[Buddha-l] Anomalous doctrines

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-03-24 at 03:16 +0000, Stephen Hodge wrote:

> Also to me, greater and greater degrees of philosophical
> sophistication suggests later and later works. 

By this line of reasoning, George W. Bush would have to be reckoned more
sophisticated than Thomas Jefferson, or earlier in time. The principle
you invoke here is flawed on two grounds. First, there is no accurate
measure of philosophical sophistication. And second, even if there were,
there is no reason to believe that philosophy always moves toward
greater sophistication instead of, say, steadily growing worse (as is
suggested in most Indian mythology) or vacillating as a pendulum. The
pendulum model seems to work pretty well for a lot of human enterprises.

How many surveyors today would know how to calculate their positions by
looking up sines and cosines in a book of mathematical tables and then
doing their figures by multiplication and division on a sheet of paper?
Judging from what I see students of surveying doing nowadays, they seem
to peer into an instrument and read off their location. Is this an
advance in sophistication or a retreat? I can see a case being made for
each view, but I can't think of any compelling arguments that would
settle the question definitively. In matters of this sort, I think we
may be locked into a framework of subjectivity. And, I think, may be
where many of the attempts of scholars to sort out historical issues in
Buddhism lie.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico