousness as a continuous experience.  Descartes had focused on the moment that consciousness arrives at its own certainty through rationality.  While Descartes argued that from this fact we can rationally deduce several other truths, Locke argued that we cannot by reason alone deduce facts from consciousness, but only gather them through its continuous experience.

In my undergrad days as a philosophy major, we were given a thought experiment to illustrate Locke’s idea of identity as continuity of consciousness similar in ways to the “brain in a vat” used to illustrate Descartes’, “I think, therefore I am”.  Again, it involves a machine that has the power to affect brains in ways as yet undiscovered.  Imagine two people are placed in a machine that switches the brains between the two bodies and then similarly exchanges the contents of the two minds.  Let us assume that this is possible, and that the content of the mind is much like software.  Is person A now person B?  

Locke would argue that person A may be an entirely different person after the process, but person A remains A and is not person B because B still has their continuity of consciousness, and thus their individual identity, even if that identity has been entirely altered.  If someone has a case of amnesia and cannot remember their name or anything about their life, we would say that they are the same individual, identical with their earlier self, but without their faculty of memory.  At the time, I disagreed with Locke, but now I think there are two sides to the situation.  On the one hand, we do consider the identity of a person to be a function of quality, and so we say that someone who has severe alzheimer's disease or catatonic schizophrenia to, “no longer be the person we once knew”, as the expression goes.  On the other hand, we also consider identity to be a designator of quantity, and so like Locke we would say that experiment subject A is not B in spite of the transference of mental content.  Note that if we were to somehow transfer the consciousness of B along with the mental content, which the imaginary machine does not have the power to do, Locke would have to conclude that A is now B, as B’s mind is inhabiting the body of A.  Interestingly, if we switched first the brains and THEN the mental content, Locke would have to conclude that A is now B, having the consciousness of B, in spite of the fact that A retains A’s body and A’s mental content.

Like Descartes, Locke argues that it is rational to believe in mathematics, discoveries of science, and God, but unlike Descartes, Locke argued that these things are known through experience and evidence.  While Descartes argues that we can create rational arguments that prove the existence of God, Locke argued that belief in God is rational based on the evidence of miracles.  Locke’s friend Newton believed the same, arguing that the solar system would spin out eventually if it were not for the fact that God poked his finger in occasionally to straighten it.  Locke argues that it is rational to suppose that there is an omnipotent, omniscient being, but that it does not matter whether we please to call it ‘God’ or not.  This is quite deist, similar to the thinking of Locke’s admirer Jefferson as well as the thinking of Spinoza.  Also like his friend Newton, Locke believed that animal spirits, electric in nature, reside in the muscles and communicate with the brain.  

While Locke does admit the existence of rational reflection, this is always reflection upon experience or upon ideas acquired from experience.  Hume, we will soon see, expands on this.  From initial ideas derived from sensation, such as solidity and motion, we then construct additional ideas.  Consider that our idea of truth is based very much on our experience of solidity.  In older English, if something “holds true”, this can be either mental or physical.  If an argument or understanding is “solid”, we can use it as a “base” to “support” other ideas, holding them up such that they are solid like the basis on which they are founded.

Locke makes a distinction between simple ideas such as colors, shapes, tastes, and complex ideas such as identity and cause and effect.  Hume follows Locke in arguing that cause and effect is a complex idea, a concept composed of several elements that we put together mentally.  Locke also makes a distinction between primary qualities, such as shape, arrangement and motion, and secondary qualities, such as color and taste.  Primary qualities are objective, whereas secondary qualities are subjective sensations that do not objectively exist but only via subjective experience.  Consider the example of a red square.  Locke would say that the square is objectively shaped the way that it is, but red is a color that only some can see, unlike a dog who is colorblind.  Note the similarity to Descartes, who argued that some things that seem certain can be assumed to be certain, in spite of the fact that we can doubt all our experiences.

Many have questioned this second distinction, asking if there is an exclusive divide between objective and subjective qualities.  It does seem that the shape of a square is not open for debate, much like two and three equaling five.  However, we can conceive, like Descartes, that this is an individual or even collective illusion.  Locke does say that we can imagine that our senses were different in number, and that this would profoundly affect our experience of the world.  What if our tactile and visual senses were greatly enhanced, such that only near perfect squares appeared square to us?  What if we gained senses that gave us experiences unlike any we had before?  While Locke considers motion to be objective, like his friend Newton, Einstein argued that motion is relative.  We do not even need to approach light speed to demonstrate this, as the Earth to us is stationary, and the stars make circles overhead.  The ancient Greek Pyrrhonian skeptic Sextus Empiricus argued that shape and motion can vary by perspective.  A cone appears triangular from the side, yet circular from above.  When we are in a vehicle such as a chariot, everything that is standing still appears to move.  When we look at a ship far out to sea, it appears to stand still but is moving quickly.

Locke disagreed with Descartes that knowledge is clear and distinct.  Knowledge is only probable, and involves a complex coherence of ideas.  Oddly, this means that even as Locke considers primary qualities to be objective and distinct from subjective secondary qualities, we can only imperfectly know what is objective and primary.  Locke arguing for a noncontradictory coherence of ideas is similar to Leibniz, who believed in the principle of noncontradiction.  Locke argued that we can afford to be certain when there is strong evidence, but should provisionally entertain things when there is only weak evidence.  New evidence must be continuously sought, but coherent knowledge that is strongly supported by evidence can be acquired.  Locke uses his friend Newton and his discovery of gravity as a positive example, as well as Jesus and his ethical teaching to love one’s neighbor as one loves oneself.  Note that Locke considers Ethics to be a science, and considers both religion and science to be rational pursuits.  Locke attacks those who use complicated terms and are obscure, very much the charge against the Continental tradition by the Analytic tradition and the common language movement.


DAVID HUME (1711-1776) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.  His name was originally ‘Home’, but Hume changed it because his English colleagues kept mispronouncing it.  Like Descartes, he originally planned to study law but came to a fascination with philosophy and devoted himself to it instead.  During his lifetime his works on philosophy were condemned both by professors as unintelligible and priests as heretically atheist, but his six volume History of England gained fame and was printed numerous times.  While Hume was called an atheist by friends and foes, he was critical of religion but silent about his own beliefs.  It is likely he was an agnostic, as he argued in various places that reason could neither prove nor disprove the religious beliefs of the world’s cultures.  Like Nietzsche, whom Hume influenced with his idea that desire is always involved with reason and the two could not and should not be considered apart from one another, Hume saw religion not as objectively true or false but as useful to a culture in a time and place, and in his History of England he argues that humans are creatures of habit who are often only moved to political revolution over matters of religion.  Over the course of English history, religion was often the only power other than the nobility that could put the monarchy in check.

Hume’s radically skeptical position, the one that awoke Kant, who we will examine next time, from his “dogmatic slumbers”, is that all of our thinking, our identity and truth is induction and assumption.  This is like the Indian theory of skandas, ‘piles’ of sand, viewing the mind and all perceptions as bundles that accumulate and then dissipate.  Buddhists often use this to illustrate the doctrine of impermanence, that all things are mortal and temporary.  Also like Indian thought, particularly Buddism, Hume argued that human thought, identity and behavior are ruled by the passions, not reason which serves as a tool for our desires.  With Locke and Berkeley, Hume is one of the three great British Empiricists.  We shall be covering Berkeley next week with Kant as an Idealist, as Berkeley does believe as an Empiricist that we know nothing apart from experience, but he also believes, as an Idealist, that the world is not material but in our minds.

