The Ethical Idealism of Early Buddhism

Posted on by leyoucis

 

    Buddhism centers on the four noble truths: that (1) there is suffering, that (2) it has a cause, that (3) it can be suppressed, and that (4) there is a way to accomplish this. Everything about life, according to Buddha, is suffering, and people will always be in a state of suffering; life is full of  longing.  Everything will pass away, art, books, life, and nothing can escape dissolution. The remedy for this is to get out of it. It is often objected that Buddha is emphasizing the dark side of life and there is room for fulfillment in life with the reaching of goals and comforts between the extremes of chuildood and dying. However, Buddhism maintains everything is transient, but there is happiness in detachment and attempting to reach the arhata state. Everything is in a constant state of flux and everything is subject to beginning and dissolution in a chain without beginning or end. Becoming is all that exists and the apparent identity in time consists in a continuity of moments which exists as a continuity of an identity. We come to see things in terms of the categories: substance, whole and part, plurality, etc., but really at the core of things, there is a single evolution of becoming. For instance, we say it rains, but really, there is no it at all, and everything is just becoming.

     Buddha often seemed to deny the self, as he sees it as a root of misbehavior and he maintains that we never remain the same for two moments. Buddha was silent about the Atman in the Upanishads. In terms of the soul, Buddha refuses to give a description.  For if one affirms the soul, permanence is attained which leads to contradiction. If one denies the soul, it leads to annihilation, which leads to contradiction. Buddha probably did not believe in a lack of a soul as a lack of soul would lead to annihilation upon death which Buddha repudiates. The logical conclusion is that the something exists (though not the empirical self) but he is cautious in making his statement and is therefore taking an agnostic standpoint. However, I must say that taking an agnostic standpoint leads to ethical contradiction in the same way as not taking an agnostic standpoint. However, Buddha is additionally recognizing the transcendence of the soul. After Buddha, Nagesena developed his doctrine on the self through a phenomenalistic doctrine developed with great skill and brilliance, who drew the definitively negative conclusion that there is no self. Ideas and states come. occupy our attention for a while, and then go away. We come to believe that there is a permanent self that binds all of these states together, but this is not actually found in experience. He argues that there is nothing in experience that can be justified as the self; between two successive moments, there is no identity.

     The Buddhists define a doctrine of Origination. The world came to be through ignorance, through ignorance comes the samskaras, from the samskaras comes consciousness, from consciousness comes name and form, from name and form comes the six senses, from sensation comes thirst (or desire), from thirst comes attachment, and then birth, old age, death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair. Ignorance is clinging to existence, which conceals the nature of reality which is that all is suffering. The samskaras is the term for the force which causes beings to arise. These samskaras lead to rebirth. Consiousness is necessary for existence, and only ceases when nirvana is obtained. This whole scheme may seem dogmatic, but it must be remembered that there is no fixicity about the number and order of these phases.

The Ethics of Buddhism

 

     Every act has a karmic result and can be either pure or unpure. Pure acts are directed toward the welfare of others and are free from passion, desire, and the illusion of the ego. Buddhism expounds not to indulge in the extreme stances of indulgence and mortification, and instead to follow the eightfold path, i.e. (1) right beliefs, (2) right aspirations, (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindedness, and (8) right enthusiasm. For example, Right conduct is unselfish conduct. Right effort consists in exercising control over the passions, so as to prevent the rise of bad qualities. For example, focus on a good idea, face the danger of letting the bad idea develop into action, turn attention away from the bad idea, and coerce the mind back into the good idea. Right effort consists of a mental steadiness. Meditation is an important part of Buddhist practice and has four stages: joy from living a life of solitude, contemplation, insight, and reflection, inner calm without conscious reflection, absence of prejudice and passion, and tranquility without care or joy. Pure acts are based in unselfishness and results in acts of love and compassion and unpure acts are based in egoism and lead to malice, etc. Actions become good by avoiding the three bodily sins of murder, theft, adultery; the four sins of speech, lying, slander, abuse, and idle talk; and the three sins of mind, covetousness, hatred, and error. Knowledge is emphasized in Buddhism in addition to meditation, but not to the charge of intellectualism.  You must think things through to obtain truth unceasingly. Salvation consists in the overcoming of selfishness, the illusion of the ego, and the false sense of  the self. Buddha does not preach asceticism, unless asceticism means the cutting off of the ego.

     Nirvana is the goal of spiritual progress in Buddhism, but Buddha did not usually give direct descriptions and instead spent most of the time trying to win others over to its realization. Buddha gave both a negative and positive status to nirvana. It is inconceivable to us and it is best to explain it through negative descriptions, along with positive descriptions which are only approximations. Sometimes a distinction is made between two types of nirvana: (a) Upadhisesa, which occurs in this world, and (b) Anupadhisesa, which occurs upon the death of one who obtains nirvana. In Upadhisesa, the human passions are extinct, and in Anupadhisesa, all being is extinct. The former is a mental repose free of stress and conflict. It is an existence full of confidence, peace, calm, bliss, and happiness. The latter is often compared to a deep sleep in which the subject becomes one with the universe. Some commentators interpret nirvana as equivalent to annihilation, but others believe there is nothing that suggests annihilation. Some schools reduce nirvana to vacuity and nihility. There are others that view nirvana as pleasant. Thus nirvana is neither annihilation nor ordinary existence.

