Buddhism and the social sciences: Hindu-Buddhist Studies Post 1 : The history of Political Thought, Eastern philosophy, et cetera

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Hindu-Buddhist Studies Post 1 : The history of Political Thought, Eastern philosophy, et cetera

#SociologyOfBuddhism #SociologyOfCults

-+-
This post takes off on a comment made on Rajesh Kasturirangan's FB page.

The context for the comment is the following: Rajesh picked up a book at the Harvard bookstore with the title "Princeton Readings in Political Thought: Essential Texts since Plato." The problem was the choice of people listed. What about Hindu thinkers? What about

The book includes the writings of many of the most distinguished observers of the Western experience from classical times (Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero), the Middle Ages (St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Christine de Pizan), modern times (Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Adam Smith, The Federalist Papers, "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen," Burke, Marie-Olympes de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, Bentham, Mill, de Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche), or the ideas of twentieth-century political philosophers and ideologists (Weber, Mosca, Michels, Lenin, Freud, Emma Goldman, Mussolini, Arendt, Orwell, de Beauvoir, Fanon, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Leo Strauss, Walzer, Rawls, Nozick, Habermas, and Foucault).

Well, what about Hindu thinkers? What about, say, Sankaracharya? And Madhvacharya? And Kautilya? Obviously, such folks as Sun Tzu and Gandhi are also missing in the list of people featured. Rajesh mentions Kautilya but that is truly speaking a person who ought to be omitted because much of even the work supposedly written by Kautilya is little more than a collection of maxims and assorted thoughts (at which point, one must ask if Moses and the authors of the Gospels - Mark, Like, Matthew, et cetera - should also be included if the basis should be pure influence). Rajesh also mentions Mao but Mao was hardly an original Thinker in any sense of the word. So, we may dispose of Mao as well. But the omission of Gandhi seems to lack any basis whatsoever. Perhaps, a prefatory context in terms of Hindu influence - by way of introduction - introducing the works of Sankaracharya and the Buddha would have been ideal. Hinduism is, after all, ultimately today an important part of the political landscape across the world.

As it happens, we did discuss this issue on Zoo Station some years ago. The comments have all been deleted there and so let me simply mention that this issue is quite well known, as was remarked by yours truly at the time. However, it is better not to focus on premodern people too much. So that includes Sankaracharya, Madhvacharya, Kautilya and the like. Even the Buddha ought to be excluded. This is for reasons we will come to in future posts.

To me, the question ultimately is not whether the book above is representative of books in the field (it probably is - but the issue is not whether it is a fair sample), but rather whether there are other books in the field which complete the picture (that is, is reaching the mathematical closure set reasonably easy?). This latter question is the one to ask.

The answer to this question, one can confidently say, is "Yes". So that takes care of that.

By the way, Political Thought must be distinguished from political practice. And that is why Gandhi is not there. And so, that takes care of that other issue as well.

Post-script

A comment in that discussion.

-+-

In the 7 or 8 or 9 years since these posts were made and these issues pointed, \

almost nothing has changed. I doubt that anything will appreciably change any t\

ime soon. In fact, things are just fine as they are.

-+-
Post-script 2

Another comment in that discussion:
-+-
Here are some considered thoughts on the specific matter of Eastern philosophy in the academe mentioned in another comment.

> I was and still am interested in philosophy but there is no course
>even in India that teaches Eastern philosophies.
The dominant perspective in American academia is that Eastern philosophies have been mostly subsumed by the Age of Enlightenment. And they are quite right - and following this, analytical philosophy has mostly reigned supreme at the expense Eastern philosophy in the academe. I was myself very skeptical of the value of researching Eastern philosophy; however, there is some value to be had for individuals interested in studying it for their own personal (I hate to use the word 'spiritual' but I will do it ) spiritual needs. The contrast being drawn here is between studying for one's own personal needs as opposed to studying it for the purposes of research. It must be noted that the logical gaps in Eastern philosophy are many - and they are there for a reason. The people behind the writings did not even use syllogistic logic. More to be posted on my blog if time permits.
-+-

