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Early Pyrrhonism As a Sect of Buddhism? a Case Study in the Methodology of Comparative Philosophy
Comparative Philosophy Volume 9, No. 2 (2018): 1-40 Open Access / ISSN 2151-6014 www.comparativephilosophy.org EARLY PYRRHONISM AS A SECT OF BUDDHISM? A CASE STUDY IN THE METHODOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY MONTE RANSOME JOHNSON & BRETT SHULTS ABSTRACT: We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith’s proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy. Keywords: adiaphora, anātman, anattā, ataraxia, Buddha, Buddhism, Democritus, Pāli, Pyrrho, Pyrrhonism, Scepticism, trilakṣaṇa 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most ambitious recent works devoted to comparative philosophy is Christopher Beckwith’s monograph Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (2015). -
A History of Cynicism
A HISTORY OF CYNICISM Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com A HISTORY OF CYNICISM From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. by DONALD R. DUDLEY F,llow of St. John's College, Cambrid1e Htmy Fellow at Yale University firl mll METHUEN & CO. LTD. LONDON 36 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com First published in 1937 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com PREFACE THE research of which this book is the outcome was mainly carried out at St. John's College, Cambridge, Yale University, and Edinburgh University. In the help so generously given to my work I have been no less fortunate than in the scenes in which it was pursued. I am much indebted for criticism and advice to Professor M. Rostovtseff and Professor E. R. Goodonough of Yale, to Professor A. E. Taylor of Edinburgh, to Professor F. M. Cornford of Cambridge, to Professor J. L. Stocks of Liverpool, and to Dr. W. H. Semple of Reading. I should also like to thank the electors of the Henry Fund for enabling me to visit the United States, and the College Council of St. John's for electing me to a Research Fellowship. Finally, to• the unfailing interest, advice and encouragement of Mr. M. P. Charlesworth of St. John's I owe an especial debt which I can hardly hope to repay. These acknowledgements do not exhaust the list of my obligations ; but I hope that other kindnesses have been acknowledged either in the text or privately. -
CJ ONLINE 2010.01.01 the Making of Roman India. by GRANT PARKER. Greek Culture in the Roman World. New York: Cambridge Universit
CJ ONLINE 2010.01.01 The Making of Roman India. By GRANT PARKER. Greek Culture in the Roman World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. xiii + 357. Cloth, $99.00. ISBN 978–0–521–85834–2. In his Preface, Parker asks: What did India mean to Romans of the imperial period? He sifts through literary, material and documentary evidence for answers, paying heed to the different contexts in which that information is preserved. Specifically, P. examines references to India in Latin and Greek texts of the imperial period in light of the social processes whereby the notion of India gained its exotic fea- tures, including evidence of the role of the Persian empire and Alex- ander’s expedition. Three social contexts receive special attention: trade in luxury commodities; political discourse of empire and its limits; and India’s status as a place of special knowledge, embodied in the “naked philosophers.” Roman ideas about India ranged from the specific and concrete to the wildly fantastic; such variety must be accounted for. The afterlife of these ideas into late antiquity and be- yond is also considered. The book is aimed at both classicists and those interested in ancient India or the history of orientalism, and is broken into three parts: (1) Creation of a Discourse, (2) Features of a Discourse, and (3) Contexts of a Discourse. Chapter 1, “Achaemenid India and Alexander,” out- lines the features of Greek Indography from the earliest texts to the late Hellenistic world of the 1st century BC. The extent of Achaemenid power is studied from the perspectives of four ancient writers: Scy- lax and the King of Kings; Hecataeus’ cosmos; Herodotus and the satrapies; and Marvels and lies of Ctesias. -
Humor As Philosophical Subversion, Especially in the Skeptics