Karma and Refutation of God

     Karma, for the Buddhists, comes from within, and not without. It is often objected that karma is incompatible with freedom. However, Buddha maintained that karma is not merely a mechanical principle in which past deeds have complete causation over the present, and instead merely demonstrates a continuity between past actions and present consciousness, in which the present accords with the past. This does not mean the present is the only possible consequence of the past. Buddha analyzes the self psychologically into a sum of qualities, tendencies, and dispositions, which creates the effects of karma. Analyzing things psychologically, an element of determinism holds, but our self is subject to our own activity and as such has the capacity to transcend the past. Buddha is simply against the type of indeterminism which regards free will as a force which interferes with the orderly workings of the mind. When nirvana is reached, karma ceases, which obtains freedom in nonconsequence of good and evil, and so all moral conduct is preparation for this final state. Heaven and Hell are recognized as temporary states for the good and evil, along with reincarnation for the imperfect on the round of rebirth. There is no such thing in Buddhism as the transmigration of the self from life to life. All that remains upon rebirth is the person’s karma, in which they are otherwise an entirely different person. The reincarnation is the result of the karma remaining inplace resulting from a clinging to existence. The last thought is often the most important thing that determines the persons rebirth. This mechsanism is not explained in Buddhism, but is imply assumed. Some Buddhists do believe in the transmigration of the self.

     Like Jainism, Buddhism rejects the conception of God. These arguments are perhaps refutable, but they get the job done. The Buddhists reject the cosmological argument. The Buddhist doctrine of origination takes care of the beginning of the universe and we need not have a conscious cause. A first cause does not necessarily help us in moral progress and can lead to inaction. If God exists, he must cause everything, so that we can have no freedom of our own. If he disowns his authorship of the evil in the world, he is not a universal agent. If God has universal grace, we can be indifferent to a virtuous life. Karma is at the core of things since is the only thing that can explain the suffering of the world.  With karma at the core of things, a God would have no ability to alter or modify anything. The Buddhists reject the teleological argument since the world is obviously imperfect.  A perfect creator cannot create an imperfect world.

Goddard 2

Posted on by leyoucis

originally posted 6/19 (This will be further revised)

    Although it can seem like you are living in a material world, you are actually living in a world of the imagination. All current events are the result of previously thought assumptions. At times, the imagined state will be so real that when one turns back to the world it is a shock that it does not correspond to the imagined state. This reverses your time sense and the world now becomes a result of being in imagination where you have not yet been physically. The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the vehicle through which the world is transformed. When you use the law of assumption, you are conforming to it just like the law of magnetism. In this respect you are impotent to it, you can only yield or conform, and so the value of using the power of assumption must be obvious. Imagination is distinguished from reverie in that in imagination, ones thoughts are steadied, controlled, and focused, whereas reverie is an undirected and uncontrolled imagination- usually just a daydream. The imagination works regardless of objective good or evil, but a good objective usually results in a better outcome than a bad objective. One can live in poverty, which is equivalent to sin and is ultimately a consequence of his beliefs not being the truth. If his beliefs are correct and his assumptions strong, he can be saved of sin, which is equivalent to righteousness. One common mistake is to focus on things such as a better house, and  righteousness is really focusing on being the person you want to be and already having what you desire. The kingdom of God (your I am God) is already within you and righteousness is realizing that you already possess it all. Free will occurs but once the assumption is assumed, everything operates according to determinism and happens automatically.

Atkinson: the secret of success

Posted on by leyoucis

    According to Atkinson, there are eight metaphysical elements to success: the individual, spiritedness, latent powers, soul-force, the power of desire, the law of attraction, personal magnetism, and attractive personality. There are three parts of the individual: the physical body, the vital energy, and the mind. The vital energy is independent of the body and vitalizes, energizes, and animates it. The mind is that which the I uses in order to know. Latent powers are the second wind that exists within the individual, i.e. the ability to stick to the task when one is about to give up.  It is difficult to tell what causes this second wind, but it seems to be an opening up of the reserve stores of vital energy; all people have the ability to tap into these latent powers and accomplish wonders.  Enthusiasm is an imaginative zeal or interest, or a lively manifestation of joy, and is really a force coming from the inner part of a person’s mind or soul. Without a certain amount of enthusiasm, a person cannot achieve success. Few people acknowledge the importance of enthusiasm. You cannot accomplish tasks unless you show a degree of interest in them and that is what enthusiasm is, i.e. inspired interest. The law of attraction is the universal principle in both the physical and mental realm in which all things are attracted toward each other to the degree in which they are alike and repulsed from each other to the degree that they are unlike. This happens in the physical world where certain electrons attract each other causing them to combine into atoms, which attract and repulse each other to form matter. The law of attraction on the mental plane is similar since we bring things to ourselves in accordance to our desire demand and will. Personal magnetism is the ability to bring other people into a mood sympathetic to that of the magnetic person. This is similar to what occurs with magnets, although this occurs on the mental plane, i.e. the person sends vibrations which are caught by the other people. One should have enthusiasm and earnestness to conduct personal magnetism and the more lively and contagious the better.  Every person should make his personality as pleasing and attractive as he is able to do. One should always be cheerful even if they are actually in a bad mood for a number of reasons: (a) it induces a more buoyant and positive state of mind in oneself, (b) it attracts cheerful persons to oneself through the law of attraction, and (c) it presents an attractive personality to other people.

