Philosophy assignment 5

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

6.1 HINDUISM • Understand how Hinduism arose in India. • De!ne brahmin, samsara, atman, karma, and Brahman. • Identify the structure of the Vedas and its main components. • Summarize the main themes of the Upanishads, and explain the process of

samara and karma and how they relate to atman, Brahman, and moksha. • Explain what the Bhagavad-Gita is and how it di"ers in content from the

Upanishads. • Explain the principal di"erences between the Hindu philosophies known as

Vedanta and Samkhya. • Discuss some of the ways that modernity has a"ected Hinduism.

6.2 BUDDHISM • Discuss the main ways that the Buddha’s views di"ered from the orthodox

beliefs of the times. • Explain the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths. • De!ne anatta, dukkha, ahimsa, and anicca. • Explain the concept of nirvana and how Buddhism says it can be attained.

6.3 DAOISM • Explain how the concept of the Dao parallels certain ideas in Western philosophy. • Discuss the concept of wu-wei and how some Daoists try to integrate it into

their lives.

6.4 CONFUCIANISM • Know why Confucianism is called a humanistic doctrine, and explain what

Confucius hoped his teachings would do. • De!ne li and ren, and explain how these concepts !t into Confucianism. • De!ne !lial piety and what it means in practice to Confucians. • Understand the Confucian attitude toward family and community, personal

freedom, and individual rights.

Eastern !ought

CHAPTER 6

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Among the great religions of the East—Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and others—we find just what we would expect in religious traditions: sacred texts, spiritual journeys, mystical symbols, otherworldly stories, inspired dev- otees, and saintly leaders. But if we look closer, we can see something else: a vibrant tradition of philosophical inquiry. !e major religions of the West have had their share of philosophers, and so have the main religious traditions of the East.

!roughout the centuries Asian thinkers working inside (or alongside) their religion have addressed problems in epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logic—all standard areas of study found in Western philosophy. !e result is that, laboring independently, they have tried to provide answers to large questions that also happen to be subjects of intellectual exploration in the West. Remarkably, many of their answers parallel those given by their Western counterparts, or they entail philosophically interesting alternatives, or they chal- lenge theories or perspectives that are widely accepted outside Asia. !e Buddha taught that the self is merely a collection of attributes (not a persisting substance or soul); so did the British empiricist David Hume. Hindu thinkers have debated the worth of arguments for and against the existence of the divine; the Western philosophers !omas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant have done the same. Confucius defended a theory of ethics and politics; Aristotle and John Locke have sailed in the same waters.

6.1 HINDUISM

Hinduism can claim to be the world’s oldest living religion (dating back 3,000 years) and the third largest (with about one billion adherents). Many observers are amazed that it boasts of no common creed, founder, text, or deity. It comprises not one mode of devotion but a confounding diversity of them. O"erings to deity images, the chanting of mantras, temple worship, sensual rites, mystical experi- ences, ascetic privations, animal sacrifices—such practices may be embraced by some Hindus and ignored by others, but the broad tent of Hinduism accommo- dates them all. !e sacred texts range from hymns to instructions for conducting rituals to philosophical treatises, and these are revered or disregarded to varying degrees by thousands of discrete religious groups. A Hindu may bow to many gods (polytheism), one supreme God (monotheism), one god among a whole pantheon (henotheism), or no gods whatsoever (atheism). And Hinduism’s gods are said to number over a million.

!e Western traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are generally faithful to a core of more or less coherent doctrines. Hinduism is di"erent. It’s a large, un- wieldy family of beliefs and practices that seem reasonable and practical to Hindus but perplexing and contradictory to outsiders. Yet in the twenty-first century, this family thrives both in its mother country (India) and in foreign soil, has devotees in both the East and West, and influences the worldviews of persons high and low. And among this cacophony of views, systems of philosophical reflection and even scriptures containing philosophical speculation have their say.

“!e great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.”

—Swami Vivekananda

“In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.”

—Henry David !oreau

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Beginnings Hinduism began in northwest India, emerging from a blend of native religions and the religious traditions of an Indo- European people who migrated there from central Asia. !e indigenous populace established an advanced civiliza- tion that flourished in the Indus River region and beyond as early as 2500 BCE. !is Indus Valley civilization, as it is called, rivaled in many ways the Roman Empire, which was to come later. It devised a writing system, erected planned cities, and built impressive structures small and large— two-story houses, civic centers, porticos, baths, bathrooms, stairways, drainage systems, and worship halls.

Based on artifacts found in the region, scholars have hy- pothesized that the people were polytheistic and that some of their gods may have been forerunners of present-day Hindu deities. Many sculptures seem to have been used in worship of both gods and goddesses, and a few of these were depicted as half-human and half-animal. Evidence suggests that the inhabitants made animal sacrifices, performed ritual ablutions with water, and conducted rites where fire was the central element.

Around 1500 BCE, the migrating Indo-Europeans, called Aryans, moved into northwest India, carrying their distinctive culture with them. Most importantly, they brought their speech from which was derived the ancient language of Sanskrit, the medium of Hindu scripture. !ey too were polytheistic, worshiping gods that were thought to embody powerful elements of nature such as the sun, moon, and fire. And they sacrificed animals (including horses) and animal byproducts (such as butter and milk) as o"erings to these gods.

Aryan culture was partitioned into four social classes called varnas. From these, the hereditary caste system was developed in Hindu society and is still holding sway in modern India, although it has been refined into thousands of subdivisions based on social and occupational criteria. Traditionally the dominant class consisted of brahmins, the priests and teachers who alone could study and teach scripture. Brah- mins still play a priestly role and are prevalent among India’s professionals and civil servants.

The Vedas For Hinduism, the most important result of the melding of Aryan and Indus River cultures was a set of sacred compositions known as the Vedas (knowledge), regarded by almost all Hindus as eternal scripture and the essential reference point for all forms of Hinduism. !ey were produced by the Aryans between 1500 and 600 BCE (what has been called the Vedic era), which makes these compositions India’s oldest

brahmin A priest or teacher; a man of the priestly caste.

Vedas Early Hindu scrip- tures, developed between 1500 and 600 BCE.

Figure 6.1 Statue of one of India’s more popular deities— Ganesha, the elephant-headed god.

1. What is the caste system? Why is its exis- tence in modern India controversial?

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existing literature. For thousands of years the Vedas were transmitted orally from brahmin to brahmin until they were finally put into writing. !ey are said to be sruti (that which was heard)—revealed directly to Hindu seers (rishis) and presumed to be without human or divine authorship. Later scriptures are thought to be smriti (what is remembered)—of human authorship. !ese consist of commentaries and elabora- tions on the sruti. Hindus revere the Vedas, even though the majority of adherents are ignorant of their content, and their meanings are studied mostly by the educated. In fact, most Hindu devotional practices are derived not from the Vedas, but from the sacred texts that came later.

!e Vedas consist of four collections, or books, of writings, each made up of four sections. !e four books are the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and

2. What is the di"erence between sruti and smriti? Does the di"erence matter much to Hindus?

THEN AND NOW

The Caste System Much of the social and reli- gious landscape of modern India has been shaped by two-thousand-year-old Hindu treatises on religious, legal, and moral duty (dharma), the most famous being the Laws of Manu. (In legend, all humans are descended from Manu, the original man.) Completed by around the first century of the Common Era, the Laws provided the basic outlines of India’s caste system, laid down a code of conduct for each social class,

and marked out the four stages of life for upper-class Indian men. !e Laws, in e"ect, defined the ideal Hindu society, which served as a reference point for modern laws and social rules in India today.

India’s premodern Aryan culture was divided into four hierarchical classes called varnas, which became the basis of the four main castes of Hinduism. In later eras these divisions were refined into myriad subdivisions and hardened to forbid social movement in one’s life- time from one class to another. In modern India both the four classes and the hundreds of subdivisions are referred to as castes; the subdivisions are also sometimes called jatis. !ese subcastes are based on occupation, kinship, geography, even sectarian a#liation; and they are especially influential in rural areas of India. In general, caste protocol forbids members of one caste to marry members of another, and interactions with people from another caste are often restricted.