Hume’s text An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature is the condensed form of Hume’s first and foremost work which he wrote after critics claimed his original Treatise of Human Nature was convoluted and difficult to understand.  Hume starts saying that philosophy has flowered all over Europe in “these last four score years” (80 years, no connection to Lincoln or Gettysburg), and that it has occurred in England just as greatly as any other.  Notice that philosophy for Hume is a recent development for Europe as well as England.  Hume says that philosophers of ancient times have handled their truths delicately, showing more restraint than full depth of reflection.  Remember that with Descartes, skepticism and critical reflection can quickly turn to dogmatism and orthodoxy.  Hume argues that all truth is assumption, habit, and prejudice, which means that any accepted truth must be continuously justified rather than simply proved once with reason.  This opens up the potential for continuous attacks on all established forms of truth.

Hume says that all mental activities are perceptions.  Perceptions are divided into two kinds: impressions and ideas.  Impressions are perceptions of objects that are present, and ideas are perceptions of objects that are not present or not directly perceived.  For example, one has the perception of a red billiard ball on the table.  Hume used billiards, a leisure activity for aristocrats such as himself, to illustrate his criticism of our conceptions of causation.  If one turns around and doesn’t look at the ball, one has an idea of the ball that includes its appearance in one’s head.  Our experience of the ball left an impression on us which we can then recreate as an idea in our heads, creating a new type of perception derived from our earlier direct perception.  Likewise, if one looks at the red ball and imagines it is moving, one has an impression of the ball and has an idea of the ball rolling down the table, supplementing a direct perception with an indirect perception acquired from previous experience with billiard balls.  Likewise, if one looks at a moving red ball and imagines it is going to continue moving or hit another ball, one has many impressions of the ball as it moves that one gathers together with an idea of its continued future movement.

Impressions are strong and direct, while ideas are weaker and indirect.  Hume argues that we derive all of our ideas from our impressions.  Hume acknowledges that this is in line with Locke’s idea of tabula rasa, that we are a blank slate upon which experience impresses its forms.  This goes directly against Descartes and Kant, who believe we can with the operation of reason, independent of experience, determine several truths that are correctly understood to be certain apart from our experience.  Just as Berkeley is an Empiricist, but also an Idealist, Kant is often considered a Rationalist, like Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.  Clearly, even as early modern European philosophy picked up steam and moved into the abstractions of Idealism, the rift between the dogmatic Rationalists and skeptical Empiricists remained.  As mentioned, this leads to Hegel, who tried to take both sides and synthesize them.

Hume presents us with his famous and central billiard ball analogy.  Imagine two billiard balls, one red and one blue, and that the red ball rolls down the table, strikes the blue ball, and causes it to move.  There are three events here.  First, the red ball moves up to the blue ball.  Second, there is the sound of a ‘clack’ as the two presumably collide.  Third, the blue ball moves away from the red ball.  Naturally, and this is the key word here as we are talking about a habit we naturally acquire, we all arrive at the understanding that the red ball struck the blue ball, causing it to move.  We naturally assume that the motion of ball A caused the motion of ball B.  

Notice that we did not see or perceive the conjunction of the two events.  We did not perceive the causation directly.  While we saw two billiard balls, saw two colors, saw to motions, and heard a ‘clack’, none of these things characterize causation.  Causation is itself invisible.  It has no color, does not always involve motion nor does it always make a sound.  Hume asks: How did we all understand ball A caused ball B to move?  Since we are a blank slate, as Locke argued and Hume supports, how did we come to have the impression that A caused B to move?  If causation involves various sets of sensations without a common factor, how can any particular impression lead to our idea?  If Hume was a Rationalist, he could claim that we reason that A caused B to move, but as an Empiricist, who like Locke argues that our ideas can always be wrong and experience can always present us with counterexamples, he makes a much more radical and skeptical claim.

The answer, Hume says, is that we all have shared common experience, and so we share ideas and prejudices.  Since we were infants, we have all seen solid things move into other solid things, followed by further movements.  While various sensations such as sights and sounds were involved, we each developed a similar idea of causation that we derived not from abstract reason but from direct experiences.  We developed a habit and prejudice such that when we watched the red ball moving toward the blue ball, we assumed that the blue ball would move, and then when our impression of the blue ball moving matched our idea, we assumed that our prediction was accurate and further reinforced our idea.

Note that assumptions lead to and reinforce further assumptions, not certainties of reason leading to further certainties, as the Rationalists would have it.  Our impressions of things knocking into each other, and in particular our impressions of billiard balls and their motions, naturally caused us all to have a preconception, a preconceived idea, that the red ball was going to hit the blue ball and then the blue ball was going to move afterward.  Then, when things happened as they usually seem to, we all come to the conclusion, individually and as a group together, that we were right in our preconceptions.

Hume believes that this is all one can strictly say about the events, and that saying anything else, like suspecting that a particular ‘causation’ was there as an invisible presence that we can know with certainty, may be a common idea but it is in fact not directly perceived or known.  Most often, our conclusions are correct, but whenever they are wrong, it shows us that we can assume things are certain through preconceived ideas, but these do not guarantee that we will be correct.  Feyerabend, my favorite skeptical philosopher of science, says that circular reason is not necessarily a fallacy, as it is the most dominant form of reasoning on the planet and much of the time it is perfectly correct.

Consider that we could make a movie of the two billiard balls, filming ball A striking ball B, and then display the film to an audience.  While every member of the audience would assume that ball A caused ball B to move, they are all watching an image, not the physical act, and so the image of ball A is not causing the image of ball B to move.  It is the media of the film, today digital data, that causes the image of ball B to appear and move.  It is an illusion that one image is striking the other.  Obviously, we want the audience of the film to have this idea, but this does not make it any less of an illusion, whether the billiard balls are filmed or animated.  In a sense, when we watch animation we know and don’t know that what is going on is ‘real’.  We can ‘suspend’ our disbelief, and allow our minds to watch and believe in the animated events, even though any animation must, by its nature, be false caricatures of events.

It is very similar to the Belgian Surrealist painter Magritte’s painting, “This is not a Pipe”, displaying the image of a pipe.  In the same way, we can gaze at a painting of a pipe, know very well that this pipe cannot be smoked, yet suspend our disbelief to accept the image as a representation that the painter is conveying to us.  Magritte’s painting is an attempt to invert this situation, an image that draws attention to being a mere representation rather than allow the spectator to ignore the fact.  Likewise, we can construct an animatronic billiard table, like at a ride in Disneyland, that looks like objects are hitting each other over and over again even if the sound is artificial and the objects never touch.  Roland Barthes, the French philosopher and literary critic, said that now that we have built Disneyland, maybe we will be more critical of our perceptions of society.

Hume argues that all of our beliefs and truths are inferences that we draw, not certainties that we can know without qualification.  This is true of life, history, and all of philosophy.  If this seems hopeless in its skepticism, it is not entirely bad.  Remember that most of our preconceptions are quite in accord with how things go, otherwise we would have no reason for forming them in the first place.  While nothing can be known for certain, our impressions do accumulate and build up in our ideas, and thus they are real and useful to us.  They are not so real that they ensure that nothing could ever contradict them, but they are real to us and we often use them successfully in the world.  Hume uses the example of Adam in the garden of Eden as a human who learns by experience, starting with a blank slate.  Hume writes:

“Even Adam, with all his science, would never have been able to demonstrate that the course of nature must continue uniformly the same, and that the future must be conformable to the past.”