   Atkinson’s work is taken both from Indian influences and Western influences. In particular, I believe that Atkinson was clearly indirectly influenced by Fichte. When you look at Indian philosophy, you see more extreme a posteriori interactions between the subject and the physical world than in the West, although there are certain a posteriori interactions in the West as well. In particular the law of Attraction has similarities to Jainism and Hinduism. In particular, the word law is borrowed directly from Hindu thought. Atkinson accepts a dualism equipped with a scientific antirealism, in which large portions of science can be neglected; the dualism allows less paradox in a number of places than an idealism. Finally, Atkinson takes influence from occultism which attempts to reconcile science with philosophy and mysticism. Atkinson takes a mystical starting point in the law of attraction, but this is done in many places in Eastern philosophy. Atkinsons positing of the vital energy might seem a bit crackpot, but it is a good idea since sometimes you need to posit a metaphysical entity in order to make sense of things better than through the sciences. I am not sure if the sciences give an explanation for second wind, as some people are capable of having it and others are not, and this seems to go beyond what explainable through empirical methods. If there is a scientific explanation, it does not have the same effect as the metaphysical explanation since according to Atkinson’s explanation, the second wind has an enormous amount of ability and this can only be verified a posteriori. If it does, the metaphysical explanation captures the same material as the scientific explanation and gets the job done the same since the effect transcends the physical.

Goddard 1

Posted on by leyoucis

     Your concept of yourself determines who you are. The individual possesses something that the rest of nature does not- the imagination, which is the vehicle through which you create your world. You thus have a choice whether you want to remain in a state of longing or use your imagination to change your world. The ideal you seek will not become manifest until you have imagined that you already possess it. You must create an image in your mind of an ideal and assume you are already that person. The key is that the desire that realizes itself is always a desire upon which attention is exclusively concentrated. The secret of success is to focus the attention on the feeling of the wish fulfilled without permitting any distraction. The world depends not so much on what is there but on the assumption you make when you look. Therefore, if you change your assumptions, the world will change with it. You must renounce evil and other negatives and refuse to concentrate on them. Everything is yours. Everything depends on your concept of yourself.  Know that you are all that you desire to be. You go and prepare a place for yourself by imagining yourself into your wish fulfilled. All that has ever existed exists now. You are free to choose the concept you accept of yourself. Therefore, you possess the power to alter the course of your future. Imagine yourself to be the ideal you dream of and desire. Your imagination is able to do all that you ask in proportion to the degree of your attention. Attention may be either directed from without or directed from within, and your capacity to change the future depends on the latter. Each day, withdraw your attention from the world and direct it within.   (Revise)

     Goddard is one of the members of the new thought movement of which one of their focuses is the attainment of success. Goddard starts with the mystical notion that the imagination has the ability to control the world and the individual is in essence God, and develops a philosophy around it.  This is similar to Atkinsons mystical notion of the thought vibration emanating from the individual. I believe we should let elements of mysticism into the colleges as they are a crucial part of philosophy and results in a wider amount of things to be said. Now we would keep the mystical distinguished from the purley philosophical and critiques of mysticism will keep the two separated from each other. The Indians philosophy also borders on the mystical and this is studied in the colleges. This would allow new thought to be studied in the colleges. New thought has had a greater impact on the country than perhaps many Western philsophers, and coilleges are suffering from this lack of incorporation, even if it is simply to defend against new thought. The colleges are heavily biased toward morally realism right now, and there will always be arguments for moral idealism. (Revise)

Atkinson: The power of Concentration

Posted on by leyoucis

     According to Atkinson, it is of much value to learn how to concentrate. One should not become discouraged when attempting to concentrate, for it is much easier to concentrate on something counterproductive than something productive. The person who achieves success is usually the person who works hard. The untrained mind suffers from a lack of regulation and us subject to impulse and emotion. Whatever you think up becomes true if you stay con-centrated on it. Therefore, most people who achieve success deserve it. If you be-lieve you have success, the thought vibration will draw you to success. Let the troubles of life come since you will always prevail, and always maintain an unfaltering belief in your success. Through concentrated thought, you can ac-complish whatever you want. Every movement in the intellect corresponds to a movement in the brain. Therefore, it is important to exercise to improve concentration. Everybody does not have a perfectly developed will, but there are a number of things a person can do to overcome weakness of will- they are the following: 1. If a desire arises that is no good, use your will -power to kill out the desire 2. Don’t be slow in making decisions, as it is much easier not to something than to do something. 3. Attempt to make quicker decisions in your daily affairs at periodic intervals. 4. Make a definite plan and don’t give up until you accomplish your end. Concentration can overcome bad habits. The more often you repeat a good habit, the more it becomes embedded in your nature. Habits can be formed because every mental event in the brain can be thrown into imbalance. One should remember the following maxims: 1. Train your brain to function at an optimal level through exercise, 2. Don’t play with fire by forming bad habits. 3. Never allow an exception to occur until the new habit is securely grounded. Concentrate on courage. A lack of courage creates mental and moral difficulties. Form the habit of never thinking something unfavorable about yourself or another person. There are a number of exercises that the person can attempt throughout the day to improve concentration. 1. Sit in a chair and see how still you can sit. 2. Before you go to sleep. Put a glass of water near your bed and look at it to concentrate on its calm state. Then picture yourself in this calm state to go to sleep. 3. When you take a walk and pass a garden, concentrate on the smell, as this increases concentration. 4. If you learn something about another person and you desire to tell som-eone, keep it to yourself, as this will control your will. Etc.