Figure 6.2 Sisters who belong to the dalit caste in India.

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the Atharva-Veda. !e sections are (1) samhitas: hymns, or chants, of praise or in- vocation to the gods (including many Aryan deities), mostly to be uttered publicly during sacrifices; (2) brahmanas: treatises on and how-to instructions for rituals; (3) Aranyakas: “forest treatises” for those who seek a reclusive religious life; and (4) the Upanishads: philosophical and religious speculations.

!e oldest book is the Rig-Veda, which contains a section of over one thousand ancient hymns, each one invoking a particular god or goddess—for example, Indra (the ruler of heaven), Agni (the god of fire), and Varuna (the god of moral order in the universe). Most of the hymns in the other books are taken from the Rig-Veda.

!ere are 123 Upanishads, but only thirteen or fourteen (called the principal Upanishads) are revered by all Hindus. !e Upanishads were added to the Vedas last,

Upanishads Vedic litera- ture concerning the self, Brahman, samsara, and liberation.

In ancient India the concepts of dharma and karma were central to the caste system, and the same is true today. Each caste is prescribed a dharma, a set of duties mandated for that caste. !eoretically no upward movement is possible during one’s lifetime, but diligently performing one’s dharma could lead to better karma and a higher-level rebirth in the next life.

Eventually the caste system was modified to include a fifth group—the “untouchables,” or dalits (oppressed ones), who are thought to be “too polluting” to be included in any of the higher castes. !is group comprises those who do “polluting” work such as sweep- ing streets; cleaning toilets; and handling leather, human waste, or dead bodies. !e term “untouchables” comes from the traditional Hindu idea that upper-class persons who touch someone from the lowest class will be polluted and must therefore perform rituals to cleanse themselves. For generations dalits have been subjected to violence and discrimination—and they still are even in modern India and even though the untouchable class has been o#cially outlawed. Mohandas Gandhi called the dalits “the children of God” and advocated for their rights and their equal status in society.

In recent years the caste system has drawn the fire of many critics. !e main complaint is that the system is inherently unfair. !e plight of the dalits is just one example. !e Laws of Manu mandate a lower status for the lowest class, and caste hierarchy itself implies that some people are inherently less worthy than others, or that some deserve better treatment under the law than others, or that the highest classes are privileged and therefore should get special treatment. In practice, caste rules are not as rigid, and adherence to caste rules is not as widespread as their advocates might prefer. !e influence of caste in people’s daily lives is weak in urban areas and much stronger in the countryside.

What do you think civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. would say about India’s caste system and the treatment of the dalits? Do you think the caste system is morally wrong? If so, what are your reasons?

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composed primarily from about 900 to 400 BCE during a time of intel- lectual and religious unease. !e ancient certainties—the authority of the brahmins, the status of the Vedas, the caste system, the sacrificial rites, and the nature of the deities—were being called into question. !e Upanishads put these issues in a di"erent light and worked out some philosophical doctrines that became fundamental to Hinduism right up to the twenty-first century.

In the early Vedas, there is an emphasis on improving one’s lot in life through religious practice and faith in the gods. But in the Upani- shads, the central aim is release from this world. Specifically, the goal is liberation from samsara, one’s repeating cycle of deaths and rebirths. !e essential Hindu belief is that at death, one’s soul or self (atman) departs from the lifeless body and is reborn into a new body, residing for a time until death, then being reborn in yet another physical form—a dreary sequence that may repeat for thousands of lifetimes. (Westerners call this the doctrine of reincarnation.) And with each new incarnation comes the pain of living and reliving all the miseries of mortal existence.

!e force that regulates samsara is karma, the universal principle that governs the characteristics and quality of each rebirth, or future

life. Karma is like a law of nature; it is simply the way the world works. It dictates that people’s actions and intentions form their present character and determine the general nature of their future lives. Good deeds (good karma) lead to more pleas- ant rebirths; bad deeds (bad karma) beget less pleasant, even appalling, rebirths. Depending on karma, the atman may be reborn into a human, an animal, an insect, or some other lowly creature. !is repeating pattern of rebirth–death–rebirth con- tinues because humans are ignorant of the true nature of reality, of what is real and what is merely appearance. !ey are enslaved by illusion (maya) and act accordingly, with predictable results.

According to the Upanishads, this ignorance and its painful consequences can only be ended, and liberation (moksha) from samsara and karma can only be won, through the freeing power of an ultimate, transcendent wisdom. !is wisdom comes when an atman realizes that the soul is not separate from the world or from other souls but is one with the impersonal, all-pervading spirit known as Brahman. Brahman is the universe, yet Brahman transcends all space and time.

Brahman is eternal and thus so is the atman. Brahman is Absolute Reality, and the atman is Brahman—a fact expressed in the famous adage “You are that [ Brahman],” or “You are divine.” !e essential realization, then, is the oneness of Brahman and atman. Once an individual fully understands this ultimate unity, moksha occurs, samsara stops, and the atman attains full union with Brahman.

Achieving moksha is di#cult, requiring great e"ort and involving many lifetimes through long expanses of time. !e Upanishads stress that Brahman is ine"able—it cannot be described in words and must therefore be experienced directly through several means: meditation, various forms of yoga (both mental and physical dis- ciplines), and asceticism (the denial of physical comfort or pleasures for religious ends). !e aim of these practices is to look inward and discern the true nature of

Figure 6.3 Reading the Vedic texts.

samsara One’s cycle of re- peated deaths and rebirths.

atman One’s soul or self.

karma !e universal principle that governs the characteristics and quality of each rebirth, or future life.

Brahman !e impersonal, all-pervading spirit that is the universe yet transcends all space and time.

“I must confess to you that when doubt haunts me, when disappoint- ments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

asceticism !e denial of physical comfort or plea- sures for religious ends.

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atman and its unity with Brahman. !e rituals and sacrifices of the early Vedas are deemed superfluous.

After the Vedas As noted earlier, the sruti scriptures of the Vedic period (roughly 1500 to 600 BCE) are thought to be of divine origin, revealed to the rishis who received them via an intuitive or mystical experience. Hindus regard these (the Vedas) as authoritative, eternal, and fixed. !is canon remains as it was written, without further revela- tions or later emendations. But after the Vedic period, the human-authored smriti scriptures appeared. !ey too are venerated yet are considered less authoritative than the Vedas. !ey are also open-ended, a sacred work in progress. Over the centuries revered figures have added to them and continue to do so. But these facts have not diminished the influence of the smriti scriptures, which have probably had a greater impact on Hindu life than the Vedas have.

In Hindu scripture, newer writings generally do not supersede the old; they are added to the ever-expanding canon. !us many ideas and practices found in both the Vedas and the post-Vedic scriptures are still relevant to contemporary Hinduism. Likewise, the ancient Vedic gods and goddesses were never entirely replaced by dei- ties that came later in history. !e pantheon was simply enlarged. Today many of the old gods are ignored or deemphasized, while some of them are still revered.

!e smriti material is voluminous and wide-ranging. It consists mainly of (1) the epics (the Mahabharata and the Ramayana), (2) myths and legends (the Puranas), and (3) legal and moral codes (the Laws of Manu).

!e great epics have served Indian and Hindu civilization much as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey served the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world: the stories ex- press the culture’s virtues, heroes, philosophy, and spiritual lessons. With eigh- teen voluminous chapters (or books) and one hundred thousand verses, the Mahabharata is the longest poem in existence, many times more extensive than the Christian Bible. Composed between 400 BCE and 400 CE, the epic recounts the ancient conflict between two great families, both descendants of the ruler of Bharata (northern India). !eir struggle culminates in a fateful battle at Kuruk- shetra. Among the warriors who are to fight there is the war hero Arjuna, who has serious misgivings about a battle that will pit brothers against brothers and cous- ins against cousins. Before the fight begins, as Arjuna contemplates the bloody fratricide to come, he throws down his bow in anguish and despair. He turns to his charioteer, Krishna—who in fact is God incarnate—and asks whether it is right to fight against his own kin in such a massive bloodletting. !e conversation that then takes place between Krishna and Arjuna constitutes the most famous part of the Mahabharata: the Bhagavad-Gita, the most highly venerated and in- fluential book in Hinduism.

