Why No Arguments For Zen Philosophical Theses?
marsha...@osu.edu
arguments for the two theses. To say those are wrong would be quite
the fallacy as I'm not nearly as knowledgable about Asian philosophy
as he is, but I don't think his explaination is the correct one. Well
what I'm trying to say, which is ironically similar to the Chinese
philosophy on philosophies, is that I think I have a more complete
anwser as to why there is no argument for either one. Maybe this
hasn't been thought of yet, but chances are it was simply neglected in
class unintentionally or, more likely, intentionally, or maybe I'm
just plain wrong. I don't know but this is what I think.
I feel that another reason that Zen masters and followers have not
offered an argument for their theses is because to do so would in fact
show that the theses are incorrect.
The first theses states that language and concepts can't describe
reality/nirvana/enlightenment properly. Well to argue for that would
be trying to describe it in words, which can't be done according to
theses one.
The second talks openness. Well to attempt to describe it puts a
mindset forth that is a concept. It is like laying track for a
train. To lay the mindset out denies openness. It pigeonholes and
catagorizes. That is the opposite of openness.
Does this makes sense to anyone? Does anyone agree? Disagree?
Kevin Chung
everything. Therefore, when an unpredictable action has occurred,
does that mean you can't explain that unpredictable action because you
really can't, because either you did it on impulse and there really is
no reason to why you did it. That or you dont know why, and just call
it Zen?
On Mar 1, 2:43 pm, "marshall....@osu.edu" <marshall....@osu.edu>
wrote:
Nicholaos Jones
literature for the theses that drive their practice is better than the
first two we discussed in class. Still, I think it is not entirely
good, because one criterion for the goodness of an explanation is that
it be able applicable to other similar situations. (For instance, the
explanation that Zen doesn't have arguments because it is more
religion than philosophy is bad, because it doesn't explain why
Christian literature has arguments despite being a religion.)
According to marshall's explanation, there aren't arguments in Zen
literature because such arguments would disprove the theses. But both
of the thesis are argued for by other traditions (Nagarjuna argues for
the first; Daoists argue for the second), and they don't seem to be
bothered by the worry that their arguments refute their theses.
Here's an explanation for why they don't have this worry: when
Nagarjuna argues that concepts can't adequately describe reality, he's
adopting the framework of those who disagree with him for the sake of
argument, and using that framework to show that the framework doesn't
do what it purports to do -- but his own framework doesn't involve
making conceptual claims about the way reality really is: he's saying
that IF concepts can adequately describe reality, then they can't.
This is a tactic of using your opponent's weapons against them. This
is why he says that even emptiness is empty -- he is dealing with the
accusation that he is, after all, trying to describe reality with
concepts (namely, the concept of emptiness). You might imagine using
a similar stragegy to show that words don't have any meaning: assume
they do for the sake of argument, then use that assumption to show
that words don't mean anything -- even if YOU don't think the argument
has any meaning, your opponents do, and they should respond to you
argument by abandoning their assumption that the argument has meaning.
As for the Daoists, they're not going to insist that their arguments
are correct. They put the arguments out there: if people get
persuaded, they'll be happy. If people aren't persuaded, the Daoists
will go with the flow and not get enbroiled in further argument --
after all, if they win the argument, does that show that they're right
after all or just that they're better at arguing?
As for the response about being unpredictable: acting naturally
doesn't have to involve being unpreditable: if the natural thing to do
in a situation is to act in a preditable manner, then act in a
predctable manner. As for the causal story behind unpreditable
actions, I don't think Daoists need to take a stand either way: maybe
some of them have a hidden reason and some don't. Why waste energy
trying to figure this out?
gren...@osu.edu
its self up to be unprovable thus unable to be disproved? It just
seems that they use this basic assumption that you can't use concepts
because they are limiting and don't properly describe reality. So,
were does that leave us? Why not try to invent a way to properly
describe our world? I understand that acting natural has alot to do
with trying to represent the way things really are, but then why use
language at all? Just some questions.
Nicholaos Jones
from a direct (and "truer") experience of reality. There is a
psychological component to this theme: we are built in such a way that
we get caught up in concepts, we mis-take them for the way things
really are and, as a result, develop craving desires. There is also a
metaphysical component to this theme: the very nature of concepts is
to represent things as unchanging and enduring through time; but this
distorts how things are. If we use concepts to say something like
"reality is always changing", we are still trapped by the concepts:
they prevent us from experiencing the ever-changing nature of reality
by allowing us to put reality into a conceptual box. Of course,
Buddhists still use language -- they write sutras, etc. But the
writing is secondary to practice -- this is something that comes
across most forcefully with Zen.
As for Chinese philosophy in general, Confucianism doesn't claim that
any part of reality is unknowable. That claim is more part of Daoism
and Chinese Buddhism. Daoism says the dao is not describable in words
-- but not that it is unknowable: it can be experienced directly, but
this experience cannot be adequately communicated with language.
There is a similar theme in non-Chinese, more traditionally Western
philosophy. For example, there is a long tradition in Christian
philosophical thought to the effect that the nature of God is
unknowable -- God can be characterized negatively, by denying
properties (not finite, not mortal, not limited in any way). But the
positive properties ascribed to God (all-knowing, all-powerful, etc)
are so unlike the properties we attribute to beings we experience in
ordinary life (knowledge, power, etc) that the words we use to
describe those properties only apply to God by analogy (we don't
really know what we're saying when we say that God is all-powerful,
for instance).