     Atkinson is, among other things, making the metaphysics explicit in what is common to the person’s intuition when they are trying to visualize something into existence. Indeed, Reasoning is a combination of empiricism and rationality. Very often people heuristically think, I bet I am going just think this up and it is going to become true, and this heuristic process in which the subject disregards empiricism and believes that he will be able to think something into his life is captured and made explicit in the metaphysics and taken as a genuine ontological claim. Thus he is capturing the rationalistic process that occurs with visualizing action. We must remember that this is best seen as a metaphysical doctrine in which the mental ether leaves the mind and interact with the physical world to change it which goes beyond what is captured through the scientific tests involving brainwaves. That is why it is best to view the brainwaves as interference patterns between the mental ether and the physical world.

     Many people find the claim in the law of attraction in which if you do not find the law of attraction working then it is because you are not focusing your thoughts enough on positive thoughts difficult to handle and this results in a paradoxical situation where people are trying to get it to work and it is not working. This is really use of self-reference in which if it is working, you are not trying hard enough. We must remember that the law of attraction is an idealism which is not empirically verifiable. However, I believe this is valid use of self-reference as there is scientific support for the law of attraction (although I do not believe this proves it) as well as the a posteriori evidence found directly by Atkinson, so Atkinson believes you can have genuine ontological knowledge of the law of attraction.  I do not believe the law of attraction can be reduced to language and it improves cognition to think this way whether it is true or not, signifying a good idealism. The individual can simply reject the law of attraction if it is not working.

Royce: The World and the Individual 2

Posted on by leyoucis

   Royce’s pragmatic absolute idealism continues with his analysis of eternalism. Normally when we experience time there is a suc-cession of events such as from a to b with a passing over into b. When we hear for instance, a musical phrase, we see one note pass over to another, but at the same time, there is a present moment that lasts a very short period of time in which those notes are present to consciousness at once. The objection to this claim is that time lasts instantaneously. However, there is no way to figure what that is since an indivisible moment has no meaning for if the present moment of a spoken sentence is reduced to a single word the difficulty is not escaped since that word itself is a succession of sounds that are present to consciousness at once. The world is also in a sense temporal. However without any conflict with this, the entire world history is present to the abso-lute in an eternally present insight. In the same way that in the perceptual present, there is a succession of events that are simultaneously present, the entire world history occurs as a succession of events that are simultaneously present to the absolute. Thus change itself is unchangeable as everything is present to the absolute at once. The question now comes how to handle evolution, which seems to be devoid of rationality. However, this is less devoid of rationality than initially thought. Both mind and nature involve irrevocable processes to many of their phenomenon. Both mind and nature have parts that communicate in a sense with each other. But mainly, both mind and nature involve habits in which one series goes for some time and repeats itself later.  Thus we see that evolution is a conscious process.

     Royce’s pragmatism maintains that metaphysics as essentially an ethical discipline and can give no genuine ontological knowledge of the world, which leads to an issue regarding Royce’s eternalism, which seems to be a genuine ontological claim suggesting a static time sequence. 1 However, this is in line with Royce’s absolute idealism which is typically eternalist in nature, along with an immanent God and a differentiated community. Royce’s God, however, is in part theistic, although there is an immanent component. 2 Royce does not give proof that the world is eternal signifying his pragmatism. The main ethical problem with this theory is that it possible contradictrs free will.  Free will and temporalism occur on the microscopic scale whereas eternalism occurs on the macroscopic scale, which is further explained in Royce’s later chapter and his chapter on free will. Temporalism should be seen as an illusion which is characteristic of British and American idealism. (give example of ethical implications of eternalism). So overall, I believe Royce’s eternalism should be read as a genuine ontological claim, with the added assumption that this claim is only seen within the context of his system for the purpose of ethical considerations, which cannot be proven over any other system. Royce is attempting to adapt absolute idealism to a pragmatic standpoint. How well he succeeded is another story, but I don’t think there is any evidence that he is a temporalist. (Revise)

    There are two main areas of life: the world of nature and empirical facts, or the world of description, and the social world of mind and individuals or the world of appreciation. These two areas of life at first site appear to be sundered from each other, with the world of description operating according to rigid fixed rules and the world of appreciation which is a world of expression. Our belief in nature is inextricably linked to our belief in other men. The proof of the existence of fellow men is that they furnish us with the supplement to our own fragmentary meanings. Through time the individual learns to view others as falsely sundered from each other, but in fact they are all part of the unity of the absolute. All human purposes are thus related to our own. Society is seen to be an organism, which can be conceived only in terms of the fourth conception of Being. Nature at first site seems to be sundered from the world of appreciation since we develop rules that operate independently of mind and seem to hold invariant of space and time. However, when one comes to think about it, there is no way for the finite community to know this statement within their lifetime or future lifetimes. Thus the laws of nature are seen to be less sundered from mind than thought. We thus see the laws of nature as being social constructions. What happened was in the industrial arts, people made weapons and buildings and so forth and with time they extended these results to universal laws of nature, and these universal laws of nature are now seen as simply extensions of industrial art and are continuous with it. As such it gives us no indication of the true natre of things and is simply seen as a social construction.