“We are determined by custom alone to suppose the future conformable to the past.  When I see a billiard ball moving towards another, my mind is immediately carried by habit to the usual effect, and anticipates my sight by conceiving the second ball in motion…It is not, therefore, reason which is the guide of life, but custom.  That alone determines the mind, in all instances, to suppose the future conformable to the past.  However easy this step may seem, reason would never, to all eternity, be able to make it.”

“With regard to any matter of fact, however strong the proof may be from experience, I can always conceive the contrary, though I cannot always believe it…Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian were not nature too strong for it”.

Hume argues that things are often variable and uncertain in life.  Using a modern example, very similar to examples used by Sextus Empiricus to support Pyrrhonian skepticism, Hume argues that thirty grains of opium will kill anyone that is not accustomed to it.  Clearly, Hume is accustomed to people using opium.  Hume questions the Cartesians’ idea of a supreme being which is wholly without deception, the eternal soul, and the absolute certainty of mathematical truths such as 2 + 3 = 5.  He argues that the Cartesians cannot know these things from experience, and they cannot derive them from reason.

Hume argued that the idea of God is a composition of our experience that we have not experienced directly so much as in other things.  Human beings saw men with beards rule over things on high, and they project from their experiences in the world into realms unseen.  Recall that Locke, like many deists such as Spinoza, did not believe in an anthropomorphic god, and would agree with Hume’s bold statement, the sort that had him labeled a heretic even as he kept his true beliefs secret and kept the secret to the grave.

Mathematical and geometric proofs look nice, but sometimes geometry seems like it is proving something that is later disproved, as Descartes himself notes as he imagines a demon that could deceive him even about forms of mathematics.  While Hume and other Empiricists would freely admit that it is very useful to follow one’s assumption that 2 + 3 = 5, this is based on our experience of the durability of this truth in the world, not based on purely abstract reasoning.

As mentioned Hume argued that emotion and reason are always intertwined, just as experience and reason are always intertwined.  He famously said, “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions”.  Without desire, we do not reason.  Recent literature about antidepressants suggests that when people are significantly devoid of desire, they do not find themselves thinking much, are not motivated to have significant ideas about important things.  When we think much about something, we are passionate.

I gave you selections from Hume’s other important work, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  Hume says that much philosophy has been concerned with proving the existence of God, as we have seen so far in the philosophers we have covered.  While much effort is made to refute atheism and skepticism, it is also asserted that complete atheism or skepticism are impossible.  Hume wonders how a knight could continuously wander the countryside, seeking to defeat dragons and giants, while convinced that they do not exist.  I must say as a skeptic myself, quite opposed to much of Analytic thought, I have found it continuously amusing to hear again and again that skepticism is a problem that must be overcome, in spite of the fact that there are very few hard skeptics in the Analytic tradition and much thought is done while skepticism remains, apparently, as yet undefeated.  Sextus, the Pyrrhonian, argued that dogmatists, by arguing against skepticism (as well as each other) betray their own position, giving us good evidence that their dogmas can be doubted and opposed.

Hume criticises Descartes and the Rationalists who seek an absolute and unquestionable starting point from which to reason.  Such a point does not exist, as all truth can be doubted, as ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism recommended.  If each and every sensation can be doubted, then so can each and every act of reasoning.  While the Pyrrhonians doubted sensations with good examples such as an oar appearing bent in water, Hume is concerned that Descartes can doubt sensation as well as any Pyrrhonian but cannot doubt reason, in fact attempts to defeat Pyrrhonian skepticism through the use of reason.  It seems that reason is more difficult to doubt than sensation.  For Hume, this is disturbing, given that all of our reasoning and ideas are derived from and dependent on sensation.  I previously mentioned that Nietzsche was quite critical of philosophers such as Plato and Descartes for considering ideas to be more certain than physical things, and Nietzsche was quite fond of Hume and skepticism.

Hume argues that the great subverter of skepticism is employment, the occupations of common life.  Because we must act and eat, we cannot afford to be entirely skeptical.  While it is easier to be skeptical in a school or in the shade, as soon as we are passionate about things in the world skepticism, even for the hardened and determined skeptic, vanishes like smoke.  The only genuine profession for the skeptic is philosophy.  If the entire world were made of nothing but skeptical philosophers, humanity would die out, but thankfully we are naturally ignorant, passionate, and dogmatic, and so skepticism is continuously useful for showing most people the continuous errors of their ways and that for every position there is a counter position even if it does not seem apparent at first.  Thus, while skepticism, philosophy and doubt would be worthless if they eclipsed all dogmatism, vocation and belief, they are the most useful of positions and vocations, in critical opposition to everything else on Earth.

Intro Philosophy: First Response Essay Prompt & Possible Topics

Please read the post, "How to Write a Philosophy Essay" below. Remember that the essays are to be at least three double spaced typed pages. The essays are due the class period after they are assigned, the date that they appear on the syllabus. You are welcome to email the papers to me at ericgerlach@gmail.com. You are also welcome to use your life experience or outside sources as evidence for your argument, but make sure to focus on your argument.

So far in the class, we have focused on the general frame of human thought, as well as the wisdom of shamans, ancient Egypt, and ancient India. Some topics one can consider and argue about that we have discussed so far are:

1) Is there absolute truth, or is all truth relative and perspective?

2) Is academic and scientific truth now objective, factual, and observable, or is it simply the latest human myths and models?

3) Does human perspective evolve and change, or is it largely the same as it has always been?

4) Should all truth be questioned and re-reasoned, or are there understandings and dogmas that are true enough to be decent certainties?

5) Do all cultures share similar views, or are there some cultures that are incompatible with others?

How to Write a Philosophy Essay

To write a focused paper that argues for a particular point of view, we must pick an issue and take a position on that issue. While we could invent an issue and position out of the blue, if we pick an issue already discussed it is easier to stay focused and relevant to the subject matter.

Let us say that a thinker or school of thought has taken a position on an issue, and we want to argue for or against this position. Let us assume that there are rival thinkers with opposite positions on the issue. Let us call the first position A, and the opposite position B. While A and B can agree on any unlimited number of points, they must disagree on at least one point. To begin an essay, we briefly state the two positions before we take a position ourselves.

Example 1: Kant argues that morality is anchored in good beginnings (intent, morals, duty) Mill argues that morality is anchored in good ends (happiness, utility, consequences). Both Kant and Mill believe one should use rules and act for the good of society, but Kant believes that one should never break rules while Mill believes rules only serve as tools to achieve good consequences.

Example 2: Mencius argues that human nature is essentially good, while Xunzi argues that human nature is essentially evil. Both agree that society is necessary for self improvement, but Mencius argues that society is rooted in human nature while Hsun Zi argues that society is corrective to human nature.

Example 3: Hindus argue that the self/mind/soul is eternal, while Buddhists argue that the self/mind/soul is temporary/mortal. Both agree that karma determines rebirth, but Hindus argue that we always retain our particular individual self while Buddhists argue that extinction of the self and identity with the whole can be achieved through effort and practice.

Now that we have stated the issue and the two opposite positions, we can take a position or stand on it ourselves. There are five possible positions to take between positions A and B.

