Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Cittasanto
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by Cittasanto »

Dan74 wrote:I understand critical thinking to mean an objective logical examination of a matter at hand. Objective usually implies 'from the outside', impartial. Logical implies using facts and inferences in accordance with a set of rules that describe permissible deductions, etc

Vipassana, I understand to be, becoming aware, discerning clearly, particularly vis-a-vis mental patterns that have up until now remained obscure. A necessary foundation is lack of clinging/investment in what is discerned. This corresponds to impartiality in critical thinking. Another necessary condition is clarity and a subtle sensitivity, which are cultivated through practice. The inquiry in vipassana is typically of an inner sort, where all matter of personal clinging may render the matter completely obscure. Many people adept at critical thinking fail miserably in inner inquiry, so I think they are quite different.
Does the failings of a telescope to see bacteria mean the same tools (lenses...) can not be used in a different way?
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He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Cittasanto
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

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Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:From a quick look at the video, it seems to me that that kind of critical thinking would lead to more speculation and discursive thought. The factor of enlightenment called "Investigation of Phenomena" (Dhammavicaya), by means of which a meditator gains insight, does not speculate, it just observes things as they truly are, without any prejudice or bias.
I have since updated the OP, and have (as others have) asked since, how do you reflect whether something was or was not skilful and judge to what degree and what needs improving without looking at where you may be fooling yourself?
as Daniel has already noted the conclusion is that critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improve it, which I understand to be (when turned in on oneself) the art of minimising self deception. not a means to ruminate pointlessly.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Cittasanto
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

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danieLion wrote:
Mr Man wrote:Critical thinking is of the world.
Computers are "of the world" too, yet you seem to have no problem using them as a dhamma tool.
this is a very good point. it is not what it is but how you use it appropriately.
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He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Mr Man
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by Mr Man »

Cittasanto wrote:
Mr Man wrote:No it isn't. critical thinking is about thought based solutions to thought created problems. Vipassana is transformative. It creates a shift. Critical thinking is of the world.

Would be interested to hear from robertk and also from those with a strong "classical" sutta understanding would have to say?
By your definition.
How do you reflect on actions and see whether it is skilful or not, and how skilful it is without being critical about various aspects of your own thinking and actions?
As I said to danieLion I am not negating the value of using our intelligence I am just assigning it a place. I don't see critical thinking as "active vipassana". The idea that we can come to a conclusion through thought that is "correct" is not something that I see, except on the mundane level. Can we use thought/reflection to nudge us in the right direction? - well that is slightly different and that is not what I understand "critical thinking" to be.
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

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I made another thread just before this one with another video. it is very long but you may find it interesting. http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16347" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
twelph wrote:
danieLion wrote:
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.
Which teachers?

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.
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.

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.
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?
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;

I understand that Plato's "The Republic" has fascist ideals, but there is more to Plato than his political ideology.
Last edited by Cittasanto on Wed Feb 27, 2013 8:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

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Mr Man wrote: As I said to danieLion I am not negating the value of using our intelligence I am just assigning it a place. I don't see critical thinking as "active vipassana". The idea that we can come to a conclusion through thought that is "correct" is not something that I see, except on the mundane level. Can we use thought/reflection to nudge us in the right direction? - well that is slightly different and that is not what I understand "critical thinking" to be.
the definition being used for this thread has been provided. and the conclusion transcribed by DanieLion.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by Mr Man »

Cittasanto wrote:
Mr Man wrote: As I said to danieLion I am not negating the value of using our intelligence I am just assigning it a place. I don't see critical thinking as "active vipassana". The idea that we can come to a conclusion through thought that is "correct" is not something that I see, except on the mundane level. Can we use thought/reflection to nudge us in the right direction? - well that is slightly different and that is not what I understand "critical thinking" to be.
the definition being used for this thread has been provided. and the conclusion transcribed by DanieLion.
Okay: you could substitute
Mr Man wrote:what I understand "critical thinking" to be

with "analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improoving it".
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

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Mr Man wrote:
Cittasanto wrote:
Mr Man wrote: As I said to danieLion I am not negating the value of using our intelligence I am just assigning it a place. I don't see critical thinking as "active vipassana". The idea that we can come to a conclusion through thought that is "correct" is not something that I see, except on the mundane level. Can we use thought/reflection to nudge us in the right direction? - well that is slightly different and that is not what I understand "critical thinking" to be.
the definition being used for this thread has been provided. and the conclusion transcribed by DanieLion.
Okay: you could substitute
Mr Man wrote:what I understand "critical thinking" to be

with "analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improoving it".
and in the context of Vipassana it is looking for the faulty logic or attending to something, and seeing how one could attend to the "object" appropriately or get back to upright perspective.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by danieLion »

twelph wrote:
danieLion wrote:Plato was a fascist and fascism is completely incompatible with critical thinking and vipassana. Who are these bone-head scholars you refer to?
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 Socrates 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;