!e seven-hundred-verse Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord ) is no mere war story. In dramatic fashion, it confronts the moral and philosophical questions and conflicts that arise in Hindu concepts and practice—devotion to the gods, the caste system, obligations to family, duties in time of war, the nature of the soul, the concept of Brahman, and the correct paths toward moksha.

Bhagavad-Gita !e most highly venerated and influential scriptures in Hinduism.

3. What is the di"erence between the main goal in life as presented in the early Vedas and life’s cen- tral aim as discussed in the Upanishads?

4. What is the relationship between Brahman and atman? How are moksha and samsara related to Brahman?

“!e apparent multiplica- tion of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. !ere is always one uttermost God who defies personi- fication. !is makes Hin- duism the most tolerant religion in the world, be- cause its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.”

—George Bernard Shaw

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Krishna tells Arjuna to join the battle, for a war fought for a righteous reason is permissible, even a war against one’s own brothers. Arjuna has a duty to fight, Krishna says, for he must follow the dictates of his caste. A central tenet of Hinduism is that to avoid the demerits of karma, humans must do their duty according to their place in society. As a member of the warrior caste, Arjuna is obligated to take up arms.

In the Gita, we get a new account of the nature of God. In the Upanishads, Brahman is the impersonal Ultimate Reality, or World-Soul, pervading and constituting the universe but aloof from humans and their concerns. But Krishna turns out to be the Supreme Being incarnate, a per- sonal deity who loves and cares for humans and who often takes human form to help them.

!roughout history, many Hindus have believed there is only one path to liberation—solely through medita- tion or only through asceticism, for example. But in the Gita, Krishna insists that several paths (marga) can lead to moksha, a view that fits well with modern Hinduism. (Since these paths amount to spiritual disciplines, they are also re- ferred to as forms of yoga.) Today there is a general aware- ness of multiple paths to liberation, each appropriate for a particular kind of person.

Krishna teaches Arjuna that one path to salvation is the way of unselfish action done for duty’s sake (karma-marga).

As human beings, we cannot avoid acting. But when we do, only actions done with- out regard to rewards, punishments, praise, or blame can lead to liberation and union with God. We must act with detachment from these motives. Our deeds should be done with the right intention—the intention to do our duty only because it is our duty.

Another option, Krishna says, is the way of knowledge ( jnana-marga), a path fol- lowed by those who are inclined toward intellectual pursuits. !is spiritual knowl- edge, he says, is attained by seeing clearly into the true nature of the universe, the soul, and the Supreme Reality. It is the realization that Brahman and the human soul are in fact the same, that despite surface appearances, there is no di"erence be- tween the self and Brahman, and between Brahman and the world. !e self (atman) and the Supreme Self (Atman) are a unity, just as drops of water and the ocean can be a unity. !e lives of humans who gain this ultimate knowledge are said to be transformed, and liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth becomes a reality. To grasp this insight, aspirants practice meditation, plunge into deep reflection, or study scripture and the words of sages.

!e path to liberation that Krishna speaks of most often is devotion to a personal god (bhakti-marga), the path chosen by most Hindus. Bhakti-marga entails over- whelming love and adoration of one’s favored manifestation of God. !e candidates

Figure 6.4 A wooden statue of Krishna.

5. What is the story re- counted in the Bhagavad- Gita? What is the Gita’s message about the path to liberation?

“In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or un- worthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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for adoration are many—Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Varuna, Indra, Ganesha, Kali, and many other deities. !e Hindu view of bhakti is that to love one of these finite manifestations of God is to move closer to the infinite God of everything. Brahman is supreme but impersonal. It is di#cult to adore the all-encompassing essence of all that is; it is easier to love one of God’s incarnations represented in countless earthly images. !us a Hindu may bring an o"ering of flowers to a stone image of Krishna and pray for help or healing, expecting that Krishna himself will be pleased and perhaps answer the plea. !e devotee will feel that moksha is a little closer and that Brahman is a little nearer.

Hindu Philosophies Hinduism contains complex systems, or schools (darshana), of philosophical reflec- tion expressed by ancient sages and commentators. To immerse oneself in one of these is to follow the path of knowledge ( jnana-marga), a route taken by only a minority of Hindus. !e schools include six major orthodox ones, some of which appeared as far back as 500 BCE: Samkhya (probably the oldest), Yoga, Nyaya, Vais- esika, Mimamsa, and Vedanta. !ey all di"er in important ways but presuppose the authority of the Vedas, accept the doctrines of reincarnation (the cycle of birth and death) and moksha (liberation), and set forth their doctrines in discourses, or books (sutras). Consider these four:

Vedanta. !e term Vedanta means “the end of the Vedas” or the “culmination of the Vedas,” suggesting that this philosophical system is based heavily on the last part of the Vedas, the Upanishads. An influential outlook in this school is known as Advaita Vedanta. It maintains a thoroughgoing monism (nondualism, advaita), claiming that reality consists not of two kinds of essential stu" (as the dualistic Sam- khya school holds), but only one kind, and this kind is Brahman, who alone is real. Brahman is all, and the self is identical to Brahman. !e most influential proponent of this view is Shankara (788–820 CE). He argues that people persist in believing they are separate from Brahman because of maya—illusion. Only by shattering this ignorance with knowledge of true reality can they escape the torturous cycle of death and rebirth.

Shankara’s view is not the only Vedanta philosophy. Other early philosophers criticized Shankara’s perspective and taught that separate selves have a dualistic re- lationship with Brahman—and yet somehow they and Brahman are a unity. Some thinkers went further, declaring that the human self and Brahman were entirely discrete entities.

Nyaya. !is school has focused on developing a theory of knowledge (epistemology) and a system of logical proof that would yield indubitable truths. Nyaya thinkers applied their learning to try to discover the true nature of the universe, the self, and God. Gautama (known by some as the Aristotle of India) established the Nyaya school in ancient times and produced its foundational text, the Nyaya Sutra. Some early Nyaya scholars were atheistic (as was Gautama), but later ones added the con- cept of a supreme divinity.

“India has two million gods, and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.”

—Mark Twain

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Samkhya. !e Samkhya school sees the world as dualistic—that is, consisting of two kinds of stu" or essences: spirit and matter. In its earlier forms, the school was atheistic in that it rejected the notion of a personal god; theistic elements were intro- duced later. !e central concern is that myriad souls are lodged in matter and to be dislodged is to attain blissful liberation.

Yoga. !e Yoga school accepts the philosophical outlook of Samkhya regarding spirit, matter, and liberation but goes further in emphasizing meditative and physi- cal techniques for binding the spirit to Brahman and thus achieving moksha. It also makes room for a qualified theism.

Many forms of yoga exist, the classic one being raja yoga, which involves work- ing through several stages of physical, spiritual, and meditative discipline to reach a

6. Contrast the metaphys- ics of the Vedanta school of philosophy with that of the Samkhya. Which one strikes you as more plausible—a monistic or dualistic world? Why?

Hinduism and Modernity Like other religions, Hinduism has had to contend with the forces of modernity— secularism, religious liberalism, modern values (including human rights, women’s rights, free inquiry, and individual freedom), scientific progress, modern technology (including mass media), urban- ization, and religious and cultural pluralism. !ese trends are powerful, and they have helped

DETAILS

Figure 6.5 The modern versus the traditional: Indian women shopping at the largest mall in India.

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liberating state of consciousness. !e adepts in raja yoga are said to be capable of ex- traordinary physical and mental feats. Most Westerners, however, understand yoga as hatha yoga, the use of physical techniques and postures for mastering the body. But this physical discipline is just one facet of liberation-oriented yoga.

