Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics

Ancient Philosophies

by Amber Carpenter

Organised in broadly chronological terms, this book presents the philosophical arguments of the great Indian Buddhist philosophers of the fifth century BCE to the eighth century CE. Each chapter examines their core ethical, metaphysical and epistemological views as well as the distinctive area of Buddhist ethics that we call today moral psychology. Throughout, this book follows three key themes that both tie the tradition together and are the focus for most critical dialogue: the idea of anatman or no-self, the appearance/reality distinction and the moral aim, or ideal. Indian Buddhist philosophy is shown to be a remarkably rich tradition that deserves much wider engagement from European philosophy. Carpenter shows that while we should recognise the differences and distances between Indian and European philosophy, its driving questions and key conceptions, we must resist the temptation to find in Indian Buddhist philosophy, some Other, something foreign, self-contained and quite detached from anything familiar. Indian Buddhism is shown to be a way of looking at the world that shares many of the features of European philosophy and considers themes central to philosophy understood in the European tradition.

Genres: Philosophy, Buddhism, Religion, Eastern Philosophy

332 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is hard to categorize. It's not exactly an introductory book (at least not as a basic introduction to Buddhist philosophy), but neither does it dwell on the arcane minutiae of the specialist. It's not a straightforward historical overview of the progression of Indian Buddhist philosophy (Early Buddhism, Abhidharma, Mahāyāna, etc.), but neither is it arranged purely thematically (ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, etc.).

Instead of fitting into the typical categories (introductory vs. specialist, historical vs. thematic), Carpenter does something more interesting. This is a great example of what I like to call expanding the history of philosophy. Like any good historian of philosophy, Carpenter treats these texts as partners in philosophical dialogue, parters from whom we can learn and whom we should feel free to interrogate whether we ultimately agree or disagree. One of my favorite aspects of Carpenter's book is her point that, much like other ancient philosophical traditions in Greece and Rome, Buddhist philosophy is supposed to do something to its practitioners. This was never meant to be dry, dusty abstraction free from any effects on the lives of its readers. Although a lot of Buddhist philosophy is quite abstract, the point of Buddhist philosophy, going back to the Buddha himself, is to help us to eliminate suffering. Like Carpenter, I've been coming to see that comparisons between Hellenistic and classical Indian philosophy can be an extremely fruitful way to illuminate this point.

This isn't to say that Carpenter's intentions always work out well. The combination of historical and thematic organization sometimes feels disjointed, especially for readers already familiar with the history of Indian Buddhist philosophy. On the other hand, sometimes Carpenter's unique contributions to interpretive debates are difficult to track as she seems to lose the forest for the trees; for instance, I'm not entirely sure what she thinks about non-self, Madhyamaka, and apoha.

But Carpenter's book does work for the most part. A lot of her discussions, like her treatment of suffering in chapter one, are insightful for beginners and specialists alike. While this may not be an ideal book for readers entirely unfamiliar with Buddhist philosophy, it would be ideal for readers with a little background in both Western and Indian philosophy hoping to delve deeper into the Indian Buddhist tradition. And people such as myself who are seeking to expand the history of philosophy, especially in a Hellenistic-Indian mode, will find a lot of inspiration in Carpenter's book.

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

240922: this is review after some thought. first thought, after reading tis book, is self-reflexive: why did I read this book. that there need be some justification for thinking seriously about thought, particularly of another culture, is perhaps mistaken from philosophical (western) or 'seeing' (eastern) perspectives. I prefer to believe knowledge is good, is to be shared, is to be sympathetically, if not entirely convinced, by all thinkers. my own way of doing this is by reading a. lot. of. books. I have in turn published only one book (primarily fiction) that expresses my then-current incorporation of various themes. it has unique weaknesses of any first novel. it is also exactly what I wanted to publish at that time. not now...

so I have continued to read 'philosophy' and 'seeing' because I am continuing to write works influenced by these ways of thought. I have read enough books of these sorts to try and qualify and recognise what 'style' they express. in this case, in this work, though the subject is 'eastern' (buddhism), the critical lenses are mostly 'western' (and of that, 'analytic)...

