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Santana and Santanantara: An Analysis of the Buddhist Perspective Concerning Continuity, Transformation and Transcendence and the Basis of an ... psycholo (Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series)
SummaryThis book is long-winded, repetitious, and void of any insight or relevance. It reads Nicholas Rescher's ideas into medieval Buddhism without admitting the debt or justifying the anachronism.Full ReviewBy its title and self-description this book promises to solve the greatest outstanding metaphysical problem of Buddhist philosophy: how the theory of the momentariness of being can be reconciled with the obvious regularity and continuity of events.Continuity and regularity seem to imply cumulative determination and causal interdependence over time. In principle, Buddhists shouldn't have any objection to interpreting continuity in terms of causality. Causality is a fundamental concept in Buddhism. Indeed, a core teaching establishes the "relativity" of things to one another by an appeal to their causal interdependence. Recognizing this relativity, catechized under the label pratityasamutpada, and seeing how it entails the illusoriness of existence, is a crucial step on the path to enlightenment. But seeing how this teaching can coexist with the momentariness doctrine is a tall order: how could moments be "atoms" and yet interdependent? how could their contents be both absolutely self-sufficient and relative to one another?Already Kamalashila (8th century CE) threw up his hands on this one, admitting in his commentary on the Tattvasangraha of Shantaraksita that there's no accounting why dharmas pop into and out of existence in cumulatively coherent ways (like seed-sprout-plant, etc.) rather than as an aleatoric jumble. Commentators as recent as Stcherbatsky were unable to explain how dharmas could be confined to the instant and yet causally interdependent. Following in the footsteps of Kamalashila, Stcherbatsky simply denied that the Buddhist metaphysicians really believed in causality! (See Central Conception, p. 38: "A cause for the Buddhists was not a real cause...").Murti thought the hopelessness of this problem is what motivated Nagarjuna's famous critique of "own-being." The doctrine of momentariness turns dharmas into paradigm examples of absolutely self-sufficient substances, things wholly possessed of their own being. Since relativity (pratityasamutpada) contradicts any such a notion, it's the putative ultimateness of the moment-atoms we must give up (Central Philosophy, p. 122). The universal assault on own-being then generalizes quite logically and naturally from the special but paradigmatic case of time.Stcherbatsky and Murti only disagree on the details here. They agree that causality and momentariness are irreconcilable teachings and that thinking Buddhists really held only one or the other, not both.Kalupahana agrees that the prospects of reconciliation are hopeless, and he agrees with Murti's assessment that this is what motivated Nagarjuna's critique, but he thinks it's all moot: the Buddha never taught momentariness. The doctrine of momentariness, he believes, is an unfortunate medieval excrescence that has no defensible place in Buddhist teaching (Causality: Central Philosophy of Buddhism, ch. IV).In short, no scholar thinks the two doctrines can be reconciled. And nor do they think any of the great Buddhist philosophers imagined they could be reconciled. From the analyses of Stcherbatsky, Murti, and Kalupahana we can draw the following conclusion: Although some Buddhist thinkers may have paid lip service to both doctrines, they saw the contradictions and so were in reality committed to only one or the other, never both.But the problem isn't just how the doctrine of momentariness can be reconciled with other Buddhist teachings. It's also how it can be reconciled with phenomenology and common sense. That the Buddha didn't hold the doctrine of moments is an interesting proposition and quite plausible, but the fact is that the doctrine was tenaciously cultivated for centuries by Buddhism's greatest philosophers. What we really need to know is how this was possible. How could so many sane intelligent minds hold such a seemingly incredible doctrine? Until we can explain how they reconciled the doctrine of moments with the phenomenology of their own ordinary experience, it's premature to talk about whether it can be reconciled with classical Buddhist teachings. And it not implausible to suppose that solving the former problem will make the latter one easy if not trivial.Whoa! Now Chinchore steps into the ring. She's ready to tussle with the problem unsolved by giants like Murti and Stcherbatsky, and look out! She's gonna save the theory of moments and reveal at long last how a great Buddhist metaphysician like Dharmakirti could find the moment-theory convincing. Is she up to the challenge? Sorry, this levitatingly light-weight contender doesn't even qualify for the competition. The book is horribly disappointing. It's more prolix than this review and says nothing. There as good chunk, maybe 50 pages, just giving essentially autobiographical details as to why she allowed the topic of the book to drift as her research progressed! Her only idea is that