6.2 BUDDHISM

Buddhism was virtually unheard of in Europe and North America until the mid- 1800s, and it did not attract significant numbers of adherents in the West until the twentieth century. Now with 460 million adherents worldwide, it is the fourth- largest world religion and one of the fastest-growing religious traditions in America.

change Hinduism at its edges, but their impact has generally been less pronounced in Hindu- ism than in many other religions.

For example, a slow slide toward secularism is evident in the lives of some Hindus in India (especially in the large cities), but the fundamental attitudes and core values of most Hindus are probably una"ected by it. One general definition of secularism is this: the ten- dency of people to see their lives as not completely defined or consumed by otherworldly or supernatural concerns. Westerners generally assume that religion is only part of their lives, that important endeavors and interests exist outside the purview of religion. But to millions of Hindus, this seems wrong. !eir lives and their identity are defined by their religion.

One issue that has vigorously challenged orthodox Hinduism in modern society is the role and standing of women. Hindu attitudes toward them are complicated and contradic- tory, and this was the case hundreds of years ago as well as today. !e Laws of Manu say women are to be honored as spiritually powerful and auspicious goddesses who bring divine blessings to husband and home. Yet a wife’s duty, or dharma, is to be faithful to her husband whom she is to worship as a god, even if he is an unfaithful lout. She must obey him, submit to his will, endure any abuse, bear him sons, and never remarry even if she is widowed. She is to be entirely dependent on him.

!e rules laid down in the Laws of Manu were directed toward upper-caste women and were taken less seriously by the lower castes. Even among the former, some women did not adhere to Manu’s decrees, choosing instead to exercise artistic, literary, religious, and finan- cial freedom. Today many women in India have bypassed the rules to achieve extraordinary political and professional success or to chart a di"erent understanding of their social and religious obligations. Nevertheless, the norms endorsed in the Laws continue to influence how Hindu society views the behavior and status of contemporary women.

Do you think the treatment of women as dictated by the Laws of Manu is just or unjust? Why?

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It o"ers several metaphysical, epistemological, and moral theories and has become for many people a source of values relevant to debates about war, animal rights, the environ- ment, capital punishment, and other issues.

Buddhist Complexities !e term Buddhism disguises the religion’s complexities. Al- though Buddhists everywhere may hold in common some teachings of the Buddha, these core beliefs are few, allow- ing a great many meandering trails within a broad doctrinal highway. Buddhism therefore has no single set of authorized practices or a common compilation of doctrines or a univer- sal statement of the articles of faith. Instead there are many schools of thought and practice in Buddhism (some would say Buddhisms); Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism are the most familiar.

In some respects, Buddhism is the antithesis of what most people in the West think of as a religion. It posits no creator God, no all-powerful, all-knowing deity that rules the universe, takes an interest in humans, or answers prayers. It teaches that the Buddha himself was neither God nor the child of a God. He was instead the ultimate teacher and an example for all Buddhists to follow. In accordance with the Buddha’s wishes, Buddhism has no central reli- gious authority. !ere is no Buddhist pope; there are only the Buddha’s teachings. An individual achieves salvation not through faith in God but primarily through his or her own e"orts, by self-discipline and self-transformation. Bud- dhists must work out their own salvation.

According to Buddhist sources, the teachings of the Buddha astonished many of his day who were used to the

doctrines and practices of Indian religions. In contrast to the orthodoxies of the time, the Buddha rejected the caste system, extreme asceticism, the practice of animal sacrifice, the authority of the Vedas, submission to the brahmins as priests, and the existence of the soul (a permanent, unchanging identity). Contradicting the Hindu social conventions, he taught that women should not be barred from the spiritual life he proposed—they too could attain enlightenment. Contrary to doctrines of the major Western religious traditions, he was nontheistic in the sense that he had no use for the idea of a personal creator God. He believed that gods, goddesses, and demons exist, but that they are—like all other living things—finite, vulnerable, and mortal. !ey are trapped in the cycle of death and rebirth just as humans are. He therefore renounced religious devotion to any deity.

Buddhist scriptures point out that on some deep questions about the nature of reality—questions that most religions try to address—the Buddha was silent. He refused to conjecture about what happens after death, whether the universe was

Figure 6.6#The Great Buddha in Kamakura, Tokyo.

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

—!e Buddha

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eternal, whether it was infinite, whether body and soul were the same thing, and what constitutes the divine. He taught that such speculations were pointless since they overlooked what was truly important in existence: the fact of su"ering and the path of liberation from it. A person who spends his time trying to answer these imponderable questions, he said, is like a man struck by an arrow who will not pull it out until he has determined all the mundane facts about the arrow, bow, and archer—and dies needlessly while gathering the information.

The Buddha’s Teachings !e sacred writings say the Buddha meant his teachings to be useful—to be a real- istic, accurate appraisal of our burdensome existence and how to rise above it. To a surprising degree, some aspects of his approach were rational and empirical. He tried to provide a reasonable explanation for the problem of existence and o"er a plausible solution. Generally he thought people should not accept his views on faith but test them through their own experience in everyday life. !e Buddha declares:

Figure 6.7 Buddhist monks praying.

7. How were the Buddha’s teachings di"erent from those in India’s past?

Kalama Sutra

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions simply because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in any- thing simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply

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Here the Buddha sounds like a philosophical skeptic and agnostic—not at all what we would expect from a religious leader.

!e Buddha’s system of teachings about the true nature of reality and how to live correctly to transcend it is known as the dharma, the heart of which is the Four Noble Truths:

1. Life is su"ering. 2. Su"ering is caused by desires (“craving” or “thirst”). 3. To banish su"ering, banish desires. 4. Banish desires and end su"ering by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

!e First Noble Truth is that living brings su"ering and dissatisfaction, or dukkha. In the traditional Buddhist way of putting it, “birth is painful, old age is painful, sick- ness is painful, death is painful, sorrow, lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful. Contact with unpleasant things is painful, not getting what one wishes is painful.”2 Dukkha comes in small and large doses—from mild stress and frustration to the agonies of devastating disease and the heartbreak of overwhelming loss and grief. But in any dose, su"ering and dissatisfaction are inherent in living: an inescapable cost of existence.

A fundamental element of dukkha is impermanence (anicca)—the fact that things do not last, that whatever pleasures we enjoy soon fade, that whatever we possess we eventually lose, that whatever we do will be undone by time. !e very transitory nature of life brings su"ering, dissatisfaction, and pain.

Dukkha also arises because of another fact of life: anatta, the impermanence of the self, or not-self, or no-soul. A person—the “I” that we each refer to—is merely an ever-changing, fleeting assemblage of mental states or processes. It’s the belief in a permanent self that spawns “craving,” greed, selfishness, and egocentrism, and these lead to misery. But facing up to the fact of no-self makes room for selflessness and compassion for the rest of the world.

!e thought of not-self frightens people, but to most Buddhists, anatta is a very soothing doctrine. As one Buddhist monk says:

dukkha !e inevitable su"ering and dissatisfac- tion inherent in existence.

anicca Impermanence; the ephemeral nature of everything.

anatta !e imperma- nence of the self; or not- self, or no-soul.

because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But when, after observation and analysis, you !nd anything that agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and bene!t of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.1

Kalama Sutra

Ajahn Sumedho

When you open the mind to the truth, then you realize there is nothing to fear. What arises passes away, what is born dies, and is not self—so that our sense of being caught in an identity with this human body fades out. We don’t see ourselves as some isolated, alienated entity lost in a mysterious and frightening universe. We don’t feel overwhelmed by it, trying to !nd a little piece of it that we can grasp and feel safe with, because we feel at peace with it. Then we have merged with the Truth.3

“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”

—Ray Bradbury

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PORTR AIT

Figure 6.8 A statue representing the Buddha during his period of severe asceticism.