this text is very good at analysing, at defining, at critiquing, certain buddhist thoughts westerners can see as 'philosophical'. that buddhism is at least equally religion does not interest or concern the author- as the title proclaims this. but is this possible, I am skeptical. I recall reading Buddhist contending that if all our philosophising is not directed to liberation from samsara (suffering), all our thought is 'intellectual gymnastics'...

this text is therefore incomplete: not wrong, simply limited. this work does not address metaphysics proposed (as perhaps analytic philosophy in general does not) which is of course metaphysical perspective unspoken. I find qualifications, hypotheticals, critiques unconvincing but this may simply be my readings and my concerns towards Buddhist and metaphysics in general...

241014: it is in the (sub) title, so how can I possibly contend this book does not address Buddhist metaphysics? for it does, in one way, from primarily 'western' perspective. this is too much separation of metaphysic and ethic, with little recognition that bd as religion has major influence on ethics. it is in the title 'as' so perhaps I misunderstand, but it seems ethics is so integrated, so absorbed, so inextricable, from previous readings, that the word should be 'is'. for bd recognises no other way of being in the world but to see overarching causality, conditioning, continuity if not identity in our lifestreams. and ethics proscribes exactly how we should relate to others, to worlds, to something like selves...

if you want more: Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
more technical:
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
more:
Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream
Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha
Gender Equality in Buddhism
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood Through Continental, Japanese, and Feminist Philosophies
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
What the Buddha Thought
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School
The Kyoto School
Nishida And Western Philosophy
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy
Why I Am Not a Buddhist
Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey
Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics

[Himath Siriniwasa · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the best academic book I've read on Buddhism. comprehensive, concise and not afraid to ask tough questions. honestly, one of the best pieces of scholarship i've read in a long time. 10/10

[A. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, chronological history of Buddhist philosophy in India. A very enlightening read.

The discussion begins with the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Path. Then, the importance of the no-Self view is discussed through a number of key arguments, including the Happiness Argument (getting rid of the notion of the self encourages happiness), the Moral Improvement argument (getting rid of the notion of the self encourages a moral life), as well as the Worthlessness argument (the five skandhas are too impermanent to really deserve the label of 'self'). The five skandha-s, of course, are the five bundles that make up human beings -- Form (Rūpa) (physical body/matter), Sensation (Vedanā) (feelings: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), Perception (Saṃjñā) (recognition/labeling), Mental Formations (Saṃskāra) (volitions, habits, desires), and Consciousness (Vijñāna) (awareness).

No-Self, however, is not just a pragmatic, ethical claim, but also a metaphysical one. Nagasena's chariot-argument in the Milindapanha is discussed for this. Appending the name 'chariot' is simply a matter of convention. When we look at things all the way down, we come to metaphysical simples known as dharmas -- property-particulars that are indivisible events. This is an Abhidharma notion. Note that dharmas are also impermanent and momentary existents, hence our labelling of them as 'events'.

Buddhism can be criticised, on Nietzschean grounds, as life-denying instead of life-affirming. They do indeed seem to have trouble recognising the existence of natural happiness in the world. However, many sources do indeed recognise the value of positive happiness, going so far as Buddha calling nirvana the greatest happiness (paramaṃ sukhaṃ). Additionally, one should not abjure sense-pleasures altogether, but remain detached from them. Recall that Buddhism is the Middle Path, not given to the self-flagellation of the ascetics. Buddhaghoṣa notes that loving-kindness (maitri), compassion (karuṇa), gladness (muditā), and equanimity (upekṣa) are pleasant states.

There exists a notion of merit (puñña) and sin (pāpa) within Buddhism. Note however that nirvāṇa involves the complete cessation of meritorious action as well, not just sinful action. Virtues and practices that lead to the cessation of suffering and attainment of nirvāṇa is termed skilful (kuśala), and the opposite is unskilful (akuśala). We need to put an end to the afflictions (kleṣa-s) that afflict us. The three primary root kleṣa-s are desire (rāga), aversion (dveṣa), and delusion (moha). There is a distinction between Arhats (those who have attained enlightenment alone) and Boddhisattva-s (those who have attained enlightenment and seek to help others attain it as well through their loving-compassion).

