[Buddha-l] Batchelor

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 20-05-10 22:32, JKirkpatrick schreef:
>
> HZ:
> Joanna wrote :
>    
>> I ignore anything anyone says about existentialism. period.
>>      
> 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.
>    
Existentialism is a name for Sartre's philosophy, given by a Parisian 
journalist. It is not a cult. If you care to read Sartre, you'll see 
that he has a many meaningful things to say to us. As a philosopher he 
was an exception in that he wrote exceptionally well, so many of his 
readers took on some of his ideas. Often philosophy of existence is 
incorrectly called 'existentialism'. Husserl can not be included in this 
movement, though he came very close at the end, but Levinas and the 
early Heidegger can. Paul Tillich used to be a very devoted Heidegger fan.
Combining existence philosophy and Buddhism is promising because the 
Noble Truths are existential (if they are not, they would hardly change 
our life). It would however mean a new kind of Buddhism, because the 
Asiatic Buddhism is characterized by its own traditional more or less 
theological discourse.

erik