The Buddha !e traditional biographical account of the Buddha’s life goes something like this: In perhaps 563 BCE (the exact year is de- bated by specialists), the man destined to become the Buddha is born a prince in the tiny kingdom of Sakya in northern India and given the name Siddhartha Gautama. Siddhartha means “he whose aim is accomplished,” and Gautama is a family name. Later many would call him Sakyamuni, “the sage of Sakya.” At age sixteen, he marries a princess, and thirteen years later they have a son, Rahula.

!e story goes that Siddhartha’s father, a ruler named Sud- dhodana, wants his son to succeed him, so he surrounds him with luxury and shields him from all evidence of misery in the outside world. If the prince learns that the world is full of su"er- ing, he might be tempted to renounce his comfortable life and become a monk. But all of Suddhodana’s designs fail, for at age twenty-nine the prince sees what are called the Four Passing Sights, and they change his life forever. As legend has it, he ventures beyond the palace walls several times and is shocked to see a decrepit old man, a diseased man, and a dead man. !ese three disturbing sights open his eyes to the unavoidable pain and imper- manence of life and force him to question the meaning of it all. !en he encounters the fourth sight—a serene and detached samana, a wandering philosopher who had renounced all physical comforts to live as a beggar in search of the truth. Siddhartha decides that eve- ning to lead such a life to pursue answers to the questions that haunt him. He leaves behind his wife, his son, his luxury, and his wealth to take up the alms bowl and begin his quest.

For six years he wanders about as a devoted samana, trying the spiritual regimens of renowned teachers, but none of the practices gives him the deep enlightenment for which he searches. So at age thirty-five Siddhartha begins to travel on what is known as the Middle Way to true wisdom—a path between self-gratification (which he practiced in his youth) and the self-mortification of asceticism. At one point he sits under a large fig tree (called the Bodhi, or enlightenment, tree) to meditate. According to legend, he remains under the tree all night, meditating more and more deeply yet becoming increasingly conscious and aware. !en he sees the true nature of su"ering and death and how to end them forever. With this final insight, he reaches at dawn what he has been searching for—Enlightenment, or Awak- ening, the attainment of perfect understanding of the true nature of the universe, of life and death, and of su"ering and liberation. After this momentous event, he is to be known by the title !e Buddha, meaning “!e Enlightened One” or “!e Awakened One.”

!e Buddha preaches his first sermon in the Deer Park at present-day Sarnath. He preaches the dharma, Buddhism’s core teachings systematized in the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. He spends the next forty-five years walking the roads and paths of northern India, spreading his message. Finally, at the age of eighty, in the village of Kus- inara, the Buddha lies down on a couch between two trees and dies calmly, uttering at the last, “And now, O priests, I take my leave of you; all the constituents of being are transitory; work out your salvation with diligence.”

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!is focus on dukkha may seem like a dreary perspective on life, but it sets the stage for the Buddha’s more optimistic views on the ultimate conquest of su"ering. His message is not that we are doomed to unremitting su"ering but that there is a way to escape our torment, to attain true and lasting happiness.

!e Second Noble Truth is that the cause of dukkha is selfish desire (craving or thirst)—desire for things that cannot sate our thirst, that arise from our grasping egos, that we can never truly obtain no matter how hard we try. We desire posses- sions, pleasures, power, money, life, beliefs, ideals, and more. We want things to be di"erent from what they are or to remain the way they are forever. But we can never have any of these for long because everything is ephemeral, constantly changing. We have no distinct, permanent identity; the “self ” is no more than a locus of shifting, flowing energy. Such an insubstantial, transient thing can never acquire anything permanent, even if permanent objects exist. We desire this or that, but our desires are continually frustrated. !e result is discontent, unhappiness, and pain—dukkha.

!e !ird Noble Truth is that su"ering can be extinguished if selfish desire is extinguished: dukkha will end if self-centered craving ends. As the Buddha says:

8. What is the Buddha’s doctrine of not-self or no- soul? Do you agree with it? Why or why not? What evidence could you point to that suggests the soul actually exists and is not an illusion?

Dhammacakapparattana Sutta

Now this, O monks, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of su"ering. Truly, it is the destruction of this very thirst. It is the laying aside of, the getting rid of, the being free from, the harboring no longer of this thirst. This, O monks, is the noble truth concerning the destruction of su"ering.4

To quench selfish desires and therefore to end dukkha is to attain nirvana, the ultimate aim of all Buddhist practice and the liberation to which all the Buddha’s teachings point. It is the extinguishing of the flames of desire (nirvana literally means extinguish) and all that accompanies it—greed, hatred, pride, delusion, and more. It is also the blossoming of contentment and inner peace; the “quietude of the heart.” Buddhist scholar and monk Walpola Rahula describes it like this:

nirvana A state of bliss and well-being attained when one extinguishes the flames of desire and thus halts the repeating cycle of death and rebirth.

Walpola Rahula: What the Buddha Taught

He who has realized the Truth, Nirvana, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all ‘complexes’ and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present. Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self-projections. He is joyful, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful. As he is free from sel!sh desire, hatred, ignorance, conceit, pride, and all such ‘de!lements,’ he is pure and gentle, full of universal love, compassion, kindness, sympathy, understanding and tolerance. His service to others is of the purest, for he has no thought of self. He gains nothing, accumulates nothing, not even anything spiri- tual, because he is free from the illusion of Self, and the ‘thirst’ for becoming.5

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Nirvana is manifested both in life and at death. In life, it is—as Rahula suggests—a psychological and moral transformation and, ultimately, an enlightened way of living. At death, for an enlightened one, the continuing cycle, or wheel, of death and rebirth ends. Dukkha, the ever-recurring pain of existence, stops. And the controlling force behind the turning wheel—karma—ceases. So nirvana’s quench- ing of “defilements” not only quenches dukkha in life, but it also terminates the

9. Do you agree with the Buddha that desire is the#cause of su"ering in#the world? Why or why#not?

THEN AND NOW

Buddhism and Science Does Buddhism conflict with science? For several reasons, many Buddhists believe it does not. First, Buddhism is thought to be empirical, just as science is. !e Buddha urged his followers to take nothing on faith but to test it out in their own experience. !e current Dalai Lama has echoed this sentiment: “If there’s good, strong evidence from science that such and such is the case and this is contrary to Buddhism, then we will change.” In addition, some elements of Buddhist cosmology seem to agree, at least superficially, with ideas in modern science: every event has a cause, everything is connected or interdependent in some fundamental way, no eternally immutable objects exist (the whole cosmos is in flux). And of course the principles of Buddhist morality do not collide with science, because science is not in that line of work.

But philosophers of science would say something like this: Science’s job is to test theo- ries, and it judges the worth of theories according to certain criteria (including how well the theory fits with existing theories or evidence, how many assumptions it makes, and whether it has successfully predicted any novel phenomena). If a theory is not needed to explain a phenomenon (because science explains it better), the theory is discredited. Scientists would reject the theory that Zeus causes lightning because they have much better theories to ex- plain lightning. By this measure, scientists would say, many Buddhist theories would be rejected—for example, hungry ghosts, demons, gods, spiritual realms, karma, and reincar- nation or rebirth. And the evidence for such theories provided by the Buddhist’s direct expe- rience (meditation or mystical practice) must also be rejected. We can accept truths acquired through meditation or mysticism, says the scientist, only if they can be corroborated by our usual tests based on reason and evidence—and these truths fail the test.

How can a Buddhist respond to such allegations? Here are three ways: (1) the Buddhist can, on various grounds, deny the scientific view altogether (or large parts of it); (2) the Buddhist can agree with the scientists and reject Buddhism entirely; or (3) the Buddhist can embrace his or her religion but only after stripping out the scientifically dubious content. Some who take this last path may end up with a Buddhism that fits better with our scientific age, and some may arrive at a purely secular Buddhism, accepting only ideas that are supported, or at least not refuted, by sci- ence. !e secular Buddhist, for example, may accept meditation for its scientifically proven physi- ological and psychological benefits and can embrace the ethical content for its moral guidance.