With Nāgārjuna, we come to the first named Buddhist philosopher, sometimes called the Second Buddha. He began the tradition of writing Buddhist philosophy in Sanskrit. His Ratnāvalī declares two goals, hierarchically arranged: the lower one is happiness (sukha) and the final goal is liberation (mokṣa). Nāgārjuna enshrines anti-foundationalism at the core of Buddhism -- saying that all things are fundamentally empty of essences (nissvabhāva) and even emptiness is so. He says he does not himself propound a view, but propound something that leads to the relinquishing of all views that keeps one tied to cyclic existence (saṃsāra). This is the famous doctrine of emptines (sūnyatā). Unlike the Abhidharma, he does not believe in the existence of the momentary property-particular events known as dharma-s. Nothing is independent of anything else. Everything is dependent. Thus, everything is empty of own-essence. He also makes the mind-bending claim that once we realise that even nirvāṇa is empty, we realise that saṃsāra is the same as nirvāṇa. It is not some reality standing beyond saṃsāra. This often gets the Madhyamika-s accused of inveterate nihilism. Nāgārjuna thus challenges the distinction between conventional truth (samvṛtsatya) and ultimate truth (pāramārthikasatya).

Does the intention matter more in an action, ethically speaking, or does the consequence? The Buddhists come out firmly in favour of the intention. Not every action is due to karma, importantly, it is just one cause amongst many. The Jainas challenge this focus on intention. Additionally, the question arises, how can we attribute moral responsibility without the existence of a self? The Buddhists answer: through causal continuity. Rebirth too is accounted for through this self-same causal continuity. In contemporary terms, karma as a physical hypothesis is nonsense. However, karma as a psychological hypothesis, the result of bad actions accruing to the character of the person who commits those actions is plausible. However, this seems to be rather a flawed hypothesis. However, does Buddhism need karma? Not ostensibly. Sociologists make a distinction between kammic Buddhism and nibbanic Buddhism. The former focus on laity and regulating actions and behaving well in accordance with kamma (karma). The latter is monastic and focuses on liberation where karma plays a much less important role.

The Abhidharma texts had a commentary, the Vibhāṣa, which became especially important in Kashmir. The Vaibhāṣika school derives its name from this commentary and may therefore be seen as a descendant of Abhidharma. The Sautrāntika-s are ‘sutra-followers’ who claim to return to the original precepts of the texts instead of later ‘innovative’ interpretations. One of the major opponents of Buddhist minimalism in metaphysical terms is the Vaiśeṣika with their sophisticated metaphysical system. They defend the notion of the Self, which Buddhism rejects as it leads to ‘clinging’.

There are two major issues with not positing a self – accounting for temporal unity and cross-modal unity. The first issue is: how are my thoughts five minutes back accessible to current me? The second issue is: how can something like intentional action which requires a sophisticated interaction of volition and sensory input happen if there is no self? Vasubandhu replies to the first objection by replacing identity with casual continuity. There is also a sophisticated response to the second objection (beyond just calling it an illusion). This is that cross-modal unity is not a matter of causal unity of different sense-modalities, but only a matter of unity of mental-modalities. The Nyāya defense of the self á la Uddyotakara remains however a very strong position.

Vasubandhu is a very interesting character. He was trained in the Vaibhāṣika tradition, an offshoot of the Sarvāstivādin-s. He became a Sautrāntika. And later on, along with his half-brother Asāṇga, he founded Yogācāra Vijñānavāda. Yogācāra was influenced by the prajñāpāramitā literature. In the Twenty Verses, Vasubandhu defends a mind-only idealism whereby the only entities that exist are cognitions which are self-reflexive. Nothing exists outside cognitions. There is not much of a distinction between the dreaming and the waking states barring the latter’s intensity and causal connectedness. He challenges atomism. In the Three Natures, he propounds an interesting doctrine. There are three natures (svabhāva) – constructed/fabricated reality, other-dependent reality, and perfected/consummate nature. Nāgārjuna stopped at the first two. However, there is an ultimate reality beyond the two which is essenceless (niṣvabhāva), not dependent on anything, which is undifferentiated and without characteristics. It is not empty of its own-nature because of being dependent on something else, which was Nāgārjuna’s notion of emptiness. This doctrine gets Vasubandhu accused of reintroducing a notion of the Self. Not really, because it is not something that can lead to ‘clinging’ like the notion of a Self does.

