[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[JKirkpatrick]

HZ:
Joanna wrote :
>I ignore anything anyone says about existentialism. period.

Better to dump Batchelor's book then.

JK: That's silly.

HZ:
" Martin Buber......and esp. Paul Tillich...thinkers that
influenced him."  

JK:
Who says these scholars were existentialists? 
Influence is not the same as membership in the cult.
Also, I don't see Husserl and Levinas as existentialists. They
were prominent European theologians and or philosophers, not
members of the cult led by Sartre.

To me it's OK if SB once wrote on his view of existentialism as a
'foundation' in Buddhism, and other influences--he writes in his
latest book that he once had a strong interest in existentialism.
I probably didn't read that bit carefully because I don't recall
what he said--whatever it was, it was about his personal journey;
I don't view his book as a treatise on existentialism. 

However, yes-- I did read the whole book. If Nyanavira (referred
to by SB) was taking note of the existentialists fashionable in
his day, so what? His death made it all too clear that he was
deeply identified with the Theravada vinaya. That SB felt
compelled, or interested, to think over Heidegger and some of the
others, is not an argument in favor of dumping his book. SB
thinks for himself;  as he models being a philosopher, he is
courteous to other kinds of thinking going on around him before
his, or after their, lives that influenced him. 

Everybody is influenced by more than one of the many critiques on
offer now, from the past, or projected into the future.  Somebody
recently mentioned Bloom's "anxiety of influence"; yes, it is
always at work.  

Arguing about who is or is not a_____[name the brand]___ is
pointless. We all should be accorded the freedom to approve of,
be influenced by, or to ignore whichever and whomever.
What I meant when I asserted that I "ignore anything anyone says
about existentialism," but wasn't too clear about, is that I
might read what someone says or not, but I won't discuss it if
it's about existentialism. I even avoided discussing it now. 

Nice thing about a book is that you are not in a position to
discuss with the author-- except maybe virtually on Boodle-L.

Joanna
 
_________________________________


It is all too clear that Batchelor owes a large debt to
existentialist philosophers and theologians.
He mentions Husserl, Heidegger and Lévinas as philosophers in
which he got interested at a certain point, and he explicitly
names Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, John Macquarrie and esp. 
Paul Tillich as thinkers that influenced him. He also states that
he has a geater affinity with the theologian Don Cupitt than with
any living Buddhist thinker. Cupitt is also influenced by
existentialist thought.

Batchelor also mentions the maverick bhikkhu Nyanavira, who was
interested in Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre, and who
experimented with existentialist interpretations of buddhist
thought in the fifties. Batchelor shares Nyanavira's view that :
"[.] the existentialist philosophers can provide a helpful
bridge, especially to a modern reader puzzled by the jargon of
Buddhism to understanding the relevance of Gotama's discourses in
the Pali Canon to their own lives."(pp.144-5).
Batchelor's first attempt to formulate his own thought was an
essay called 'The Existential Foundations of Buddhism', the
subtitle of his first book 'Alone with Others' was 'An
Existential Approach to Buddhism'.

One could go on, but I'll rest my case.
I'm beginning to wonder, has anyone actually read the whole book
?

Herman





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