[Buddha-l] Query about Francisco Varela

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Alberto Todeschini wrote:
>
>
> Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
>
>> The weak point of Varela is precisely his biologism, the illusion
>> that you can explain human behaviour and even the meaning of life by
>> means of biological theories.
>
> Dear Erik,
>
> Just out of curiosity, what is the meaning of life that you refer to?
> And can you give evidence that Varela's biologism is an illusion?
> I haven't read anything that Varela has written, and I'd like you to 
> elaborate on what you said.
>
Hi Alberto,

My critique on Varela is based on an hour long documentary about his 
life. Off course 'the meaning of life' is a loose expression. Husserl 
called it the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). The critique I referred to boils 
down to two arguments.
1. All science is a posteriori, philosophy is a priori. Psychology f.e. 
explains why a person thinks this thought and not what it means. 
Philosophy is about meaning, not about the question whether anyone has 
ever thought about it or not.
2. Logic is part of any explanation, so it cannot be itself explained.

This is why Husserl said the science casts a cloth of ideas 
(Ideeënkleid) over the lifeworld. The lifeword is the world that's 
already there and implied in all our thoughts and actions. Merleau-Ponty 
called it the 'il y a', the 'there is'. Heidegger accuses science to 
focus only on things that exist and forget aboute existence itself.
Like Barnaby suggests, this is all water that has passed under the 
bridge long ago, but more recently philosophers like Bruno Latour have 
stressed that science is not delivering truth. It is nothing more than 
an industry that delivers explanational models and technology, but the 
model never coincides with the explaned.
The question I find interesting is: are meditation and Buddhism part of 
the lifeworld, or are they toolkits we can use to get what we want? The 
'Mind and life' initiative thinks Buddhism is a toolkit like science, 
and so both are comparable and can help each other, I think this is a 
mistake.

Erik