the Buddhists can accept continuity as a contingent fact. No answer at all to the big question: why so much continuity in this unregulated series of moments? Is it really all fortuitous? Just happens that way for no reason at all?GIVEN regularity and continuity as a fortuitous fact in our experience (which is giving a lot: the whole metaphysical question is begged), she makes the comparatively unimportant point that we then construe a public world of PRESUMED causal order. No sign of her knowing that this transition from privacy to world is still fraught with difficulties, or that it is the subject of much philosophizing--of, say, Husserl's whole phenomenology, and her attempt at executing the transition shows no descriptive nuance or rigor.There's the hint of an interesting idea in her suggestion that the mind's own facultative nature (its ability to cognize) serves as the indispensable model for this construction of objective order (because e.g. causation involves the ascription of facultative properties to things). Supposedly this is the fundamental insight motivating cittamatra, the Mind-Only school of Buddhist Idealism, and supposedly this is what is being developed systematically by that cunning Dharmakirti. Actually, it's a thesis cribbed from the contemporary American philosopher Nicholas Rescher (Conceptual Idealism, A System of Pragmatic Idealism, Philosophical Standardism, etc.). In fact, at this point in the book (ca. p. 179ff.) something bizarre happens. The philosophy of Dharmakirti turns out to be nothing other than the philosophy of Nicholas Rescher, which is embedded wholesale and sometimes verbatim--with nary a mention of Rescher's name--into the exposition of medieval Buddhism!An honest book about how Rescher's ideas could be put to use in this way might have been of some value, but this book is a joke.
Behemoth: The structure and practice of national socialism, 1933-1944
This is one of the oldest books on National Socialism. It is also one of the best. It is unique because it covers the organization and structure of the state, a field that is far less widely covered than the narrative history of the regime. The book contains detailed studies of different aspects of the Nazi state. People who want more information on this subject might want to go to my profile and check my Listmania books on totalitarianism and German history.
Behemoth: The structure and practice of national socialism, 1933-1944
Good book --- Often over my head on matter I know little about --- Law for example. That's a plus however, being over my head, because I would rather struggle through something and haved learned something than to breeze through something and learn nothing. I'd say if you wish to know something of National Socialism --- this is it.
Behemoth: The structure and practice of national socialism, 1933-1944
An interesting look at the economic blueprints for the Third Reich.Back then,cartels and price-controls were easier to enforce and mandate.Economies of yesterday were isolated and small.Today,it's hard to say if their business policies could work.This book has a wealth of economic ideas.Some are good and others are quite bad.The Nazi economists went about tailoring their policies for the worker.Many excellent ideas,yet some policies were for enforcing slave labor.It seems the business cartels got richer,the average Nazi worker eventually lost out,and slave labor was exploited to the fullest.I think in recent years,the Europeans were duped into thinking the 'Euro',was best for everybody.The poorer countries brought down the economies of the richer nations,rather them making them equaul and better off.For the Southern Europeans still moving into the heartland of Europe,it has forced the labor market to be over-loaded with semi-skilled workers.This book on Nazi economic laws and practices could not work today,given the racial views of the day and the rise of global business.If China becomes christianized,it will suffer the same fate as the European countries;high unemployment and labor protests.In South America,most of them catholic socialist countries,are heading towards an economic confederacy.Perhaps one day,one single currency for all of South America.The South American countries work better together,rather than the Northern European nations with the Southern European ones.Canada and Mexico does so much business with America already,perhaps a tri-lateral currency,would improve the well-being of all three.This book is an insight of how Nazi Germany's micro-management was structured and attempted to be maintained.The on-going battle between micro-economics and macro-economics continues.One thing is clear,it's probably in the interest of wealthier nations to stablise poorer nations.It's better to share the pruning-sheers and plough-shares of today,therefore avoiding the battle-swords of tomorrow.
Barking Man
This is worth reading even if just for "Customs of the Country," a work of tremendous sadness, sensitivity, and restraint, one of the great American stories of the last 25 years.
Barking Man
This is a collection of short stories by a great writer. My favorites were "Petit Cachou" about hustlers and marginal types on the French Riviera and "Move on Up" about relationships among street people in New York. Absolutely first class