The first position is ‘All A, no B’. This is an ‘all and none’,‘absolute’, ‘categorical’, or ‘black and white’ position.

The second position is ‘Mostly A, but also some B’. This is a ‘some and some not’, relative, ‘grey’ or ‘grey area’ position, yet it still gives dominance to one side versus the other.

The third position is ‘Some A and also some B’. This is a ‘some/some not’, relative and ‘grey area’ position that gives dominance to neither side.

The fourth position is ‘Mostly B and also some A’. It is the second position, but favors B.

The fifth position is ‘All B, no A’. This is the first position, but entirely for B.

If we examine the issue and find ourselves agreeing with position A, we need only consider the first three. We must choose one of the three based on how much we agree or disagree with the opposite position B. In a debate with an answering opponent, we must also judge based on how effectively and in what position our opponent will argue for B.

If we believe that there is no argument or evidence for B, we can argue ‘All A, no B’. The advantage is that this is the most forceful and least conceding position to take. The disadvantage is that any effective argument for any B, even some little B, makes this position seem ignorant and overly generalizing.

Ex: “Mill is entirely correct. Rules, morals and laws exist simply for the good of humanity.”

If we believe that there is some argument or evidence for B, but there is more argument and evidence for A, we can argue ‘Mostly A but also some B’. The advantage is that any argument for B can be incorporated into our argument and the position still maintained. The disadvantage is that we must concede from the start to ‘some B’, which gives the opponent a foothold. We are still putting our money on A, but we are hedging our bets.

Ex: “I side with Mill, but Kant also has a point. While rules, morals and laws exist for the good of humanity, it is also true that they must be upheld in many situations where there will be bad consequences.”

If we believe that there is equal argument and evidence for A and B, we can argue ‘Some A and also some B’. The advantage of being on both sides is that any argument or evidence can be incorporated into our argument. The disadvantage is that this does not forcefully argue for any particular position, and our opponent can argue we are not taking a stand on the issue. The counter to this is we are taking all sides and viewing the issue as a whole.

Ex: “Kant and Mill are two sides of the same coin. We should equally uphold rules, morals and laws while also questioning their effectiveness when we repeatedly fail to achieve good ends.”

To write an effective essay, pick an issue from the material and argue for one side ‘all and none’ (position 1), for one side ‘some and some not’ (position 2) or both sides equally (position 3).

Remember to use examples from the lectures, reading and your life experience, but also remember to focus on developing your own thought and argument rather than taking time and space repeating what has already been argued and written by others.

The goal of the paper is not to simply take a position, but to take a position effectively. If you take positions 1 or 2, demonstrate why your are taking position A over B. If you take position 3, argue why neither A nor B is sufficient without its complimentary opposite.

Social & Political Philosophy: Plato & Aristotle, Class & Caste

Plato (427-347 BCE) & The Republic

Plato was long assumed to be a student of Socrates simply because Plato writes as much in many of his dialogues.  As Socrates is about to die, Plato has Socrates ask where the young Plato is, to which another student replies that Plato was sick and thus could not be there at the time.  Scholars now are critical of this, and think that Plato had a habit of writing himself and his family into Socrates’ circle in his dialogues.  Because they are our best sources on Socrates, it is difficult to tell whether or not Plato’s older cousin Critias or Plato himself were actual students of Socrates or whether they were simply influenced by this figure who became quite famous following his trial and death.

Plato’s actual name was Aristocles, but according to the story his wrestling instructor named him Platon or “Broad” because he had a wide figure.  This may be merely a story, because Plato was known to have a wide “breadth” of knowledge covering all subjects of ancient thought.  Plato’s father died when he was young, and his step-father became the Athenian ambassador to the Persian royal court (remember that Persia was a great source of ancient world cosmology at the time).

Long after his attempts to become an established playwright, after his dialogues about Socrates had gathered some fame, Plato founded his Academy in 385 BCE, an open area near a tree grove where he, his students and other lecturers would teach and debate matters of philosophy and cosmology.  Academy in fact means “porch”, an open area in front of a building, a fact it took scholars long to understand for they believed that the Academy must have been a building itself.  Scholars made a similar error looking for the famed Library of Alexandria (an Egyptian center of ancient world knowledge), when in fact the Library was a shelf that ran along a hall that connected two buildings.

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates debates with others on justice and the Good.  Socrates debunks several common views, then constructs an ideal model of the city.  The well ordered city is compared to the well ordered soul (3 layers in their places).  Thus, the Good is proper order of the elements (perfectly in accord with ancient cosmology).  The Timaeus, which is supposed to be the discussion the day after the Republic, has a student of Socrates named Timaeus lecture on the cosmos, showing Plato’s particular views on cosmology.  Just as the individual is a microcosm to the city, the city is a microcosm to the cosmos, and again the elements must be separated and put in their places.  The cosmos is ordered in its unfolding, producing the ideal order of the soul and the city.  One should order the self and order the city the way the cosmos are ordered.  Both are supposed to have been written about 360 BCE.

As the Republic opens, Socrates talks to several “interlocutors” and argues against their concepts of justice at a social gathering (read: wine party).  Polemarchus argues that justice is paying debts, helping friends and harming enemies.  Socrates argues that in some situations, helping friends and harming enemies are wrong.  Thrasymachus argues that justice is ‘the good of the stronger’.  Glaucon similarly argues that without threat of punishment, no one would do good.  Socrates argues that the strong will corrupt themselves if they only act for their own interests and not for the good of the whole.  Remember the politics of the time- Many tyrants came and fell, one by one.

Socrates is challenged to give a positive account of justice, not just defeat opponents.  Socrates argues that first they must construct the ideal or just city, and this will show how the ideal or just individual should be.  Essentially, the just city is a caste system, with a three-fold division.  This division corresponds to the physical human being and the cosmic being.

Head is fire/reason/rulers,
Heart/chest is air/spirit/police,
Hands/Stomach is earth/desire/workers.

The individual, city and cosmos form a continuum, a set of Russian dolls.  Notice that authority and the good come from above, evil to be ordered from below.

Socrates argues (in reading) that each person is best suited to one thing, and should be assigned this one job.  He argues that we will lie to the people and tell them a Phoenician story, which is that the classes are based on metals.  The police and philosophers are made of silver and gold, so they are suited to be put above the others.(Why lie?  Because the common will not understand philosophy, Plato’s system…this corresponds to the cave, where most will never leave, and need puppets to see anything).

All is sacrificed for the common good:  no private property or partners or children, for any of the three classes.  Socrates argues that the ruler who grabs for themselves will not be happy, filled with “horrid pains and pangs”, and will physically and mentally fall apart.  This tyrant will never “taste true freedom or friendship”.  Because this is not the order of the cosmos, it will not stick and will fall apart.

Socrates argues (and the interlocutors naively agree as simple yes men) that if they separate out the police and educate them as best as can be, and then take the philosophers out of the police and educate them as best as can be, no injustice will be possible.  There is the simple belief that the order itself will generate justice throughout the whole.  The police and philosophers will thus never be greedy or unjust to the people below.  Plato elsewhere argues that this is how the Egyptians in Thebes did it: elevating priests as a class- he also says to imitate Sparta as well separating out the warriors.

Plato also suggests banning all art (music, poetry and theatre) that is counterproductive, which pretty much means everything that isn’t impressing the highest good and order.  The youth are to be taught that they must improve themselves for the good of the state, and that the gods never to injustice or desire.

