[Buddha-l] Re. scholarship and philosophy

[Robert Ellis]

Dear Franz,
Thanks for the positive encouragement. I take this to?imply that philosophers are not in fact banned from Buddha-l.

You wrote:
>>It is natural and appropriate that the academic pursuit of "Buddhist Studies" will differ from the apologetic pursuit of Christian Theology. Their goals and methods are incommensurable, at least in their purest forms.<<

I think this view depends on a strong fact-value distinction, which is philosophically extremely suspect, and which the Buddhist Middle Way itself gives us resources to question. No set of facts about Buddhism are free of values, and Buddhist scholars who think they are being scientifically neutral in their treatment of Buddhism are actually preaching descriptive relativism. If objectivity is a property of persons rather than of propositions (as again the Middle Way, and many associated Buddhist insights, would suggest), then greater objectivity can be gained through committed investigation of the philosophical issues raised by Buddhism than by merely describing it from a supposedly neutral standpoint.

Thanks for the link to Global Buddhism, which I will take a closer look at. However, the issues I'm raising are not particularly about advocating Buddhism as opposed to describing and analysing it. I am not myself a Buddhist (though I have been), and I am not advocating Buddhism as such.?I am arguing?that philosophical and normative modes of argument should take their place alongside scholarly ones. As I wrote in my last post about this, scholars of Buddhist Studies in influential positions are preventing good philosophical work being done because of their narrow-minded assumptions about what constitutes Buddhist Studies. It is not a question of advocacy, but of method.
Best wishes,
Robert


Robert Ellis

website: www.moralobjectivity.net