     The self has a meaning in each of the four historical conceptions of Being, which have been shown to be paradoxical in the first book. In Royce’s absolute idealism, the self takes on the role of the purpose it serves with respect to the community. The individual’s self is his task as a friend, worker, citizen, and so on, as contrasted with other people, which amounts to its relation to the absolute. The individual can never be aware of who he is, as he can never know his relation to the absolute. The individual can never know when his purpose is fulfilled or he has yet to find his purpose. Thus he must give unity to his aims and intend something definite in his life. So every individual is unique, but unique as it is related to the absolute with a dependence on other individuals. There is unity, but also differentiation. . . .The being goes about trying to reach self-expression. In order to do this, he attempts to act a certain way, and when this does not fulfill his purpose, he looks for some new object between objects that has already attracted attention. The individual then imitates this model and modifies his actions accordingly. The individual grows through this repeated imitation over time. Royce claims that evolution takes on this same process. However, everyone has the ability to overcome this evolutionary process and find their place in the absolute. The psychologist attempts to explain the self as a causal process subject to law just like the rest of nature. This seems to endanger this conception of self in which the self is a being of expression. You can attempt to explain the persons behavior causally. However, what the psychologist says only takes on heuristic value and should be assessed pragmatically, that is, it should be taken as only one possible interpretation as analyzed from a technical perspective

    We now show how the world is moral. To be is to fulfill a purpose. The absolute is one and many: one because without unity, there is no finality of insight, and many because the interrelationship of contrasted expressions of the will is the way for the absolute to reach self-consciousness.  . . . III An objection now arises in what sense the subject has the ability to act morally in Royce’s world. In answer, Royce replies that freedom is no less paradoxical in our idealism than occurs in the other three conceptions of Being. IV According to Royce, the subject acts according to the Ought in that they are striving to act in accordance with the absolute. However, it seems to always be possible to act counter to this Ought. Royce replies: all beings, everywhere, serve the absolute purpose in so far as they know that purpose, but everything serves the Ought to varying degrees. VI Thus even though whatever the individual does is in accordance with the absolute, the individual must make the decision as to what sort of accordance that will be.

     Many believe there is an error in Royce’s reasoning in the first book when he transitions from the world as determinate negation to the world as conscious construction. However, this is less of a gap than prima facie thought and is made more clear throughout the second book. So the individual is left in a negative situation once he recognizes the impossibility of assigning an internal meaning to any external meaning. The other options would be to accept the Buddhist path in which the world is empty or an illusion, or to get on by trying to attach an internal meaning as closely as possible to the external meaning. . . . So it is ok to set up a new axiom at this point in order to construct a positive system and this axiom as the world as a constructive process is made more clear throughout the second book. There is no need for foundationalism in all philosophy. And this axiom is attempted to be shown to be the better alternative throughout the second book.

Berkeley’s idealism and a Defense against Georges Dicker

Posted on by leyoucis

. . . Here we discuss only Berekley’s Principles of Human Knowledge. The Dialogues can be handled separately. It is interesting to note that Berkeley does very little positive metaphysics, other than saving free will and the soul (allowing for life after death) from materialism, and giving a rationalist explanation for miracle. However, he did foundational work in subjective idealism, which was used by many of the German idealists and Indian philosophy, Aztec philosophy, and so forth. Berkeley uses the word idea for what was later known as representation by the German idealists onward.

     Berkeley uses the words mind, spirit, sand soul interchangeably. Berkeley begins with the opening syllogism: (a) all objects of human knowledge are either ideas imprinted on the senses, ideas involving the operations of the mind, or ideas formed in the imagination by compounding ideas impressed on the senses, (b) ideas cannot exist unperceived mind, so (c) the objects of human knowledge cannot exist unperceived the mind. Since tables chairs, trees and so forth are objects of human knowledge, it follows that tables, chairs, trees and so forth cannot exist unperceived by a mind. If we examine the tenet that objects exist independently of the mind we find that it is impossible to separate these things from perception. Since these objects are contained within the mind, it follows that there is no substance other than spirit. To say that something exists means that it is experienced or would be experienced under appropriate conditions. For instance to say thsat the chair one sits on exists means that you see and feel it, and if you are out of the room, it means you would perceive it. This means that things are created anew and destroyed upon opening and closing one’s eyes. Tables chairs trees and so forth really exist, but they exist only in the mind of the perceiver or some nonhuman spirit. Any time a person attempts to conceive a book exising in a room by itself for instance, with no one perceiving it, they are simply admitting that if they were were in the room at that time time they would percieve it that way.

     Berkeley then goes on to gives a series of indirect arguments for idealism.  (1) An idea can be like nothing but another idea, a color can be like nothing but another color. It is impossible to conceive anything unlike them that they resemble. Are the things that they resemble perceivable or not? If they are perceivable, then they are ideas, and if they are not, they have no qualities, and how can an idea be like that? (2) Berkeley distinguishes between primary and secondary qualities. The understanding is that primary qualities such as solidity, shape, rigidity exist independently of the mind, while secondary qualities such as color, taste, heat exist only in the mind. However it is asked if it is possible in any mode of thought to abstract primary qualities from secondary qualities, and this indeed impossible to do.  Since secondary qualities exist only in the mind, it follows that primary qualities exist only in the mind. (3) If we attempt to inquire into what is meant by material substance, we find that this is a meaningless term, and no matter which way one attempts to frame it, it leads to contradiction. Therefore, there is no reason to posit material substance as existing. (4) Even if matter existed, it cannot be demonstrated through reason since it is possible that all of our senses are produced without any object corresponding to them. Thus it is impossible to know whether material objects exist.