Humor as Philosophical Subversion, Especially in the Skeptics Richard Bett 1. Introduction Aristotle is not exactly a comedian. He wrote about comedy in the lost second book of the Poetics, and, as discussed in another paper in this volume, he wrote about wittiness (εὐτραπελία) in his ethical works. But he does not exhibit much of either. What humor there is in Aristotle seems to fall into two main varieties. First, there is word-play that engages the reader’s attention, which can perhaps be seen as an instance of a technique he describes in Rhetoric 3.10, that of saying “smart things and things that create a good impression” (τὰ ἀστεῖα καὶ τὰ εὐδοκιµοῦντα, 1410b6).1 Early in the Nicomachean Ethics, he says that in endeavoring to determine the principles (ἀρχαί) of ethics, we should begin (ἀρκτέον) with things known to us (1095b2-4). A little later, introducing the idea of the function (ἔργον) of a human being, he asks whether we can seriously consider that a human being as such (as opposed to people in various occupations) is ἀργόν (1097b28- 30) – which is intentionally ambiguous between “without function” and “lazy.” In De Caelo, introducing the topic of minimal magnitudes, he says that positing such a minimal magnitude (τοὐλάχιστον) will make the biggest difference (τὰ µέγιστα) in mathematics (271b10-11). And in De Interpretatione, discussing names, he says that “non-human 1 Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own. In the case of Timon, I sometimes draw on translations in Bett 2000 and Bett 2015. In the case of Sextus I generally draw on Bett 1997, Bett 2005, and Bett 2012. -
1-30 Indian Influence on Mani Reconsidered the Case of J
International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online) Vol. 5, No. 2 (2009) 1-30 INDIAN INFLUENCE ON MANI RECONSIDERED THE CASE OF JAINISM Max Deeg & Iain Gardner In 2005 Iain Gardner published an article with the title: “Some comments on Mani and Indian religions according to the Coptic Kephalaia”.1 The most important reference point for the following paper is that he argued that some of the terms found in the Coptic text (bouddas, aurentes, kebellos / kebullos) are transliterations of Indian terms (Skt. buddha, arhat, kevala / kevalin) and that they can be traced to Buddhist or – and this is a new aspect brought into the discussion by Gardner – Jain concepts and traditions. The following article will re-examine the hypothesis of Indian influence on Manichaeism in general and the possible share of Jainism in particular. It will take into account recent results of South-Asian philology and archaeology, and try to contextualize singular points from the previous paper in a more detailed way. It is an interesting fact that consideration about possible Indian influence on Western (in the purely geographical sense) religions has been mainly restricted to Buddhism. This reflects, in our opinion, some of the dangers in a diffusionist approach to the history of ideas or religions; and it may be worthwhile to ponder on the pros and contras before embarking on a journey to discover such historical influence of one religious strand on another: Indian religions on Manichaeism. To retrieve the diffusion of a certain phenomenon or concept from one cultural realm to another easily lends itself to complication through simplification.2 There is – and 1 Gardner 2005. -
Origin and Nature of Ancient Indian Buddhism
ORIGIN AND NATURE OF ANCIENT INDIAN BUDDHISM K.T.S. Sarao 1 INTRODUCTION Since times immemorial, religion has been a major motivating force and thus, human history cannot be understood without taking religion into consideration. However, it should never be forgotten that the study of religion as an academic discipline is one thing and its personal practice another. An objective academic study of religion carried many dangers with it. The biggest danger involved in such a study is that it challenges one’s personal beliefs more severely than any other discipline. For most people appreciation of religious diversity becomes difficult because it contradicts the religious instruction received by them. For people experiencing such a difficulty, it may be helpful to realize that it is quite possible to appreciate one’s own perspective without believing that others should also adopt it. Such an approach may be different but certainly not inferior to any other. It must never be forgotten that scholarship that values pluralism and diversity is more humane than scholarship that longs for universal agreement. An important requirement of objective academic study of religion is that one should avoid being personal and confessional. In fact, such a study must be based on neutrality and empathy. Without neutrality and empathy, it is not possible to attain the accuracy that is so basic to academic teaching and learning. The academic study of religion helps in moderating confessional zeal. Such a study does not have anything to do with proselyting, religious instruction, or spiritual direction. As a matter of fact, the academic study of religion depends upon making a distinction between the fact that knowing about and understanding a religion is one thing and believing in it another. -
Illinois Classical Studies