The Allegory/Analogy/Story of the Cave describes the masses and the assent of the philosopher/king beyond opinion of the earthly realm to knowledge of the heavenly and eternal realm, showing why the philosopher alone should have authority.  Everyone is chained in a cave, watching shadows of puppets/models carried before a fire at the mouth of the cave.  The people think that the shadows are reality, the real things.  The one who escapes first sees that the shadows are shadows of puppets, and sees the fire that casts the shadows.  Coming out of the cave and past the small fire, the seeker is at first blinded by the sunlight.  The seeker first sees real things outside of the cave, and realizes that the puppet/models were just copies of the real things.  Then the seeker can get adjusted and see that the sun is the cause of all these things, and that the world of the cave is a poor copy of the world outside the cave.  This is the realization of the forms and then the all/light/reason/consciousness that produces the forms which are copied in the cave below.   This is opinion to belief (cave) to knowledge to reason (outside).  Notice that the city is a device for creating philosophers who comprehend the true forms of things for the benefit of all below, and that the body is similarly a device for creating thought in the head for the benefit of the body below.

As a final thought, note that Plato’s republic is nothing like what we consider a republic to be today.  People rise based on intelligence and merit, not by voting.  Plato was quite opposed to having the people aka “the mob” elect leaders based on popularity.  Like Confucius, Plato believed that a system of dictatorship downwards based on merit and achievement was best.


Aristotle (384-322 BCE) & The Politics

Plato’s student and the tutor of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy, Aristotle is one of the most famous and influential of Greek philosophers. He was primarily interested in biology and speciation, but his works on the soul (mind, self), Logic, Ethics and politics became more important than his works on the animal kingdom. He was a central influence on the origins of Christianity, Islamic thought and European thought in the middle ages. While he is sometimes called the first scientist and the first logician, his views on these subjects expanded ancient world cosmology and were not the birth of these subjects. Aristotle has been claimed by the West as a founder, but the Islamic world also considers him one of their own and he is depicted in different ways depending on who does the illustrating (see the beautiful Islamic image in the Wikipedia article that portrays him as a very dark skinned holy sage for an interesting counter to Renaissance paintings).

Aristotle’s conception of virtue and human purpose is entirely in line with ancient world cosmology. He believes that everything has a single purpose for which it is intended. It is as if the cosmos, Being itself, is a big mind that creates things for particular uses, and individual beings thrive if they are serving their purposes (ergon in the Greek, or “work”, “job”). We are reasonable to the degree that we see the purposes of things, serve our own natural purpose and use things in accord with their natural purposes. This is known as the teleological view, as the study of purpose is called teleology. Notice that teleology is very big with more traditional people today (including evangelical Christians) but modern Philosophy and Science have broken from this view and find it quite antiquated.

For Aristotle, having oneself in the proper stack and order is being in accord with one’s nature, and this means putting theory and soul/intellect on top and putting each lower element of our minds and bodies in the service of the highest part of the mind, the intellect, which corresponds to the highest good of the cosmos itself. Just as the intellect should be pursued because it is the best and highest part, the good itself should be pursued simply in itself and for no other purpose.  Aristotle does believe that the human individual will naturally flourish and be happy if they are stacked up right and in accord with the human purpose of intellectual activity, but this is secondary and the byproduct of serving ones purpose.

Similarly, in matters of politics, Aristotle believes that the city is not primarily a living arrangement but rather for producing the elite and the virtuous. Thus, the city is not for making people happy but having each individual do their natural job. Just like his teacher Plato argues in his Republic, Aristotle argues that each person must have one thing they do best and it is therefore best for them to do that thing and that one thing only. Unfortunately, both Plato and Aristotle argued that slaves and peasants are meant to serve the aristocracy and women are clearly meant to serve men (Mill will strongly criticize these views, one of the first and few outspoken critics of the subjugation of slaves and women).

Aristotle argues that the ruler/ruled pairing is natural to society and best for preservation.  He identifies the ruler with the head and male, and the ruled with the body and female.  He says that the subjugation of the woman and slave is in everyone’s best and natural interests.  Because a thing is best if it serves one purpose, its natural purpose, there are some who naturally should rule and others who naturally should be ruled.  The man rules the wife and children, and the king rules the country.  When he says that non-Greeks are natural slaves, keep in mind he had the future Europeans to the North and West in mind far more than the Persians and Egyptians, who he openly admired.  He also says that we imagine the gods to have a king and live in similar ways to human beings.  Note that he is not arguing that the gods are imaginary (Aristotle was a polytheist) but he is critical, as were many of the great Greek philosophers) of the gods having human form or human passions.  Later in this section he says that gods are by nature entirely self-sufficient as they are immortal and do not need to eat.

He says that several people (in ruler/ruled pairings) make up the village, and several villages make up the state.  This allows people to do far more than survive.  It allows people to live the good life and maximize the following of their natural purposes.  They can be self-sufficient as a whole.  He famously says, “man is by nature a political animal”.  This does not mean that people collect into villages and cities to be happy, but rather that they collect because it is natural and best for them to do so to be what they are.  Happiness is not the purpose of human life for Aristotle.  Rather, truth (figuring out the way things are) is the purpose of human life and the city as a whole.

Aristotle believes that humans alone have speech and therefore are the only animal that can know truth and justice.  Elsewhere he argues that this is because humans (more specifically, the males of the superior peoples) have the highest level of mind/soul and other animals (including women and slaves) do not  possess this potential/faculty.  The human alone can see that the whole is more than the part, and so the city matters more than the village, the village matters more than the family, and the family matters more than the individual.

In book 2, Aristotle says we must examine the constitutions of many sorts of states to see which one is the most just.  Note that when Aristotle says “constitution” he is not referring to a document but to the structure or form of the state.  The name of the American document follows this language, but we think of a document today when we hear the word, unlike Aristotle who did not live in a time when societies were based on rule by document.  British Conservatives like Burke argued that America would fail if it did not have a king because a state could not be ruled by a piece of paper.

Aristotle criticizes his teacher Plato for arguing that property and family should be held in common.  As the translator correctly points out, Plato only suggests this for the guardians and philosophers, not necessarily for the common people (though he does not proscribe it for them either).  He argues that people should not share property or family in common.  Very similar to the Confucians such as Mencius arguing against the Moists and universal love, Aristotle argues that if we shared everything and everyone in common people would not care about anything in particular and this would lead to the ruin of the state, and that we see people naturally caring about their own family and possessions than they do about things shared in common.  This is odd, because he is also arguing that the state is superior to the village etc. precisely because it is the whole and the common.

For property, Aristotle believes that generosity and sharing should be voluntary and not forced.  This means that Plato is wrong to suggest the guardians share everything by law.  He argues that the present way of practice, holding property and family privately, is natural and beneficial compared to Plato’s radical and revolutionary suggestions in the republic.  Note that Plato is very similar to communism in this regard as we will see with the Communist Manifesto, and Aristotle’s objections are very similar to objections to Communism today.  Aristotle argues that there must be a balance of plurality and unity such that unity does not eradicate plurality.