     Ideas must have a cause, and this cause cannot be matter so that this cause must be spirit. The mind acts upon ideas, so we can have no idea of mind, However, we can have some notion of mind since we can be aware of its actions. Once the nonexistence of the external world is demonstrated, the soul becomes immortal. We can make ideas of imagination at will but our sense perceptions are more coherent than the ideas of our imagination and don’t depend on our will. Therefore, they must be held in place by some nonhuman spirit. The blemishes in creation should be seen as ways of augmenting the beauty of the rest of nature.  The uneasiness that comes with the world can be seen as the effects of imperfect finite spirits. The world is contained within the mind and things at a distance are just as close to the mind as near things. We see in two dimensions. The three dimensional appearance of things are fluctuations in appearance when the person moves. It can be objected that Berkeley’s idealism comes into contradiction with the natural sciences since it cannot explain the complexities of animal bodies, why food nourishes, and so forth. For instance, why is this done without all the apparatus. The reasoning is that these are simply secondary manifestations of what happens directly in the mind. If someone finds the cause fire in terms of its chemical properties and so forth, these chemicals only exist under the microscope they are being observed, and indicates simply a sign as to when the fire will occur. Miracles are explainable through Berkeley’s idealism as God overturning the laws of physics and producing something according to his will in his mind.

Defense Against Georges Dicker

     To refute Berkeley, Dicker argues that Berkeley successfully refuted Locke’s representationalism in which there is an external object, but that object is unperceivable. Dicker creates a two-term theory of perception in which there is an external object that we indirectly perceive and has the disposition to create the secondary qualities in the mind. Objects have a dispositional aspect as well as a manifest aspect.  The color red is simultaneously the disposition of an object to look the color red under normal light and the conscious episode of the object appearing red. The problem with this version of representationalism is that it leaves the object undefined and there is no way of defining what this object is. The only options would be to define the object as a bundle of primary qualities without any secondary qualities. But this is impossible to do as described below since there is no way to abstract the primary qualities from the secondary qualities, and other aspects of perception such as zooming and weight.  It can serve as a useful heuristic to help one function in the world, but the empirical reality of experience can be accounted for from a purely idealistic perspective, and this can be done in many ways. There is further paradox that comes into place with this perspective such as the inability to handle free will and the existence of the soul.

     Dickers’ first two refutations ultimately rest on the error of him leaving his notion of the object undefined. Berkeley tries to derive the statement that an idea can be like nothing but another idea from the statement that a sensible quality can be like nothing but another sensible quality. The argument is (a) all sensible qualities are things that can resemble only sensible qualities (b) sensible qualities are identifiable with ideas, ∴(c) ideas can resemble only ideas. Dicker argues that Berkeley is begging the question since an idea can resemble something that is not an idea, namely, an object. Dicker resorts to his two-term theory of representationalism in which we immediately perceive an idea, but we indirectly perceive an object. However, Dicker again leaves this object undefined. There is no way to define this object without making it an idea since by (a), sensible qualities can only resemble sensible qualities. If the object has no color then there is no way for the noncolor to resemble the color. It cannot be a more exact copy of our ideas since that is still an idea. The more exact copy would be as perceived by someone with more exact vision. It is still unnatachable from perception. How far do you zoom in to that exact copy? It cannot be all at once. If immediately perceive means we can know its nature only on the basis of the perceptual experience, Dicker says it does exclude the possibility of us indirectly perceiving an object, but again,  this object is undefined. If immediately perceive means it is necessary that something neither identical with it nor a part of it is perceived, again he says this does not conflict with the idea that a material object is perceived. But again, there is no way of defining this object without resorting to ideas. An unknowable thing-in-itself has been advanced by philosophers such as Kant and proves to be no better of an alternative than a pure idealism.

     Dicker explains that you cannot make the argument that whatever is perceived is immediately perceived since when you perceive, for example, a white rhomboidal patch you are perceiving something that is not identical with an envelope. However an argument can be advanced like that of Sprigge that the envelope is really the totality of different perspectives of the envelope compounded together as a concrete universal. But we can say the white rhomboidal patch is an envelope without appealing to this description by appealing to hallucinations and dreams. Certainly if we dream an envelope as simply a white rhomboidal patch we can regard it as an envelope without appealing to a physical object.

     Next, we turn to Dicker’s defense against Berkeley’s attack on the theory of primary and secondary qualities. Berkeley’s argument comes in three steps: (a) primary qualities cannot be abstracted from secondary qualities, (b) secondary qualities exist only in the mind, ∴(c) primary qualities exist only in the mind. Dicker argues that this argument has an error since one need not accept (a). Dicker resorts to his two-term theory of representationalism in which we immediately perceive an idea, but we indirectly perceive an object. Dicker says the dispositional aspect of a shape can be abstracted from the manifest aspect of a color since there properties of shapes that do not reference perception such as a square object not being able to fit into a circular hole. Dicker is again leaving the object undefined. The argument does not work because although this is less dependent on perception than the manifest aspect of a color, you are still visualizing it in order to make that statement, and so you must ascribe secondary qualities to the object when making that statement. Dicker goes on to defend an argument in which only the visual manifest aspect of a shape is nothing but a sensation in the mind, but this is in error, because he still has not been able to detach the dispositional of a shape from its manifest aspect. You can allow an object to exist beyond perception, but it is immediately diagnosed as paradoxical, that is it has paradox in it. Because that object is still part of perception, and is simply an idea in the mind. If that object has its colors, and so it must be perceived by a mind. There are other secondary qualities that must be attributed to a perciever in order for it to make any sense such as weight

     We now move to Berkeley’s positive metaphysics, which should be taken independently of his proof of idealism.