16 Vainglorious Menippus In Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead> aXka. Tcapct vcKpoiq SoyixaTa Lucian, DMort. 6(20).3 ("Pythagoras"). JOELC.RELfflAN Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead are known to the world in two different ways. The most important is through their modem descendants: they are part of Lucian's massive influence on Erasmus, and are frequently imitated in the French and German literature of the 18th and 19th centuries.^ The other is through the study of the literary era that gave them birth: the Greek Second Sophistic, its principles of literary imitation, its allegiance to rhetoric, and its artful irreality. Of these two I am not competent to address the former, except to suggest that the familiarity that Western readers inevitably feel when reading these infernal dialogues does much to obscure what is strange, fantastic, and poetic. But I take issue here with the latter, for the investigation of Lucian's habits of composition and use of motifs, so spectacularly (if sometimes tendentiously) documented by the monographs of Graham Anderson,^ runs the risk of reducing the study of Lucian to a contemplation (and sometimes a rather joyless contemplation) of a second- rate artist's notion of art for art's sake, and would ask us to see as the only content in Lucian the erection of a literary facade and the clever adoption of pretenses and poses. The words of critical appreciation become such things as "graceful," "effortless Atticism," "sophistication," and numerous variations that suggest that we have to do only with shadow and not with * An earlier version of this paper was delivered as a public lecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana in March 1987. -
The Arahant Ideal in Early Buddhism
The Arahant Ideal in early Buddhism - The Case of Bakkula ∗ Anålayo Introduction The present article is the second of three articles dedicated to a study of the development of the concepts of a Buddha, of an arahant and of a bodhisattva in early Buddhism. The first part of this trilogy, published in the previous issue of this journal (Anålayo, 2006: 1-20), examined the attribution of omniscience to the Buddha, concluding that this attribution was the outcome of a later development during which the concept of what constitutes a Buddha assumed ever more divine features. The beginnings of this development can already be traced in a relatively early stratum of Buddhist literature. One example is a verse in the Theragåthå , where a monk refers to the Buddha as his omniscient teacher. 1 Another example is the Madhyama-ågama version of the conversion of King Bimbisåra, according to which Uruvela Kassapa declared that his new teacher, the Buddha, was omniscient. 2 Parallel versions of this discourse in Chinese, Sanskrit and Tibetan, 3 as well as in the Dharmaguptaka, Mahåså∫ghika, Mah¥ßåsaka, (MËla-)Sarvåstivåda and Theravåda Vinayas, 4 do not attribute omniscience to the Buddha. This makes it highly probable that the Madhyama-ågama passage was influenced by later developments. That the first traces of such later developments should already manifest in the discourses collected in the Påli Nikåya s and the Chinese Ógama s is perhaps not too surprising, given that these discourses are products of a long period of oral transmission. ∗ Department of Indology and Tibetology, Philipps University, 35032 Marburg, Germany. -
The Nibbāna of Mahākassapa the Elder: Notes on a Buddhist Narrative Transmitted in Thai and Lao Literature François Lagirarde
The Nibbāna of Mahākassapa the Elder: Notes on a Buddhist Narrative Transmitted in Thai and Lao Literature François Lagirarde To cite this version: François Lagirarde. The Nibbāna of Mahākassapa the Elder: Notes on a Buddhist Narrative Transmit- ted in Thai and Lao Literature. Buddhist Legacies in Mainland Southeast Asia, 2006. hal-01955848 HAL Id: hal-01955848 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01955848 Submitted on 21 Dec 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. François Lagirarde The Nibbāna of Mahākassapa the Elder: Notes on a Buddhist Narrative Transmitted in Thai and Lao Literature THIS LEGEND OF MAHākassapa’S NIBBāNA from his last morning, to his failed farewell to King Ajātasattu, to his parinibbāna in the evening, to his ultimate “meeting” with Metteyya thousands of years later—is well known in Thailand and Laos although it was not included in the Pāli tipiṭaka or even mentioned in the commentaries or sub-commentaries. In fact, the texts known as Mahākassapatheranibbāna (the Nibbāna of Mahākassapa the Elder) represent only one among many other Nibbāna stories known in Thai-Lao Buddhist literature. In this paper I will attempt to show that the textual tradition dealing with the last moments of many disciples or “Hearers” of the Buddha—with Mahākassapa as the first one—became a rich, vast, and well preserved genre at least in the Thai world. -
Of the Sri Lankan Bhikkhuni Sangha from 3Rd Century B.C.E. to the Present