Do you believe that Buddhism is in serious con$ict with modern science? Why?

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repeating pattern of death–rebirth. And by attaining nirvana, one acquires the title of arhat, a Buddhist saint.

Beyond this profound release, what nirvana entails at one’s death is uncertain. !e Buddha insisted that nirvana is beyond description and impossible to imag- ine, for it is neither annihilation nor survival of a soul. He said that people should devote themselves to attaining it rather than trying to plumb its depths. Buddhist sources, however, refer to nirvana with words such as freedom, absolute truth, peace, and bliss.

In Buddhism, one’s cycle of repeated deaths and rebirths—samsara—is a pain- ful process that can go on for millennia unless there is release from it through nirvana. !e thing that wanders from one life to the next (what we refer to as “I”) is not an eternally existing, permanent soul, self, or atman, but an ever-changing mix of personality fragments that recombine in each new life. !e Buddha’s clas- sic illustration of this point is a flame (the “I”) that is transferred from one candle to another. Only one flame is passed among multiple candles, so there is some continuity from one candle to the next—but the flame itself is also di"erent from moment to moment.

Karma in Buddhism is just as it is in Hinduism: it’s the universal principle that determines the characteristics and quality of each future life. But unlike Hinduism, Buddhism does not posit an atman that is subject to karma. In the Buddha’s view of karma, through their own moral choices and acts people are free to try to change their karma and its associated results, and no one is trapped in a given level of existence forever. !ere is always the hope of rising to a higher point through spiritual e"ort or of halting the cycle of rebirths altogether through nirvana.

!e notions of rebirth and karma lead naturally to the Buddhist attitude of compassion, tolerance, and kindness for all living things. After all, every being must follow the karmic current, being reborn as many di"erent creatures from the lowest to the highest. Each human being has an implied empathetic connection with all other beings (humans, animals, and others) because he or she is likely to have been such beings at one time or another and to have endured the same kind of pain and grief they have.

!e Fourth Noble Truth says the way to extinguish selfish desires and to attain nirvana is to follow the Noble Eightfold Path. !e path consists of eight factors or modes of practice whose purpose is the development, or perfection, of the three fundamental aspects of Buddhist life: wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline, or focus. !e eight factors have been described as “steps,” as if they should be done in order, but they are actually intended to be implemented in concert. Each one complements and enhances the others, and a complete life cultivates them all. Together they constitute a way of purposeful living that the Buddha is said to have discovered through his own experience—the “Middle Way” or “Middle Path” between the extremes of brutal asceticism and sensual self-indulgence. Here is the Buddhist view of the eight factors sorted into their three basic categories:

“Many people think ex- citement is happiness. . . . But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.”

—!ich Nhat Hanh

“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peace- ful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”

—Gautama Buddha

10. Is karma a coherent doctrine? What phenom- ena does it explain? What does it fail to explain?

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For the perfection of wisdom:

1. Right understanding is a deep understanding of the true nature of reality as revealed in the Four Noble Truths. !is kind of wisdom refers not just to an intellectual grasp of the facts but, more importantly, also to profound insight that penetrates how things really are in themselves, insight gleaned experi- entially through a trained mind free of spiritual impediments. Right under- standing entails deep awareness of the truth concerning the dharma, samsara, karma, and dukkha.

2. Right thought refers to the proper motivations underlying our thoughts and ac- tions. Right motivations are selflessness, compassion, nonviolence, gentleness, and love. !ey are directed not toward a few but toward all living things. Self- ishness, hatred, violence, and malice undermine spiritual progress and impede true wisdom.

For the perfection of moral conduct:

3. Right speech means refraining from lying, slander, gossip, unkind or rude words, malicious or abusive talk, and idle or misleading assertions. Right speech, then, is truthful, kind, and constructive, fostering harmony, trust, and honesty.

4. Right action involves following the Buddha’s Five Precepts: refraining from (1) harming living beings (a principle known as ahimsa, “non-harm” or “non- violence”), (2) taking what is not given (stealing), (3) engaging in misconduct regarding sexual or sensual pleasures, (4) lying or speaking falsely, and (5) impairing the mind with intoxicating substances. To the Buddhist, these precepts are not moral laws or commandments that demand strict adherence as if they were laid down by divine authority. !ey are moral ideals to strive for, a#rmations to oneself for living a more compassionate, mindful life. (All Buddhists are expected to observe the Five Precepts; members of the sangha, the order of Buddhist monks, have additional precepts to follow.)

5. Right livelihood means avoiding jobs or professions that involve harming other living beings. !ese include occupations that tra#c in weapons of war, intoxicants, and poisons; that entail the buying and selling of human beings; that cause harm or death to animals; and that involve greed, dishonesty, or deception.

ahimsa !e principle of not harming living beings (often referred to as the non-harm or nonviolence principle).

Figure 6.9 In line with the doctrine of ahimsa, the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama preached nonvio- lence after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. In 2011 he seemed to modify his position, leaving open the possibility that sometimes violence is justi!ed.

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For the perfection of mental discipline: 6. Right e"ort is cultivating wholesome states of mind and eliminating or

minimizing unwholesome ones. It means fostering compassion, selflessness, empathy, and understanding and banishing selfish desire, hatred, attachment, and self-delusion.

7. Right mindfulness refers to the development of an extraordinary awareness of the functioning of one’s own body and mind. It yields clear understanding of, and keen sensitivity to, one’s bodily processes, emotional states, the attitudes and tendencies of the mind, and mental concepts that may help or hinder

Buddhism and Violence

In the West, Buddhism enjoys a reputation as the most peaceful of all religions, a tradition that is far gentler and kinder than the violence-prone religions of Western nations. After all,

DETAILS

Figure 6.10 During the deadly sectarian con$ict between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar, hundreds of stick-wielding Buddhists on motorcycles rode through the streets of Lashio.

“True change is within; leave the outside as it is.”

—Dalai Lama XIV

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spiritual progress. To be intensely mindful of ourselves is to be delivered from harmful thoughts and desires, ignorance of our transient and insubstantial nature, and blind control of our minds by our impulses and senses.

8. Right concentration is the development through meditation of a sublime inner peace and profound mental tranquility. !is state is attained by focusing and quieting the mind, thereby diminishing distracting emotions and taming self- ish desires. To use the traditional metaphor, this kind of concentration turns the mind into a clear and calm forest pool that reflects the true nature of all things.

Buddhism teaches peace, compassion, and nonviolence, and countless Buddhists exemplify these principles in their daily lives. But this very agreeable view of Buddhism is a Western misconception. Like the adherents of other traditions, Buddhists can be violent and mili- tant, both sanctioning and committing aggressive acts.

In sixth-century China, for example, Buddhist soldiers were honored as saints for kill- ing their enemies. In seventeenth-century Tibet, the Dalai Lama gave his blessing to a Mongol ruler’s murderous assaults on his rivals. Before and during World War II, Japanese Buddhists fully supported Japan’s jingoism and its imperialist wars against neighboring countries. In twenty-first century !ailand, Buddhist soldier-monks carry guns. And in Sri Lanka, a conflict has raged between Buddhists and Hindus, with brutal killings carried out on both sides.

Today the violence of our century has prompted some Buddhists to wonder if com- passion and pacifism are entirely adequate responses to the brutal violence of terror- ism, ethnic cleansing, and wholesale slaughter. A few Buddhists believe that military intervention in such tragedies may be warranted when all peaceful means of resolution fail. Other Buddhists see this attitude as a slippery slope toward general disregard of the Buddha’s precept of nonviolence, with the result that followers of the Buddha may wage or support war.

Do you agree with some Buddhists that compassion and paci!sm are adequate responses to terrorism? Or would you side with Buddhists who believe violence is sometimes warranted?

