Fw: [Buddha-l] Causality and Western philosophy

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

jkirk schreef:

> Hello Bob
>
> Glad my thought resonated----your point well-taken.
> I see the significance for conversations between western and Indian 
> philosophies not only in terms of dukkha, but more so in terms of 
> anatman (anatta) and western concepts of essence, which seem to have 
> occupied many a western philosopher. If P-S, then no essence. As I 
> recall, the western linguistic philosophers exposed the notion of 
> essence (and we could perhaps say, of nama-rupa by extension) as a 
> function of language operations, and more power to them.

I once spoke to Arne Neass and he had been fooling around with Chinese 
philosophy. Th eonly think he could say that there was a huge gap 
between Eastern wisdom and Western philosophy.

> But traditional western preoccupations with metaphysics as a result of 
> the impact of Christianity and the soul concept on centuries of 
> scholars led to essentialism of all kinds (of course in his own way 
> Plato subscribed to it as well, but differently from the Christians), 
> a development that finally began to be deconstructed in late 19th c 
> European thought. (This is just a nutshell statement.) That 
> development is what led some Buddhist scholars in recent years to 
> notice resemblances between Najarjuna et al and Derrida et al.

Others have pointed to Foucault. I think these comparisons are all very 
superficial. And of course the ambiance is quite different. Naagaarjuna 
and Sextus Empiricus is a better match. In my translation of the 
kaarika's I mention the phenomenological tradition and most of all 
Pierre Bourdieu. The problem is that it's all bits and peaces, f.i. 
Kant's discussion of the ego is quite usefull and Sartre's 'aneantir' is 
the spitting image of 'apoha'.


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
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