No comments:

Post a Comment

About z-Buddhism

About z-Buddhism: http://buddhismandthesocialsciences.blogspot.com/2014/08/about-z-buddhism.html

-+-

There are many Buddhisms. There is, of course, mainstream Buddhism. Then, there is X-Buddhism, a description of which is available at the following website: http://speculativenonbuddhism.com/. And then, there is Y-Buddhism. Somebody suggested Y-Buddhism as an alternate type of Buddhism (I have not looked into the details of Y-Buddhism, whatever that may be). In this blog, we will describe Z-Buddhism.

Z-Buddhism is, hopefully, the last Buddhism you will ever need. Z-Buddhism interprets Buddhism in conjunction with what know from the sciences as well as the social sciences.

Z-Buddhism does not build up from X-Buddhism or Y-Buddhism. It instead builds up theory as it ought to be done - correctly and right the first time. While X-Buddhism seems to be building up some theory to deal with Buddhism intelligently, it really seems to be the sort of "theory building" you see in European continental philosophy. This type of theory building involves using words that few people can understand and it must be said that it is not clear that anything useful is being contributed by a theory merely by the use of impressive sounding words - hermeneutics, substratal matrix, visible informant, et cetera. Gayatri Spivak, Slavoj Zizek, and Homi Bhabha are just three intellectuals guilty of using terms that serve no real purpose other than to obfuscate. The excessive use of these words is often indicative of a poverty of theory itself. This does not mean that X-Buddhism itself is lacking in any way. It is merely a warning to be careful about certain types of theories. Indeed, the obfuscatory words of deconstructionists such the people behind X-Buddhism (or more famously Zizek, Spivak and Bhabha) may even play a role. By not revealing its hand, but yet speaking against the "Machine", it is able to critique whatever "Machine" it is that it chooses to pit itself against.

Again, the excessive use of complex-sound words is often indicative of a poverty of ideas in a theory. This is because of the following reason: good social scientific theories are based on a set of hypotheses. This set of hypotheses can be stated in relatively simple terms. So theories, which are built up from good hypotheses, can also be stated in relatively simple terms. An example of such a theory is the theory of disruptive innovation. Although the theory itself has fallen into question, the techniques of good theory building were used to build the theory - although extra care should have been taken in making sure that the theory was novel as well as accurate. A better theory is the theory of evolution. What is noteworthy about this theory is that it can be explained in relatively few and simple terms (viz., life arises due to evolutionary forces.)

Let us move on to the motivations of theory building. The motivation of theory building is to shed light on the world. The conflict of Religion with Science is well known. Christianity has come under attack because it conflicts with science. The theory of creationism has been throughly debunked and indeed this "theory" has been entirely superseded by the theory of evolution. What is an emerging truth is that Buddhism also has a conflict - not with the Sciences, but with the Social Sciences. Z-Buddhism tells the story of what this conflict is and how it is being resolved (if at all that is possible). Some of the conflict between Religion and Science are essentially unresolvable. It is simply the case that the theory of creationism is wrong. Similarly, it is possible that some of the issues with Buddhism from the perspective of the Social Sciences may never be resolved.

Like the DNA which consists of three intertwining strands, the world of religious studies consists of three strands - at least, it ought to. The first strand (let us color it red) is the strand of Christopher Hitchens and others who are against Religion in every form. The second strand (let us color it green) is the strand of Religion itself. Different religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are part of this strand. The third strand (let us color it blue) is that of the scientist and the social scientist. Thus far, only two strands have been proposed. This work should be seen as the third strand that is oftentimes ignored.

In Z-Buddhism, we will look at some of these issues, and resolve the ones that may be resolvable. So that's Z-Buddhism. It is the last Buddhism you will ever need.