11. What attitude toward animals does the doctrine of ahimsa demand? How does it di"er from your view?

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6.3 DAOISM

For two thousand years Daoism (or Taoism) has been molding Chinese culture and chang- ing the character of religions in the East. It has both philosophical and religious sides, and each of these has many permutations. It gets its name from the impossible-to-define notion of Dao, which has been translated as the “Way” or the “Way of Nature.” Daoism is said to have been founded by Lao-Tzu, the supposed author of the classical Daoist text the Tao-te Ching (Classic of the Way and Its Power), destined to become, along with Confucius’ Analects, one of the two most re- spected books in Chinese writings. Scholars are unsure whether Lao-Tzu is a historical figure or a product of legend, but most agree that if Lao-Tzu was real, he probably lived in the sixth century BCE and may have been a contemporary of Confucius. !e second most important text in philosophical Daoism is the Chuang Tzu, named after its presumed author. Regardless of their authorship, these two books laid the groundwork for a Daoist philosophy that influenced Chinese thinkers

and nobles and shaped the worldviews of the Chinese right up to the present. !e Dao (pronounced dow) is the mysterious first principle of the universe: it is

the eternal source of all that is real and the invisible process and underpinning of the world. It is the Way—the impersonal power that gives order and stability to the cosmos. Like the force of gravity, the Dao holds everything together, gives shape and structure to what is, and determines the way that everything must go. !e Chuang Tzu characterizes the Dao as literally everything—it is the whole of all that exists, and we are of this whole. !e Chuang Tzu asserts:

Dao !e “Way” in Daoism, the mysterious first principle of the universe; the eternal source of all that is real and the underpinning of the world.

The Chuang Tzu

In the universe, all things are one. For him who can but realize his indissoluble unity with the whole, the parts of his body mean no more than so much dust and dirt, and death and life, end and beginning, are no more to him than the succession of day and night. They are powerless to disturb his tranquility.6

Figure 6.11 Lao-Tzu, the presumed founder of Daoism, riding a water bu"alo.

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When it comes to the concept of the Dao, the West seems to parallel the East. !e pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus declared that there is a source of all that exists, the fount of rationality, a first principle of the cosmos that he called logos. And there are hints of a similar cosmic force elsewhere in Western thought—in Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, for example, and in Christianity’s om- nipotent God.

If the descriptions of the Dao seem obscure or perplexing, it cannot be otherwise, the Daoist would say. For the Dao is beyond words; it is “nameless” (unnameable) and thus can only be hinted at. As the Tao-te Ching says:

“Knowing others is intel- ligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Master- ing others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.”

—Lao-Tzu

12. How does Daoism di"er from Confucianism?

Tao-te Ching

The way that cannot be spoken of Is not the constant way; The name that can be named Is not the constant name. The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth; The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.#.#.#. There is a thing confusedly formed, Born before heaven and earth. Silent and void It stands alone and does not change, Goes round and does not weary. It is capable of being the mother of the world. I know not its name So I style it “the way.” I give it the makeshift name of “the great.”7

A fundamental notion in Daoism is that since everything and everyone is subject to the power of the Dao, since nothing can withstand its inexorable flow, the best human life is one lived in harmony with it. To live well is to go with the current of the Dao; to struggle against the stream is to invite discord, strife, and woe. !e good Daoist, then, discerns the way of nature, the “grain of the universe,” and lets the cosmic order guide his or her life.

Living in harmony with the Dao means realizing the virtue of wu-wei—active inaction, or e"ortless action. !is paradoxical attitude does not amount to pas- sivity or apathy. According to some scholars it suggests acting e"ortlessly without straining or struggling and without feverish obsession with the objects of desire. To others it implies acting naturally, spontaneously, without predetermined ideas of how things should go. !us the Daoist does not try to take charge of a prob- lem, for that often just makes matters worse. She instead acts instinctively and e#ciently, letting the solution unfold naturally, waiting for the right moment, harnessing the flow of the Dao by using the natural momentum in the situation,

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letting change happen by doing nothing. !e Daoist is wise like the fighter who rolls with a punch, using its force to come round and return the blow, expending almost no energy of her own. In either interpretation, the point is not to interfere with nature but to let nature follow its own path.

Daoists di"er on exactly what practices wu-wei implies. To many it suggests a rejection of worldly pleasures or a disregard for society and its conventions and values (like those stressed in Confucianism). !e Tao-te Ching makes explicit this abhorrence of regimented life:

Exterminate the sage, discard the wise, And the people will bene!t a hundredfold; Exterminate benevolence, discard rectitude, And the people will again be !lial; Exterminate ingenuity, discard pro!t, And there will be no more thieves and bandits. These three, being false adornments, are not enough And the people must have something to which they can attach themselves: Exhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block, Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible.8

Tao-te Ching

To some Daoists, wu-wei implies the opposite: a Daoism consistent with the demands of everyday life and Confucian values.

Lao-Tzu says that even in matters of governance, struggle and strain are useless, but wu-wei accomplishes much:

Govern the state by being straightforward; Wage war by being crafty; But win the empire by not being meddlesome. How do I know that it is like that? By means of this. The more taboos there are in the empire The poorer the people; The more sharpened tools the people have The more benighted the state; The more skills the people have The further novelties multiply; The better known the laws and edicts The more thieves and robbers there are. Hence the sage says, I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves; I prefer stillness and the people are recti!ed of themselves; I am not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves; I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved

block.9

Tao-te Ching

“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”

—Lao-Tzu

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In the Tao-te Ching, wu-wei seems to imply a nearly invisible, hands-o", small- scale government. !e job of the wise ruler is to shield the people from excessive regulation, overbearing laws and decrees, and unsettling ideas. Such policies may bring people closer to the natural order, but they have also been criticized as a recipe for despotism.

6.4 CONFUCIANISM

Confucianism is a school of thought that arose out of ancient China and, along with Daoism, has been a dominant philosophical system there for hundreds of years. Its e"ect on Chinese and East Asian life, culture, and government has been enormous—comparable to the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in the West. Until the early twentieth century, Confucian virtues and training were re- quired of anyone entering Chinese civil service, and even now, under Communist rule, China holds to its Confucian roots in everyday life. Elsewhere in the East (especially in South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam), Confucian ethics and ideals have remodeled society, providing moral underpinning and guidance to social relation- ships at all levels.

Part of the appeal of Confucianism is that in times of ideological confusion it has o"ered plausible answers to essential philosophical questions: What kind of person should I be? What kind of society is best? What are my moral obligations to my family, those who rule, and the rest of hu- manity? In the twenty-first century, millions of people are attracted to the answers supplied by this two-thousand-year- old tradition.

Many of the elements of Confucianism were part of Chinese culture long before Confucius arrived on the scene. In fact, he claimed merely to transmit the wisdom of the ancients to new generations, but what he transmit- ted plus what he added became the distinctive Confucian worldview. From early Chinese civilization came the Con- fucian emphasis on rituals and their correct performance; the veneration of ancestors; social and cosmic harmony; virtuous behavior and ideals; and the will of Heaven (or Tian), the ultimate power and organizing principle in the universe.

Into this mix of characteristically Eastern ideas and practices, there appeared in 551 BCE the renowned thinker we call Confucius (Westernized spelling), otherwise known as K’ung Ch’iu or as K’ung Fu-tzu (Master K’ung). Accord- ing to legend and very sketchy information about his life, he was born to a poor family in the tiny Chinese state of Lu. He served briefly at age fifty in the Lu government as police commissioner, and during the next thirteen years he visited

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

—Confucius

Figure 6.12 Confucius (551–479 BCE).

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other Chinese states trying to persuade the rulers to implement his philosophy of wise government. One leader after another turned him down. He spent the rest of his life teaching his philosophy and contributing to the Confucian works known as the Five Classics. He died in 479 without his ideas achieving wide acceptance. Only later did his views become a major influence.

