[Buddha-l] Scholarship and philosophy

[Robert Ellis]

Joanna Kirk wrote:

>>Your discussions have been such generalisations that someone has asked you which suttas you are referring to or reflecting upon. You only reply that you are stating a generalised view. However, if you want to persuade people that your views have a basis, you need to take up specific suttas and contest/deconstruct them accordingly.? On a list like this, how can you go on maintaining a lofty position of your own unassailable position by not citing examples from the tradition?<<
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I was not aware that this list was exclusively devoted to scholarly discussion which must always be backed up by references to texts. If that is the case, I apologise for intruding upon you, because I am really not interested in such scholarly discussion. Perhaps the moderator could confirm if he thinks I should not be contributing in a philosophical vein. However, it does appear to me that at least some members of this list (such as Vicente and Jayarava) are interested in some measure of philosophical discussion.

My reply was not just that I am stating a generalised view. It was that I am arguing philosophically. Philosophical argument involves a combination of theorisation on the basis of experience, and the rational examination of such theorisations for consistency, justifiability, and acceptability of?implications. Philosophical argument, unlike scholarly argument, allows basic assumptions to be questioned. Thus my position is neither "lofty", nor "unassailable", it is simply philosophical, and thus open to dispute. If you do not agree with it, why not offer counter-arguments, instead of?diverting the discussion into?personal criticism by reading negative emotional states into it??

I don't see what is wrong with summarising the view of karma that one has encountered in experience of what Buddhists generally say.?If your experience of what Buddhists generally say is different, then fair enough, just say so: but nobody as yet has said this.

The reason that I am not interested in arguing about suttas is not because?I have not read any - I have read many, and also studied Pali and Sanskrit. However, constant appeals to traditional texts for me usually just beg the question as to why we should accept what the text says. If?one does not start with a basic assumption that?texts should be accepted just because they are traditional, then they only have the status of theory: which means that I am happy to refer to them if they say anything interesting which relates to my experience, but not to accept any duty to do so.?

Academics in Buddhist Studies?very often?seem to me to adopt an unduly narrow approach in their requirements?for so-called scholarly rigour (even when this rigour does not include examining one's assumptions), and excluding philosophical approaches. I have met several frustrated postgraduates in UK universities who wanted to do philosophical work, but had been forced by their narrow-minded supervisors to spend several years studying Chinese, or Pali, or similar, even though this had very little relationship to the philosophical work they wanted to do, which could just as easily be done in translation. In Buddhist Ethics, as a postgraduate, I found my philosophical approach was?completely excluded from all discussion. It was only a few open-minded philosophers (on the edge of the dominant analytic vs continental divide) that I was able to work with.

In the longer term, such narrowness condemns Buddhist Studies to irrelevance. The insights offered by Buddhism are applicable to everyone, but most people in the West are rightly not interested in scholarly disputations on suttas, which have?very little?relevance to their lives. Philosophical exploration, however, has the potential to develop that universality and relevance, and address basic questions of the grounds of judgement in such matters.

I also find the situation bizarre if you compare Buddhist Studies to Christian theology. Christian theologians refer to texts, but a large portion of their discussions?are philosophical or theological, and deeply engaged with examining the core assumptions of Christian belief. Why is such an approach so often rigidly excluded from discussion in Buddhist Studies?
Best wishes,
Robert


Robert Ellis

website: www.moralobjectivity.net