Intro Philosophy: Ancient Indian Thought

Hinduism & The Upanishads

‘Hindu’ is the Persian name for India (Persia and India are next door to each other and have traded for thousands of years).  Our society borrows the term from the British, who get the term from the Persians.  As we read in the Vedas, Hinduism brought together many traditions from many regions with many gods, but there are three levels that are equally interchangeable and separable.  First, each can have a particular god that is the emphasis of one’s particular branch of the tradition.  Second, the many gods are each one aspect of a single god, often the great father and creator, named by most traditions Brahma.  Third, there is a philosophical monism that goes beyond god or not god, living or dead, conscious or unconscious, that is the One, called Brahman, different from the personified Brahma.

There are three paths of worship in Hinduism.  First, there is devotional worship, known as Bhakti Yoga (‘Yoga’ means ‘discipline’, or practice).  In Bhakti devotional worship, the devotee prays, sings hymns, lights incense, and performs rituals to gain favor with the gods and heavens.  It is impossible not to notice that most of what we call ‘religion’ the world over is in fact forms of Bhakti practice, devotion to particular gods and ancestral spirits.  The two most populous forms of Bhakti Hinduism are Shaivism, the worship of Shiva (the transformer and destroyer) and his incarnations such as Ganesh (the elephant headed god), and Vaishnavism, the worship of Vishnu (the savior or preserver) and his incarnations such as Krishna.  Worship is often called ‘darshana’, or seeing/experiencing, and Hindus will say, I am going to the seeing, meaning I am going to see and be seen by the god.  Another common form of Bhakti devotion is worship of a particular goddess such as Kali.  Notice that, like a scientist, Bhakti practitioners also believe in learning by experience and seeing, but their subject matter is quite different.

Raja yoga, the second path, is worship by meditation and asceticism (living in isolation, standing in place for days, fasting chanting the names of gods for hours, sitting on spikes, and other means of hard activity) meant to gain a meditative state of insight.  Raja means ‘force’ or ‘effort’, and India is famous for its forest sages practicing these techniques.

Jnana yoga (“zshna-na”), the third path and my personal favorite, is worship by acquiring knowledge, wisdom and understanding the order of things through study and philosophizing.  This class itself could be seen as a form of Jnana yoga, designed to bring you closer to the core by studying the ways of the world.  All three paths, or any mixture of the three, are understood to work towards the same goal: liberation from the bonds of attachment and desire, rising into enlightenment and release from the constraints of identity to join together with the whole.

There is an ultimate goal to this process.  Initially, there is hope for a better next life.  Many are familiar already with the Hindu idea of reincarnation.  This is not a form of afterlife particular to India, but in fact there is evidence that many tribal cultures and early Egypt believed that one’s present life will be reincarnated in another life on earth based on one’s actions and intentions.  This interconnection is called ‘Karma’, which simply means ‘action’ in Sanskrit.  Interestingly, physical causation is ‘karma’, just as metaphysical causation (next life physics) is ‘karma’, same word and understanding of cause and effect applied to a different sphere of existence.  If you punch someone in the head, it is karma that makes their head reel backward, and karma that also weighs down your chance for a favorable life after death in the Hindu tradition.

Beyond better lives, there is hope for release, for freedom from rounds of rebirth on earth.  This can be thought of as dwelling in a heaven with one’s personal or family god, but also as a dwelling with the order of things without residing in any particular place.  Bhakti yoga tends to favor the dwelling with a lord, while Raja and Jnana tends to favor the dwelling with the universe as a whole, however it is important to remember that some Hindus believe that both amount to the same exact thing (while others will insist that their school’s truth is ‘more true’, the same variation one finds in any religion and in our own culture).  This release is also called Moksha and Samadhi, but in America we know this first and foremost by the same name as the famous grunge band, Nirvana.

While moksha is the ultimate goal, via the more immediate goal of positioning oneself favorably for moksha either in this life (dwelling in the forest or a monastery) or in a next life, there are three other goals that Indian philosophy points to as desirable making four in total.  In addition to moksha/nirvana, there is law or morality, ‘dharma’ (the term Jains and Buddhists use to describe their traditions and rules), pleasure, ‘kama’ (as from the Kama Sutra), and material wellbeing, ‘artha’.  Clearly, the overall idea is that pleasure and comfort (kama and artha) are not in themselves evil, but one should pursue liberation through discipline (moksha through dharma).

Ancient India saw a great deal of development in science and technology.  They observed the natural world and put phenomena into families and categories as did the ancient Greeks and as we still do today.  The Romans would trade Germanic and Celtic slaves to India in exchange for Indian wootz, the metal most prized for weapons in the ancient world.  In mathematics the Indians were unsurpassed by ancient civilizations, developing the base ten system and the Indian-Arabic numerals we use today.  They laid down the basics of symbolic equations, the concept and symbolization of zero, and invented the variable (originally a thick dot).  All of this got picked up by the Muslims, who turned it into algebra, which then got picked up by the Europeans, who turned it into Calculus.  Typically, we learn about Euclid and the Greeks doing geometry as the source of the Western mathematical tradition.  Muslims were influenced by the Greeks and Euclid, but Euclid argued about lines drawn in sand and did not use equations.  It was the Indians who invented the sorts of mathematical symbolism that the Muslims turned into step by step symbolic mathematics as we know it today and teach it up through high school.

The Upanishads (beginning in 800 BCE, most having been written by 600 BCE) were philosophical teachings about the soul/self (atman) and how to release the soul from desire and identity to merge with the great One and All (the goal of moksha or nirvana, discussed last time).  The Upanishads frequently interpret the stories of the Vedas as metaphoric teachings, instructions for the truly wise on how to develop the mind/soul/self.  The self (atman) was to be united with the supreme reality, oneness, and spirit of all, Brahman.  ‘Upanishad’ means “sitting down near/beside”, (upa, ‘near’, ni, ‘down’, sad, ‘sit’) as these are the close teachings of the priest, philosopher or master who has taught the Vedas for a long time and knows their secret  and hidden ‘inner’ meaning.  The students who were talented and advanced would sit down beside the teacher after the normal lecture to get the advanced, inner teaching that the normal students were not ready to hear.  Unfortunately, there are no authors to which the texts are ascribed, having been lost to history.  Perhaps some of these teachings are as old as the Vedas, and were only written down after 800 BCE.  There are over 200 Upanishad texts, though there are 10 central Upanishads.

One of the most famous sayings from the Upanishads is Tat Tvam Asi, “That is you”.  No matter what “that” you are looking at, it is in fact your own self because all is one and there are no complete or permanent separations between any two things.  This means there is no complete distinction between any ‘this’ or ‘that’, and thus no complete distinction between atman and Brahman, or between any of the gods and Brahman.  This is similar to another passage of Zhuang Zi the Daoist, one of my favorite skeptical passages of philosophy, which says, “A sage too has a this and a that, but his that has a this, and his this has a that”.  Notice the monism that unites all connecting not only the various Hindu gods together but all individuals in the singular One of reality.

Just like the unorthodox systems of Jainism and Buddhism would do later, the Upanishads point beyond particular duties to ritual, sacrifice, caste or class to the supreme goal of self-liberation.  This had a great appeal to those who were not Brahmins, the priests who formed the top level of the caste system.  While the Upanishads did not say to abandon the caste system, the teachings were applicable to all.  As we will see, Mahavira who founded Jainism and the Buddha both had great appeal as they openly said that one did not need to be reborn as a priest to have a shot at nirvana.  Rather, one could have it in this very life and not need to reposition oneself for a better life through karma.  Both Mahavira and Buddha were warrior’s sons and so were second class themselves.  We can see that, as the Upanishads caught on and became one of if not the most influential source in the further developments of Indian thought, people increasingly questioned the Vedas and the caste system even as they continued to retain them as many still do today.