The Sixth and Seventh centuries were a time of great intellectual ferment. Buddhists came into conversation with Hindu interlocutors as well. Diṇnāga developed a doctrine whereby perception is of perception-particulars free from conceptual construction; whereas inference is a matter of generalities and concepts. Cognition is self-reflexive (svasaṃvedana). Verbal communication is no different from inference as it too deals in concepts. Language fundamentally distorts our access to reality. Diṇnāga simplified and integrated the Nyāya five-member syllogism by coming up with the trairūpya-hetu. The Indian syllogism cannot be compared to the Aristotelian one. The Aristotelian syllogism deals with relations between entities in the abstract. The Indian syllogism is firmly located in the debate context from which it arose.

The Madhyamaka disagreed with Yogācāra on a number of issues. Later Madhyamaka tried to avoid falling into nihilism. Bhāviveka was one such later Mādhyamika. He rejects Vasubandhu’s Third Nature. Cognition was never bifurcated into subject and object like the Yogācāra claim, a moment of consciousness simply has the form of its object. Candrakirtī, a much later Mādhyamika, says that proposing one’s own theses is problematic, one should only refute other theses. This argumentative strategy is called prasaṅga. Unlike the reduction ad absurdum, with which it is similar, its conclusion is that no proposition should be asserted. However, how can conventional reality be the means by which ultimate reality is reached if we cannot even engage in provisional conventional reasoning? This was the worry Mādhyamika-s faced. Candrakirtī responds by noting that the Buddhist understands that reality is conventional and this is the difference between them and the ordinary man. This however leads to quietism.

Diṇnāga came up with the doctrine of the Apoha whereby words mean what they mean by excluding other words in a semantic space. Thus, cow means not non-cow. This has a number of issues, as for instance, we still need some criterion of similarity to judge the similarity between two cows and use the same word for them. Thus, language, in this view, becomes untethered from reality, and a matter of convention alone. This is an issue which Diṇnāga’s successor, Dharmakīrti, tries to address.

Dharmakīrti discusses the notion of efficacy (arthakriyā). If conceptualising in a particular way turns out to be more causally efficacious, then it is good to conceptualise in that way. Desire leads to us using concepts to understand the world, and with the cessation of desires conceptualisation ceases. However, conceptualising is efficacious as long as we are in the world.

Śantideva is another great Buddhist thinker. In his Bodhicāryāvatāra, he outlines the path of the Bodhisattva. He focuses on virtue as being a matter of inner, psychological development, talks about patience and forbearance and not giving way to anger. Mindfulness is important, meditation is not a matter of a myopic focus on inner states, but becoming more mindful of the ways in which we act.

Śantarakṣita was another later thinker at Nālandā. He focused on mastering various Hindu schools and refuting them. Candrakīrti was another later Mādhyamika whose system bordered on the nihilistic as it did not leave room to explain how we could use conventional reality to attain ultimate reality. Śantarakṣita’s version of Madhyamaka became dominant in Tibet through his student Kamalaśīla who became very influential. Ratnakīrti came along later to work on the logico-epistemological tradition of Diṇnāga and Dharmakīrti. Śantarakṣita was a syncretist. However, Candrakīrti’s version of Madhyamaka became dominant in Tibet later on with the migration of Atiśa. The last significant Buddhist working in India was Mokṣākaragupta who had some sophisticated ideas.

[Ihor Kolesnyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Важка, академічна книга про еволюцію буддійської філософії і, зокрема, вчення про не-Я. Не дуже пасує до мого дослідження, але певні віхи нагадала.

[Atticus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very, very good at clearing up the basic misconceptions a person might have going into Buddhism.

[Sondre Mæland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive academic treaty on Buddhism with an understanding of the metaphysical levels from a western/hellenistic philosophers perspective

[Ammar · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Analysis is created as an antidote to that false notion [of ‘feeling’, created by conceptual fabrication]”

-Santadeva