I stand corrected about critical thinking lacking awareness of the body. I must admit I've only read a couple of books on the subject, both of them lacking this understanding. When I was talking about teachers saying that the west have a sort of taboo associated with cultivating an awareness of the body, I was referring to teachers of the Dhamma making these claims, not teachers of critical thinking.danieLion wrote:Which teachers?twelph wrote:As a side note, meditation has the benefit of stilling the mind to the point where evaluating one's thinking can be directly linked to different sensations in the body. When critical thinking talks about trying to determine your own bias, using the body as a frame of reference to notice when you feel strongly about something will help you from falling into these traps.
I believe that several teachers have mentioned that in the west there is a stigmatism associated with being aware of your body. Taking this into consideration, it makes sense that critical thinking (with the current iteration being developed mostly from western philosophy) would lack this portion of the Dhamma.
REBT, CBT, DBT and MBCT do the opposite of stigmatize the body. E.g., REBT and CBT teaches unconditional self acceptance, which includes body acceptance, and DBT (Marsha Linehan's mindfulness infused version of CBT) and MBCT specifically teach mindfulness of the body. And all these therapeutic modalities teach critical thinking, so they definitely do not lack this portion of the Dhamma.
Edit: We still seem to be talking about two different things, i was referring to western critical thinking, you are talking about western mindfulness adaptations.
Plato's books referenced the socratic dialogue on multiple occasions, the socratic dialectic of Socrates is widely considered the cornerstone of critical thinking. When I talk about Socrate's and Plato's view on enlightenment, I am not asserting that they are one in the same as the Buddhist notion of enlightenment. I have read a thesis at Berkeley Theological Union Library talking about Platonism, religion, and enlightenment, but I can't seem to find reference to it online. There are several articles online linking Buddhism and Platonism, here is one: http://everything2.com/title/Education% ... d+Buddhism" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;danieLion wrote:Plato was a fascist and fascism is completely incompatible with critical thinking and vipassana. Who are thes bone-head scholars you refer to?
I understand that Plato's "The Republic" has fascist ideals, but there is more to Plato than his political ideology.