In the Katha Upanishad, a dialog between the sage Naciketas and Yama, god of death, the good is praised above the pleasant.  As the sourcebook points out, this is very similar to what Socrates argues in dialogues written by Plato.  The highest mind is to be pursued, rather than the simple passing pleasures.  Naciketas says to Death, after being taught: “Ephemeral things!  That which is a mortal’s, O End-maker, even the vigor of all the powers, they wear away.  Even a whole life is slight indeed.  Yours are the vehicles!  Yours is the dance and the song!”.  This passage uses ‘vehicles’ as vessels or individual things that convey pleasure or anything else.  The vehicle is a popular metaphor for teaching or school in Indian thought, and as we will see the various schools of Buddhism are known as vehicles.

Yama replies that those who teach that reality is some part rather than the whole are blind men led by a blind man.  This is, in fact, the origin of the phrase, “blind leading the blind”.  Yama says, “Him who is the bodiless among bodies, stable among the unstable, the great, all-pervading self, on recognizing him, the wise man sorrows not”.  Yama uses a metaphor used by Plato through the mouth of Socrates, the self as charioteer, the body as a chariot, and the senses and passions as the horses.  Yama tells of a complex stack of higher and truer selves: “Higher than the senses are the objects of sense.  Higher than the objects of sense is the mind, and higher than the mind is the intellect (buddhi, also ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’, just as the Buddha is the ‘awakened one’).  Higher than the intellect is the great self.  Higher than the great is the un-manifest.  Higher than the un-manifest is the great person.  Higher than the person is nothing at all.  That is the goal.  That is the highest course.”

In a hilarious passage of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, a student questions that master about how many gods there are repeatedly, and the master keeps changing his answer.  At first, he says that the Vedic hymn to all the gods says there are 303 and 3003, which would be 3306 all together.  Then he says there are 33, then 6, then 3 (likely Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma), then 2, then one and a half, and finally one, which is breath and Brahman.

In the Maitri Upanishad, we read, “In this cycle of existence I am like a frog in a waterless well…In thinking ‘This is I’, and ‘That is mine’, one binds oneself with oneself, as does a bird with a snare…Therefore, by knowledge (vidya), by austerity (tapas), and by meditation (cinta), Brahman is apprehended…For thus has it been said: He who is in the fire, and he who is here in the heart, and he who is yonder in the sun – he is one”.  This is again very similar to things we will read in the Daoist Zhuang Zi.


Next class, we will study Jainism and Buddhism, two of the non-Hindu unorthodox schools of Indian thought.


Intro Philosophy Lecture 4: Jainism & Buddhism

Jainism, or “Jain Dharma” is still practiced today by four million Jains (not Jainists as some mistakenly say).  There are currently 4 Million in India today, with many others in communities around the world including New York and Toronto.  Jainism rose just before Buddhism, as Mahavira (650 BCE), the main teacher and founder of Jainism, lived just before the Buddha (550 BCE), though all of these dates are still in debate.

Jainism advocates two principles that are shared with Indian thought but credited to Jain innovation: anekantavada, the multiplicity and relativity of reality or “non-one-endedness” and syadvada, the hypothetical and imperfect nature of perspective and judgment that is always the fiber of human truth.  According to these two principles, all human beliefs and judgments are temporary and partial views of each particular thing, including the self, and the cosmos, the greater whole.  Jains, like Buddhists, believe that things may or may not be as they seem and may or may not be expressible as they are.  Jains believe that there are seven points of view of each and every thing.  Each thing, including the cosmos and the self:

somehow is in a way that is describable
somehow is not in a way that is describable
somehow simultaneously is and is not in a way that is describable
somehow is indescribable
somehow is in a way that is indescribable
somehow is not in a way that is indescribable
somehow is and is not in a way that is indescribable

While other schools, including Nyaya logician/debaters, claimed that Jains and Buddhists are at fault for contradicting themselves and seeing contradicting views in things, the Jains and Buddhists argue that one only falls into problematic contradiction if one makes one-sided claims.  This is a classic duel between all/none logic and some/some-not logic, between the absolutist and the relativist.  The absolutist says the relativist does not have certain truth and contradicts themselves because they are on all sides of the issue, and the relativist replies that the absolutist does not have the full truth and contradicts themselves because they are NOT on all sides of the issue.

Jain texts use the example of hot and cold.  An absolutist would argue that a thing cannot be both hot and cold at the same time, but a relativist would argue that a thing is always somewhat relatively hot and somewhat relatively cold.  To say a thing is simply hot ignores how cold it is, and to say it is simply cold is to ignore how hot it is.  We could supply the example of a refrigerator, which cools on the inside by heating up in back and drawing the heat out of the inside.  A refrigerator is simultaneously hot and cold, and it could not be cold in one part unless it is hot in another.

Jains also, much like the wheel of Lao Zi in chapter 11 of the founding Daoist text, the Dao De Jing, use the example of a pot being solid and empty, there and not there.  In one part, it is, and in another part, it is not.  They use another example of a multicolored cloth, which is and is not many colors all over.  Notice that each thing one can say about anything is true in some ways, but false in others, a very critical way that things are and are not as they are described yet are never fully describable.  Jains argue that one sees and argues for the side of things that one wants to see, that one wants to be true.  This is yet another example of attachment and desire carving the One into many, shining light on some and plunging others into darkness and ignorance.

Jains note that, because human views and descriptions are always one-sided, it is perfectly alright to understand the whole yet lead people in one direction as opposed to another, just as ignorant arguers do, if one sees all of what one is doing.  Jains and Buddhists would see Jain and Buddhist teachers and saints in this light, as always telling what cannot be fully told, as leading us towards what is in all directions to begin with.  It is only a low and ignorant mind that thinks such leading is impossible because it is contradictory.

Jains use the image of a tree, with the absolute view (naya) as the trunk, what one joins after being fully liberated, and the particular view as the branches and twigs.  Notice that the trunk is and is not the twigs, just as the absolute and all-encompassing view is each particular view as a sum of them all but is not each particular view in that it is everything opposed to each particular view as well.

Similarly, Jains argue (like Hegel, who considers seeing being, non-being and becoming simultaneously in things as the first leap of philosophy and associates it with the ancient Greek skeptic Heraclitus) that things simultaneously are and are not because they are being birthed/generated, stable/still, and decaying/transforming at the same time at all times that they are.  Each of these views are false if they are considered independently true as opposed to their opposite, but in conjunction with their opposites they are the whole truth of each particular thing and of truth as a whole.  Notice that the union of stability with transformation as a single whole view is entirely similar to the orthodox Hindu union of Vishnu, the preserver/savior, and Shiva, the destroyer/transformer, in Brahma, the personification of all.

Jains were also early proponents of the idea that the cosmos works in cycles: like the physical rising and setting of the sun, consciousness rises, then sets.  People start to become awakened teachers and develop religion in the rising era, and people lose religion in the setting era.  This is endless, like the cosmos.  The cosmos becomes enlightened to its own self through us, and then loses consciousness of itself through us.  The Hindus and Buddhists share a similar picture of the cosmos, and the Indian golden age of philosophy, which includes the birth and teaching period of Mahavira and the Buddha, is seen as the apex, the high noon, of this current cycle.  Unfortunately, we currently live in an era of dimming religion and consciousness according to most Jain and Hindu teachers (the Hindus following the Jains in this picture).

