The Place of Positivism

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
chownah
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Re: The Place of Positivism

Post by chownah »

danieLion wrote:
chownah wrote:So now if we take a definition for positivism you provided (that definition being:"Positivism asserts that the only authentic knowledge is that which is based on sense experience and positive verification.")
I provided it. I don't necessarily agree with it. It's hard to define an intellectual trend.
chownah wrote:and we strip off the verification part we end up with sense expereince being the only basis for knowledge
Epistemic empiricism claims that all knowledge comes from experience, which the Buddha did not teach, for as you say
chownah wrote:which at first seems consistent with the Buddha's teachings but I think the positivist take on this sort of disintegrates when the Buddhistic idea that perception of knowledge is just another experience....
However, you threw me off with the word "perception"? The Buddha taught a form of knowledge independent of sense experience and perception, right?

D :heart:
I needed to use some definition for positivism so I used one that you provided....you have provided several definitions for positivism (the latest being that it is a trend) so I didn't want to muddy the water more by brining in yet another one.

You ask if the Buddha taught a form of knowledge independent of sense experience.....assuming that the mind is part of sense experience then I think that answer is that no the Buddha did not teach a form of knowledge independent of sense experience....."The All" is all there is....it is all fabricated and is based on the six sense organs, their objects, and their associated consciousnesses.....if it didn't come from there then it is not part of our experience or at least that is my view of what the Buddha taught...this makes "knowledge" just one more view that eventually must be discarded.....I guess......don't know for sure.....
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ancientbuddhism
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Re: The Place of Positivism

Post by ancientbuddhism »

danieLion wrote:Do Buddhists have dogmas, or churches, or creeds? Do they have a concept comparable to "holiness" and "scriptures"? If some texts in the Canon are corrupt, we can't call it an accepted body or group of principles, rules, standards, judgments or norms
ancientbuddhism wrote:He must be very careful not to use the term tenet-system as that would be going way too far!
danieLion wrote:Why? Or are you joking over my dense skull?
My quip on ‘tenet-system’ was with reference to this thread where I referred to Burmese Vipassanā as such, and that reference was balked at by some.

Theravāda does consider itself defined as ‘church’ and ‘dogma’ in as much as its adherents choose to refer to things ‘Theravādin’ as descended from the Mahavihara and adhering to Buddhaghosa’s canonical interpretations and edit of the pāḷi commentaries.

But when we consider ‘positivist’ as a ‘desire for an original understanding of the Buddha's teaching’ there is no reason why a mahaviharavasin wouldn’t consider oneself as such due to their faith in how buddhavacana is extrapolated through the commentaries. However, there should be some caution with this form of ‘positivist’ interpretation and the claims it would make.

An example of how this can be filtered, is found in Raymond E. Brown’s Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, which is a defense of “…“centrist” consensus among Roman Catholic NT scholars against “distortions” by both the ultraconservative and liberal extremes. … (ultraconservatives) tend to oppose the historical-critical method because they believe it undermines Church dogma. … (liberal) distort the method because they use it to overthrow established dogmas of the Church.” (The Evangelical Theological Society, Review, 1987 – p. 233-234)

Brown discusses this with the concept of ‘trajectory’ with reference to how later doctrines are extracted from dubious canonical sources. And this would seem apparent with reference to at least some (although it would seem with ‘much’) of the development of Buddhism, even if we only look at the example of how Burmese Vipassanā was extrapolated from the accretion of post Nikāyan exegesis in Theravāda only to back-read claims of these later doctrinal-tenets as representative of the Buddha’s teachings, all for their hermeneutical comfort.
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Re: The Place of Positivism

Post by ancientbuddhism »

danieLion wrote:
ancientbuddhism wrote:One example could be that unicorn of Buddhist studies called ‘Early Buddhism’, led by such thinkers as Venerables Ñāṇavira Thera, Ñāṇananda, Analayo, Sujato et al.

Exactly! Where does "early" Buddhism end and "late" Buddhism begin? I see the phrase "early Buddhism" etc... all the time, but rarely a discussion of the time-line. The implication is the earlier the better, and non-Buddhist scholars seem use the phrase with an eye to educate us mere practitioners and relieve us of our superstitions.

I want the early, EARLY Buddhism! None of this contaminated religiosity.

It reminds me of the lady who would only read the words in her Bible in red because she wanted the undiluted Jesus. The flip side, however, is that you need some idea of the terrain before you set out exploring. This is where a trustworthy, reliable, map comes in. You know it doesn't exactly match the territory but you trust your conviction that the people who made it understood it enough to make a map of it for others.

But mere textual analysis is like map making without having been there. Or, is there more validity to non-Buddhist scholarship than the my analogy suggest?
D :heart:
As Gombrich had said in Recovering the Buddha’s Message “We agree, then, that “the earliest Buddhism” is that of the Buddha himself.” But an academic definition is ambiguous at best. Some seek this out in the Nikāyas, Āgamas and Gāndhārī manuscripts, finding synthesis of these to form a composit, where others will include the entire canon as referencing ‘early Buddhism’. The writers I mentioned above have worked and are working toward an understanding that I find helpful, in as much as they look to the ‘earliest’ texts, and bring in the commentaries to weigh-in but with cautious deference to the entire strata of the Nikāyas and other early materials to form balanced interpretation.
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Re: The Place of Positivism

Post by ancientbuddhism »

danieLion wrote:However, you threw me off with the word "perception"? The Buddha taught a form of knowledge independent of sense experience and perception, right?
In case chownah does not comment, the Buddha taught a contemplative practice for the development of ‘clear-knowing’ (sampajañña/sampajāna) of sense-experience. Although I wouldn’t call this knowledge ‘independent’, it is knowledge freed from sense-experience that is otherwise misapprehended through ignorant sense-contact (avijjāsamphassajena), giving rise to a false reification of ‘I am’ (asmi māna).
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danieLion
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Re: The Place of Positivism

Post by danieLion »

Supplemental:
Alexander Wynne wrote:The method of modern philologists follows that of the Orientalists closely and has been summed up by Tillemans* as follows: 'The important feature of most working philologists' approach is the conviction that by understanding in real depth the Buddhist languages, and the history, institutions, contexts and preoccupations of an author and his milieu, progress can be made towards understanding that author's thought and better grasping his world.' This approach has been called 'philological positivism' by Cabezon**: 'In its philological variety, positivism sees a written text as complete and whole. It maintains that the purpose of scholarly textual investigation--and the use of science as a model for humanistic research here is always implied--is to reconstruct the original text (there is only one best reconstruction): to restore it and to contextualize it historically to the point where the author's original intention can be gleaned.' Cabezon contrasts this approach with what he calls 'interpretivism'**. 'Interpretivists eschew the notion that there is a single achievable text that represents an author's original intention. Every move in the philological process represents an instance of personal choice, and these choices have their consequences' (italics are Wynne's, all other emphases are mine).


Source: The Origin of Buddhist Mediation, pp. 130-131, 160, 164 (Routledge, '07).

In source citations from the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 18, no. 2 (1995)
*Tillemans, Tom J. F. 'Remarks on philology', p. 269.
**Cabezon, Jose Ignacio. 'Buddhist studies as a discipline and the role of theory', pp. 245.
**" ", pp. 247-48.

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Re: The Place of Positivism

Post by ancientbuddhism »

A Way of Reading, by C.W. Huntington, Jr.
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