     According to Berkeley, ideas are dependent beings that exist in the mind or spirit. He argues that ideas must have a cause, and this cause is not material, so that this cause must be a mental substance. So Berkeley locates the soul in a nonspatial location situated in the mind. We can have no idea of the soul since the mind is the active creator of ideas, so no idea can be like it. This raises the objection that our ideas could simply be collection of sense impressions without any substance underlying them. Dicker argues that Berkeley to be consistent should have rejected spiritual substance for the same reason as rejecting material substance. However, Berkeley’s point is that his idealism demonstrates the possibility of the soul. In materialism, there the soul is difficult to argue for, while Berkeley’s idealism leaves open the possibility of the soul. If one system makes a positive claim that another cannot, one should accept the system holding the positive claim.  Clearly, there is a mind and the question becomes whether this is synonymous with mental substance. We have a notion of mental substance since we see ourselves acting, and we have memories and traits that remain the same throughout our life that can be obtained through introspection. So the soul can be argued for a posteriori. We should distinguish between the soul and the self, and the notion of a self has been argued to be self-contradictory by philosophers such as the Buddhists. But it can be argued that there are errors in the argument. The only material substance that can be argued for that is not self-contradictory is a completely unknowable thing-in-itself, and we can have no notion of this thing-in-itself. And reality remains consistent for the most part when the thing-in-itself is denied.

     Berekeley next demonstrates the existence of God with the argument that (a) we produce some of our ideas voluntarily, but our ideas of perception do not depend on us, (b) this cause must be some nonhuman spirit, (c) these ideas have an amazing degree of clarity, order, and beauty, ∴(d) this spirit must be God. Dicker finds error in the teleological argument for Gods existence, however, I do not believe this is Berkeley’s main point. First of all, the teleological argument for Gods existence is not a mathematical proof of God but it is certainly a solid proof of Gods existence as no a posteriori proof is completely infallible. It must be remembered that Berkley’s idealism is subjective, making what the subject experiences in first order experience most important. Secondly, this is where religion with its revelation takes over. Again, philosophy must not necessarily detach from religion and it is an equally valid abstraction for philosophy to attach to as the sciences. Berkeley’s main point is that some nonhuman spirit’s consciousness is enough to hold the empirical reality of experience in place. Berkeley then says that God imprints these ideas on the human mind. And I think this is appropriate because if this sprits ideas were independent of the human mind and the human then perceived these independent ideas, you would run into issues of causality such as how a human can perceive another idea. Therefore it is best to think of this spirits ideas as existing one with our ideas and imprinted on our ideas. Also I believe there should be regarded an element of externality to these ideas, that they are external, but what is external exists in the mind.

     Two points are in order. First, Dicker, says that one runs into issues such as how this spirits ideas can cauase the human body when clearly, Berkely argues for free will and this runs into paradox. However, Betcher’s argument holds and that is that the body is simultaneously an idea of imagination and an idea of the world and this is the same argument Fichte uses when he derives the body within the world. Another way of looking at it is that the soul extends into the body. Another issue involving the mind body problem is how an object be caused by the mind when every object must be the cause of an idea, which Dicker terms CCP.  And this makes sense because we have the standard model of how the light bounces off the object and creates and penetrates the retina. There are two ways around this difficulty. The first is to accept CCP, exept adding an additional component where all of this takes place within a mind. But also we must remember that CCP has errors in it and that is that there is no way of translating that frequency that turns into beats in the brain into the actual representation. This is demonstrated with arguments for qualia that necessarily are necessarily metaphysical and Schopenhauer raises this objection. So CCP runs into paradox with Berkeley, but there is paradox within CCP itself. So we have the well known problem of CCP running running into paradoxes with idealism and idealism running paradoxes with CCP. Further it can be argued that that piece of information is only for the natural scientist according to Berkeley.  For the ordinary person, this can be ignored.  That is, there is no evidence of the light bouning off the object to ordinary vision, and the internal consistency of taking mind first and science secondary allows one to ignore this information.

. . .

The Philosophy of the Upanisads

Posted on by leyoucis

   The Upaniṣads are a collection of documents written by various anonymous authors shortly after the Vedas were written, and the majority of them were most likely pre-Buddhistic. It a system of philosophy with a mystic haze that transitions from the emphasis on ritualistic practices of the Vedas. These writings were often in contradiction, but a general theory can be extracted from them. They are often written in analogy and metaphor and very little is known about the lives of the writers. The Upaniṣads places a greater emphasis on monism and the inner world than the Vedas and less of a concern with the rituals of the Vedas. This monism was hinted at in the Vedas but not carried out in full. The polytheism was retained but subordinated to the whole. This allowed a concentration on right living. There was a concentration on the God that is contained in the back of the mind. In the Vedas there were pleasures and the Gods were to be both trusted and feared, and this replaced by a pessimism. The rituals were replaced by a spiritual life.