Jain teachers and saints are known as Tirthankaras, “one who makes a ford” (cutting through water as order over chaos, as land becoming firmament in the chaotic waters).  Mahavira (also Mahavir), the founder of Jainism, is understood by Jains to be the 24th Tirthankara.  Like others of his time, Mahavira was a practitioner of austerities that are aimed at detachment from desire and multiplicity of the world: fasting, standing in jungles, going without food or luxuries for extended periods of time.  Statues of Mahavira and other Tirthankaras show vines growing up their legs and bodies, as vines grow several feet in the jungle a day and so would grow up your body if you practice standing austerities for days at a time.  Jains believe that these practices purify the self/soul/mind.

Here, we come to THE critical difference between Jainism and the other schools of Indian thought.  In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma can be positive (merit and blessing) or negative (demerit and sin).  Thus, karma can either help you up or drag you down.  For Jains, karma is always bondage, always weight that keeps you down, always division or blockage between you and the ALL.  Thus, one tries best to avoid accumulating karma and to destroy the karma one has already accumulated.

While there are kinds of karma and attachment that make ourselves and others happy which the Jains call good, they are hindrances to be overcome if final liberation is to be obtained.  If you really, really like waffles, this is fine but to become one with all you must be as indifferent to waffles, neither loving nor hating waffles, as the cosmos.  Jains believe that “good” karma, such as that which causes pleasure when helping others out of compassion, matures and falls off naturally along with the body.  It is easier to get rid of “good” karma which only affects the body, but it is still to be left behind.

Jains are famous for their doctrine of the negativity of attachment and the radical nonviolence that follows from this principle.  Jains wear masks to prevent insects from flying in their mouths, sweep the ground to avoid killing insects (even though the killing would be unintentional, it would still be an accumulation of karma), influenced other Indian thought in promoting vegetarianism, and even don’t eat root vegetables as it kills (up-roots) the whole plant rather than that plucked from the plant.  Like Buddhists, Jains believe that one should be disciplined and practice austerities and meditation not just for one’s own salvation, but for compassion and salvation for all living beings.

The best way to understand the dual practice of avoiding karma AND shredding karma is the Metaphor of the Leaky Boat:  You ride in a boat across water to a distant shore (Nirvana).  Notice that water represents chaos and desire, and the land represents the firm and the enlightened.  The boat is leaky, and water is pouring in.  You have to BOTH plug the leaks (preventative principles like vegetarianism that prevent bad karma from getting IN you) and bail out the water that has already inside the boat (shedding karma, practicing austerities like fasting or standing in postures to get the karma you already have in this life OUT of you).  Jains believe that it is only by this two-pronged strategy that the individual can be fully liberated and join back together with the cosmos and thus gain eternal life rather than round after round of rebirth.

From the Tattvarthadhigama Sutra, a central Jain text:

“There is a stoppage of inflow of karmic matter into the soul.  It is produced by preservation, carefulness, observances, meditation, conquest of sufferings, and good conduct.  By austerities is caused the shedding of karmic matter…Liberation is the freedom from all karmic matter, owing to the non-existence of the cause of bondage and to the shedding of the karmas.  After the soul is released, there remain perfect right-belief, perfect right-knowledge, perfect perception, and the state of having accomplished all.”


Buddhism

According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha, the “awakened one”, practiced austerities like Mahavira, but found that this way was not enough.  Buddhism is famous for long periods of meditation, and this is quite like Jain austerities of standing in postures, but Buddhism suggests that it is through balance and not extremes that one will be liberated.  The Buddha found Jain asceticism to be one sided and promoting of self hatred which is still attachment and duality.
According to the tradition and legend, Buddha’s father was the king of a kingdom in Northern India.  When the Buddha was born, the king’s wise men told him that his son would be EITHER a great king OR a great holy man.  The king did not want his son to be a holy man, but rather the next king, so to control his son he hid his son away in his palace and gave him all the luxuries in the world, hiding death and pain from him, surrounding him with dancing girls and servants and only healthy, happy, obedient people.  At 29, the Buddha had become bored of this, and snuck out to see the city, taking along his trusted servant.  In succession, the Buddha the Four Sights (an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and a holy man).  When he saw the first three, his servant each time told him that this was unfortunately inevitable for everyone, but when he got to the fourth, the holy man (likely a Jain or proto-Jain), his servant told him that the monk was working on the first three (age, sickness, and death).

The Buddha was immediately envious of something more wonderful than he had ever possessed in the palace, and so he escaped into the jungle where he found sages practicing austerities.  The Buddha did these Jain (or proto-Jain, depending on the scholar) austere practices in the jungle for six years, but he found that this brought no great enlightenment and in fact brought him self-hatred and self-denial (notice here that this is where Buddhism breaks away from Jainism as a direct criticism of Jain practice, taking much of Jainism with it in the process but seeking a middle way between denial and indulgence, attached to neither).  The Buddha left the jungle disappointed.  He decided to sit beneath a large tree, the Bodhi Tree (which one can go see in India today, a tree supposed to have been grown from the original in the original spot), and he vowed not  to rise until he found complete and total truth or he would give up his life.  After 49 days, at the age of 35, he realized complete enlightenment, the goal of moksha and nirvana that the Hindus and Jains also revere.  This is defined in the tradition as the total extinction of greed (raga), hate (dosa), and delusion (moha), obtainable in this life by any being by overcoming duality and desire.

Philosophical Ideas of Buddhism

The Doctrine of the Middle Way: In all things, as the mind splits things into opposites and prefers one while rejecting the other, one should always practice moderation between the extremes.  As a criticism of Jainism, this means that one should balance pain and pleasure, being attached to neither, rather than chase pain and difficulty to liberate the self.  The Buddha found Jain practice to be immoderate: too much de-emphasis of self is attachment to self hate, not detachment from particular things (as self-hate is particular and bound up with particular things just as much as self-love or pride is).  One must love and hate the self, bringing the two together, to find detachment from many and complete identity in the One, the All.

Doctrine of Impermanence: The Buddha taught that all things are impermanent.  Thus, everything is constantly evolving, never the same twice.  Only the great All is eternal, the One to which we all belong, but as soon as you say this it becomes a conception, a particular being separated from other particular beings, and then is simply a temporary being in your mind.

Codependent Arising (Pratityasamutpada): Another major teaching of Buddhism is codependent arising of all phenomena.  All things are themselves in so far as they are connected to every other thing.  Opposites, such as heat and cold or self and other, do not anchor things in themselves or give things their true meaning, but rather all things exist dependent on all other things.  Just like Jains, Buddhists believe that because of suffering there is attachment and bondage to particular things, to “this versus that”, such that we come to have one-sided views of ourselves, of particular things, and of the cosmos as a whole.  Growing in wisdom and enlightenment is growing into identity with the whole, with all the sides that human minds can cling to out of despair, anger and fear.  The Buddhists, like the Jains, believe that one does not have a permanent self, and this constant transformation is a central cause of the fear and clinging of the mind to something opposed to an opposite in order to seek stability.  However, because the things and views are not themselves permanent, the mind must jump from one thing to another, seeking ideal stability in each thing and then leaping to the next with the same hope, endlessly without rest unless wisdom is developed and liberation achieved.  The Buddhists use the metaphor of the monkey mind, of a monkey leaping from branch to branch in a frenzy.