The Unbroken Lineage of the Sri Lankan Bhikkhuni Sangha from 3rd Century B.C.E. to the Present Dr. Hema Goonatilake Buddhism introduced into Sri Lanka At the Third Buddhist Council held in India in the 3rd third century B.C.E, nine missions were dispatch to several countries to spread Buddhism. One mission, headed by Thera Mahinda, son of Emperor Asoka of India, reached Sri Lanka while Theras Sona and Uttara were sent to Suvannadipa (gold island), generally believed to be lower Burma in Southeast Asia. Thera Mahinda, son of Indian Emperor Asoka introduced Buddhism to Sri Lanka during the reign of King Devanampiyatissa (250- 210 B.C.E). The Bhikkhunini Sangha was introduced by Theri Sanghamitta, just six months after the introduction of the Bhikkhu Sangha (Mahavamsa XII). Women were the First to gain Spiritual Attainments It is significant that on listening to the Dhamma preached by Thera Mahinda after his arrival in Sri Lanka, the very first to attain sotapatti, the first stage of the Path were Princess Anula, wife of the sub king Mahanaga and the five hundred ladies of the court who formed her retinue. “When they had heard that most excellent doctrine, princess Anula and her five hundred attendants, in whose mind faith has arisen, attained the reward of sotapatti; this was the first case of the attainment (of a stage of sanctification) which occurred in Lanka” (Dipavamsa, Oldenberg, Chap 12). Sanghamitta introduced Bhikkhuni Order A few days later, on attaining to the second stage sakadagami, Princess Anula and her companions expressed a desire to receive ordination. -
Diogenes Laërtius: a Moderate Skeptic in the History of Philosophy (Book IX)∗
Philosophy Study, April 2021, Vol. 11, No. 4, 293-302 doi: 10.17265/2159-5313/2021.04.005 D D AV I D PUBLISHING Diogenes Laërtius: A Moderate Skeptic in the History of Philosophy (Book IX)∗ Ramón Román-Alcalá University of Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain This paper presents the keys and reasons for Diogenes Laërtius’ alleged scepticism, based on an analysis of the general design of his work The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. I believe that it would be manifestly erroneous to seek confirmation of this scepticism solely in Book IX without taking into account the overall structure of the work. A convincing explanation is also provided of one of the most enigmatic and most studied phrases in this work. What did Diogenes mean when he said that Apollonides of Nicaea was ὁ παρ’ ἡμῶν (“one of us”)? Keywords: scepticism, Diogenes Laërtius, sextus, Pyrrho, The Lives of Philosophers The Singular Book IX of “The Lives” Diogenes Laërtius’ work Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers was already relatively well-known in antiquity, due not only to the author’s popularity but also to the singularity of the work, in which he had succeeded in faithfully characterising much of ancient historiography. Moreover, and this is important to highlight in our introduction, taking into account the structure of many of the books and sources mentioned by Diogenes, this work began a new and highly original historiographic genre, which could be called “successions”. Diogenes’ Lives of Philosophers is a singular work. It starts with an introduction focusing on the origins of philosophy (which were undoubtedly Greek), the different classifications of philosophy and philosophers. -
The Demise of Plato's Academy341
141 SKÉPSIS, ANO VII, Nº 10, 2014. MURDER OR NATURAL CAUSES? THE DEMISE OF PLATO'S ACADEMY341 RAMÓN ROMÁN-ALCALÁ (Universidad de Córdoba). E-mail: [email protected] Introduction. History, operating imperceptibly, tends to provide us with an overview of the rise and fall of philosophical movements, an overarching perspective to which we are blinded when studying the key figures within the limits of their time and space. It is fascinating to observe how philosophical doctrines mutate or change course over time, for reasons whose significance for the evolution of the system as a whole become apparent only when that evolution has ended, but which go unnoticed in the heat and clamour of the dialectical battles that shaped it. The moderate scepticism propounded by Arcesilaus342 and Carneades marked the heyday of the Academy; under their followers, the philosophical stance of the Academy shifted towards a striking dogmatism which eventually prompted its downfall. Little by little, scepticism began to fade, giving way first to a semi-dogmatic outlook and later to the most unyielding dogmatism. This shift in position was the reason for the demise, first of Academic scepticism – which was later to be restored with certain 341T his paper forms part of the Research Project I + D + I FFI2012-32989 on skepticism, funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. 342 Arcesilaus is the key figure in the academic skepticism, made an innovative reading of Plato's dialogues, and where others saw a positive and systematic doctrine, the dialectical method looked a skeptical argument (to the impossibilities of clear definitions of concepts), cf.