Wednesday, May 14, 2008

A professional look ...

... at ontological reductionism: Against Buddhist Reductionism: Call for Comments. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

This suggests, I am happy to note, that - in my clumsy, non-professional way - I seem to have got some things right in yesterday's Ontological potage.

3 comments:

  1. The only real fallacy I see with it, in a cursory glance, is that the use of "Buddhism" in any of this is wrong, as there's nothing at all specifically Buddhist about the ideas he's refuting OR promoting. They're general Western philosophical ideas, and he cites no specifically Buddhist sources. So that's a red herring, and a stupid one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Art,
    I think he would agree, since he makes the point at the outset that this has to do with the reductionist aspect, not the Buddhist aspect. Siderits seems to have advanced the notion of Buddhist reductionism. And of course I don't think there's anything necessarily or even particularly reductionist about Buddhism.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My thoughts exactly.

    Of course, there have always been reductionist elements within every one of the world's philosophical and religious traditions. Reductionism (like fundamentalism) is tempting precisely because it seems to offer ready answers to difficult questions. That's of course both the strength and weakness of Freudian reductionism, too.

    Not having read Siderits directly, I would have to hold judgment for now, but it seems to me that his idea of "Buddhist reductionism" is very probably a typically Western-philosophical misreading of Buddhism. Buddhism has historically been misinterpreted as nihilistic in exactly the same way. It strikes me though that Siderits has made a sweeping generalization, one that doesn't hold much water.

    ReplyDelete