I understand that Plato's "The Republic" has fascist ideals, but there is more to Plato than his political ideology.
My master's thesis (from a conflict resolution program) was on restorative justice and exclusion where I leaned heavily on Susan Opotow's ideas on moral exclusion and injustice and a deep analysis of the history of justice (E.g., the image of the Goddess Justitia). My thesis was also precipitated and highly informed by several graduate courses with a professor who eventually became my thesis committee chair (I also studied Plato and philosophy a lot as an undergrad). He was a civil rights lawyer (among other things) before he started teaching. We not only intensely studied moral and political philosophy but also jurisprudence and lots of Plato. We read things like Aristophanes, Leo Strauss' works on Socrates and Plato, and Derrida’s "Plato's Pharmacy;" we read authors like John Locke, Kant, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Michael J. Sandel, Ronald Dworkin, Duncan Kennedy, James Baldwin, feminists, Native Americans, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, etc.... My other committee members included a Philosophy professor with expertise in conflict resolution and democracy and the other was an Administrative Justice professor and then Chair of the Administrative Justice program. So, I think I’d know a thing or two about whether or not Plato should or should not be connected to religious matters, especially things like “enlightenment.”

Socrates is one of my favorite philosophers, Plato one of my least favorite. Plato is just an extension of Parmenides; Socrates more Heraclitean (see Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks). Plato's political philosophies are not easy to disentangle from the rest of his philosophy, and he himself was after Unity. So, of course there is more to Plato than his political ideology but this is not a help but a hindrance. His theory of The Forms and The Good (his deontology, if you will) are the bedrock of his fascism. The Heraclitus-->Socrates strain is a better, yet still lacking, fit, for Buddhism. The Buddha never taught anything resembling Plato's theory of The Forms or The Good, and to suggest associating the Buddha with one of the most misguided philosophies ever recorded does the Buddha, the religion and his follower a great injustice.

For an analysis of the similarities to and limits of Socratic dialectics to dhamma practice see Thanissaro's Skill In Questions.
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

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Cittasanto wrote:
kirk5a wrote:If the analysis doesn't result in stilling, it's papañca.
and what if it resulted in dispassion; being unfettered; shedding; to modesty; to contentment; to seclusion; to aroused persistence; to being unburdensome?
I don't see any reason to suppose that "the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it" results in all that.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by danieLion »

Mr Man wrote:The idea that we can come to a conclusion through thought that is "correct" is not something that I see, except on the mundane level. Can we use thought/reflection to nudge us in the right direction? - well that is slightly different and that is not what I understand "critical thinking" to be.
Crtiical thinking is not about coming to conclusions or conforming to notions of "correct." Critical thinking itself does not provide a direction beyond constantly learning to think better. The telos of crtical thinking is a personal choice. Buddhism, when combined with critical thinkng, and especially when combined with critical thinking methods like REBT, CBT, MBCT & DBT, provide direction and purpose, but it is still up to us to choose which direction to head (towards escaping samsara) and how best to navigate towards understanding and ending dukkha.
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by Dan74 »

Cittasanto wrote:
Dan74 wrote:I understand critical thinking to mean an objective logical examination of a matter at hand. Objective usually implies 'from the outside', impartial. Logical implies using facts and inferences in accordance with a set of rules that describe permissible deductions, etc

Vipassana, I understand to be, becoming aware, discerning clearly, particularly vis-a-vis mental patterns that have up until now remained obscure. A necessary foundation is lack of clinging/investment in what is discerned. This corresponds to impartiality in critical thinking. Another necessary condition is clarity and a subtle sensitivity, which are cultivated through practice. The inquiry in vipassana is typically of an inner sort, where all matter of personal clinging may render the matter completely obscure. Many people adept at critical thinking fail miserably in inner inquiry, so I think they are quite different.
Does the failings of a telescope to see bacteria mean the same tools (lenses...) can not be used in a different way?
I don't know how far you want to stretch this analogy... The telescope is obviously not the right tool for the micro-world and the lenses it contains cannot be adapted for that purpose either. You need different lenses, though they are still lenses.

As for Vipassana,it seems to me that there are some aspects to it that are completely different to critical thinking that one may learn academically. I'd say that practice and mental cultivation develop some different aspects of the mind than a well-hone critical thinker would have.
_/|\_
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by beeblebrox »

danieLion wrote: Socrates is one of my favorite philosophers, Plato one of my least favorite.
Socrates is known mostly through Plato, isn't that right?

Is that Socratic irony?

:anjali:
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by twelph »

danieLion wrote:The Buddha never taught anything resembling Plato's theory of The Forms or The Good, and to suggest associating the Buddha with one of the most misguided philosophies ever recorded does the Buddha, the religion and his follower a great injustice.
In response to this, I will quote myself.
When I talk about Socrates and Plato's view on enlightenment, I am not asserting that they are one in the same as the Buddhist notion of enlightenment.
There has been much work including other people's master thesis who happen to think differently on the subject of Plato and religion. I understand that you have strong opinions on the matter, but major connections are still there.
beeblebrox wrote:
danieLion wrote: Socrates is one of my favorite philosophers, Plato one of my least favorite.
Socrates is known mostly through Plato, isn't that right?

Is that Socratic irony?

:anjali:
This is very true.
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Re: Is Critical Thinking Active Vipassana?

Post by Nyana »

Thinking is generally conditioned by wrong views and perversions (Cf. AN 4.49). Sense restraint is important with regard to mental objects just as it is with regard to other sensory objects.
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