     There are two fundamental features of the universe, according the Upaniṣads: Brahman and Atman, Brahman being objective and Atman being subjective. Brahman is a consciousness that the world is contained in and is immanent in the world, and Atman is the higher self, as it exists one with Brahman. The discovery of the Ataman is based on a reduction ad absurdum on the different concepts of self; the three types of selves that are refuted are the (a) bodily self, the (b) empirical and dreaming self, and the (c) self in a dreamless state of sleep. The bodily self is rejected as the true self since a person remains the same if he crippled or diseased and so forth. This leads to the empirical self as it exists a collection of experience bundles. However, this is not the true self because the empirical self seems to lack consciousness. Next is considered the self as it exists in a dreamless state of sleep. However, this rejected because an object is needed for consciousness. Thus the true self is seen to an infinite consciousness that is both subject and object. It includes the past and the present and all experience in it.  Brahman and Atman are seen as one in the same thing in the Upanisads. For nature exists only for the subject, the sun serves as light for walking, the darkness to cause him to sleep. One becomes the Atman when he realizes this unity of subject and object. Note the Upanisads treat dreams as unreal.

     The main goal of the Upaniṣads ethics is becoming one with Brahman. This is commonly objected against that this does not allow for any moral relations. However, the recognition that we are all part of Brahman means that a person should treat everyone as equals. The Upaniṣads are for a life of reason, free from too much sensual desire. If a person allows their senses to guide them, their life becomes a mirage of temporary passions and inclinations. When a person subsumes to reason, their life takes propose, which according to the  Upaniṣads is devotion to the community. Finite objects, while worthwhile, only give temporary satisfaction and the only thing of permanent value is Brahman. They are against the ego as this leads to selfishness and a cutting-off from others. A persons appreciation of the world is in direct proportion to poverty. Wealth is only handleable by the person of wisdom. But the individual should be detached from the world, that is, detached from everything that keeps the soul tied to the earth. One can cleans, fast, and be in solitude. The Upaniṣads believe a proper life is a life of social service and helping of others. However, the Upaniṣads are for a healthy enjoyment of the world. One should be detached from the world but participatory in the world. A person should work for others and themselves as we are all part of Brahman. According the Upaniṣads, evil is the result of humans denying the reality of Brahman by the ego. The Upaniṣads are against the ego in all forms and putting oneself above Brahman. Humans are not meant to progress, and all progress can be destructive. The highest state for the Upaniṣads is becoming one with Brahman, and this is like a state of ecstasy and cannot be described but the oneness of everything is realized. This can only be captured through metaphor. It is an eternal timeless state, much like being in a trance. It can also be compared to viewing a beautiful work of art. The person becomes omniscient and the creator of the world. (Revise)

     Karma, for the Upaniṣads is a cosmic law of the conservation of moral energy. It is impossible to avoid the law of karma. In the Vedas, the karmic force would be cut off through sacrificing animals and in the Upaniṣads, this sacrificing was replaced by performing good deeds. It is sometimes said that karma is incompatible with social service since it causes a person to be concerned only with himself. However, we can be free only through social service. A person can increase his well-being only through helping others. And this helping of others should be disinterested as selfish work can result in bondage. . . . Karma is a blind cosmic force that operates from without. This is sometimes said to be in contradiction with Brahman. However, karma is seen as an expression of the absolute, that is Brahman controls the process and this process operates as a law. Brahman does not operate miraculously.

     There is no single theory of future life in the Upaniṣads, and these concep-tions are often combinations of rationalism and mysticism. The Upaniṣads transformed the Vedic conception of rebirth in another world to reincarnation in this world. When you good in this life you are reincarnated as a higher human or a God, and when you do bad in this life, you are reincarnated as something lower such as an animal. That you can be reborn as an animal was originally not mentioned in the earlier texts and added later. Reincarnation into animal bodies can be seen as a way of accounting for the bizarreness of certain animal and human life. . . . The only thing is preserved upon a person’s death is his karma. With Kausitaki, we see perhaps a purely mystical notion of the afterlife in which people go to the moon after death. Some believe that the light will travel to the different spheres of Agni in the plane of Brahma. These other worlds are left over from the Vedic conceptions.

     Here we give a brief comparison of Fichte, Jainism, and the Upaniṣads ethics and metaphysics. These are similar systems with differences. Each of posits a limiting principle of ultimate consciousness for the individual to attempt to obtain. However, there are differences in the process of obtaining this goal and the goal itself. For Fichte, the goal is reached through asserting the will and obtaining more of the world under the individuals consciousness, for the  Upaniṣads, the goal is reached through social service, and for Jainism, the goal is reached through performing deeds of various types and detaching from matter. For the Upaniṣads, the Atman is attached to Brahman, and for Fichte and Jainism God is not part of the system. Although Fichte’s limiting principle is called the absolute ego, Fichte’s system is strongly attached to morals, as he is simultaneously a solipsist and for other minds, and his morals are very similar in regards Upaniṣads in that you are supposed to be working for the community, which is the natural stance for a mutual minded subjective idealism. Fichte’s ontology is a pure subjective idealism, Jainism is an atomism, and the Upaniṣads is a mixture of subjective and objective idealisms. Also the Upaniṣads adds multiple gods into its ontology as well. There are many subtle differences in the ethics of each of these systems. And these loosely follow from the limiting starting points. Each of these different approaches to obtaining absolute consciousness can be used in concert with each other or taken on their own. So these are similar systems in that they each posit limiting goal for consciousness, but there are metaphysical differences and ethical differences, epistemological differences, and so forth in each of these systems. For those who wish to do these things without respect to metaphysical issues, they must realize there are usually metaphysical issues latent in any idealism.