Confucianism, especially later forms of it, has always featured some religious or divine aspects. Confucius himself believed in the supreme deity Heaven, assert- ing that we should align ourselves with its will. But in general he veered away from the supernatural beliefs of the past, for his main interest was teaching a humanistic doctrine centered on social relationships. His aim was the creation of harmony and virtue in the world—specifically in individuals, in the way they interacted with one another, and in how they were treated by the state. He saw his teachings as a remedy

The Confucian Canon

!e teachings of Confucianism are found in a vast assemblage of writings that date back centuries and have probably been as revered in the East as the Bible has been in the West (although the Confucian texts are considered the work of men, not God). !e heart of the canon consists of two sets of texts—the Five Classics and the Four Books. !ey contain Confucian teachings and perhaps some of Confucius’ words, but scholars now think that even though he may have borrowed from them or edited some of them, he probably did not write them. We possess many of Confucius’ sayings because we have a putative record of his conversations with his students (in the Analects).

DETAILS

Figure 6.13 Part of a Tang Dynasty manuscript of Confucius’ Analects, discovered in 1967.

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li In early Confucianism, ritual, etiquette, principle, and propriety; conscien- tious behavior and right action.

ren !e essential Confu- cian virtues, including benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, respect for others, and human-heartedness.

for the social disorder, corruption, and inhumanity existing all around him, from the lowest levels of society to the highest.

In Confucianism, the ideal world is generated through the practice of li and ren. Li has several meanings, including ritual, etiquette, principle, and propriety, but its essence is conscientious behavior and right action. To follow li is to conduct yourself in your dealings with others according to moral and customary norms, and to act in this way is to contribute to social stability and harmony. Ren is about social virtues; it encompasses benevolence, sympathy, kindness, generosity, respect for others, and human-heartedness. At its core is the imperative to work for the common good and to recognize the essential worth of others regardless of their social status. !e expres- sion of these virtues is governed by the notion of reciprocity (shu), what has been called Confucius’ (negative) golden rule: “Never do to others what you would not

!e Five Classics: • !e Book of History (or Historical Documents)—A history of ancient Chinese rulers and

their kingdoms, with commentary on moral issues and a discussion of the principles of good government.

• !e Book of Changes (I Ching)—A how-to guide for the practice of divination, plus meta- physical conjecture.

• !e Book of Poetry (or Book of Songs)—An ancient anthology of 305 songs, some of which were allegedly chosen by Confucius.

• !e Book of Rites—An ancient compendium of instructions and rules regarding ceremo- nies for the nobility.

• Springs and Autumns—A history of the Chinese state of Lu where Confucius was born, highlighting moral and political decay.

!e Four Books: • !e Analects—A compilation of the sayings of Confucius and his students, focusing on

virtue and harmony in individuals and society. • !e Great Learning—An account of the education and self-cultivation required to

become a morally noble person. • !e Doctrine of the Mean—A philosophical discussion of how human nature is linked

to the cosmos and how achieving balance in one’s life aligns one with the cosmic order. • !e Book of Mencius—A compilation of the teachings of Mencius, a Confucian phi-

losopher who arrived on the scene long after Confucius and who sought to produce a complete and coherent account of Confucianism.

The Confucian canon is not thought to be the inspired words of God, yet Confucian- ists seem to revere it as much as Christians revere the Bible. What is the best explana- tion of the Confucianists’ devotion to their texts?

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like them to do to you.”10 (!e Christian golden rule is stated positively: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”)

Confucius urges people not merely to try to live according to li and ren but to excel at such a life, to become a “superior person” (a junzi), a noble. Con- trary to history and custom, Confucius’ idea of nobility has nothing to do with noble blood; true nobility, he says, comes from noble virtues and wisdom, which anyone can acquire. He refers to a man who embodies this kind of nobility as a gentleman. We get a glimpse of the gentleman in the Analects, the main Confu- cian text:

Analects Confucian text containing the conversa- tions of Confucius and his followers.

13. Consider the Confu- cian emphasis on the noble or superior person. Do you think striving to become such a person is a laudable goal? Would it decrease or increase the enjoyment of life?

Analects

Tzu-kung asked about the true gentleman. The Master [Confucius] said, He does not preach what he practises till he has practised what he preaches.#.#.#.

The Master said, A gentleman can see a question from all sides without bias. The small man is biased and can see a question only from one side.

The Master said, the Ways of the true gentleman are three. I myself have met with success in none of them. For he that is really Good is never unhappy, he that is really wise is never per- plexed, he that is really brave is never afraid. Tzu-kung said, That, Master, is your own Way!

Tzu-lu asked about the qualities of a true gentleman. The Master said, He cultivates in him- self the capacity to be diligent in his tasks#.#.#. The Master said, He cultivates in himself the capacity to ease the lot of other people# .# .# . The Master said, He cultivates in himself the capacity to ease the lot of the whole populace.11

So living by li and ren requires self-cultivation and action—learning the moral norms, understanding the virtues, and acting to apply these to the real world. Being a superior person, then, demands knowledge and judgment as well as devotion to the noblest values and virtues.

In Confucianism, individuals are not like atoms: they are not discrete, isolated units of stu" defined only by what they’re made of. Individuals are part of a com- plex lattice of social relationships that must be taken into account. So in Confucian ethics, ren tells us what virtues apply to social relationships generally, and the text called the “Five Relationships” details the most important connections and the spe- cific duties and virtues associated with particular relationships. !ese relationships are between parent and child, elder brother and younger brother, husband and wife,

“To be wealthy and hon- ored in an unjust society is a disgrace.”

—Confucius

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elder and junior, and ruler and subject. Harmony will pervade society, says Confu- cius, when (1) parents provide for their children, and children respect and obey their parents and care for them in their old age; (2) when elder brothers look after younger brothers, and the younger show deference to the elder; (3) when husbands support and protect wives, and wives obey husbands and tend to children and household; (4) when elders show consideration for the younger, and the younger respect and heed elders; and (5) when rulers care for and protect subjects, and subjects are loyal to rulers.

!e relationship on which all others are based is that of parent and child or, as Confucius would have it, father and son. !e son owes the father respect, obedi- ence, and support—an obligation that Confucianism calls “filial piety.” !e central feature of this relationship is that it is hierarchical. Father and son are not equal partners; the son is subordinate. !e other four relationships are also hierarchical, with the wife subordinate to the husband, the younger brother to the older, the junior to the elder, and the subject to the ruler. And as in filial piety, the subordinates have a duty of obedience and respect, and the superiors are obligated to treat the subordinates with kindness and authority, as a father would. Confucius believes that if everyone conscientiously assumes his or her proper role, harmony, happiness, and goodness will reign in the land.

On filial piety, Confucius had this to say:

“At fifteen I set my heart upon learning. At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground. At forty, I no longer suf- fered from perplexities. At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven. At sixty, I heard them with docile ear. At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.”

—Confucius

Meng I Tzu asked about the treatment of parents. The Master said, Never disobey! When Ch’ih was driving his carriage for him, the Master said, Meng asked me about the treatment of parents and I said, Never disobey! Fan Ch’ih said, In what sense did you mean it? The Master said, While they are alive, serve them according to ritual. When they die, bury them according to ritual and sacri!ce to them according to ritual.#.#.#.

Tzu-yu asked about the treatment of parents. The Master said, ‘Filial sons’ nowadays are people who see to it that their parents get enough to eat. But even dogs and horses are cared for to that extent. If there is no feeling of respect, wherein lies the di"erence?12

Analects

14. Is the Confucian prescription for harmony likely to be fully imple- mented in Western coun- tries? That is, could there ever be a democratic, capitalist, consumer soci- ety that was also strictly Confucian?

!e virtue of filial piety is still a strong force in China today, as this scholar explains:

John B. Noss: A History of the World’s Religions

In China, loyalty to the family has been one’s !rst loyalty. No lad in China ever comes of age, in the Western sense. It is still true that his whole service is expected to be devoted to the family until death, and he is expected to obey his father and, when his father dies, his eldest

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Today the influence of the Confucian virtue of filial piety helps explain why there is in much of Asia a greater emphasis on meeting obligations to family, com- munity, and state than on ensuring individual rights and personal freedom.

brother, with a perfect compliance. This has meant in the past that every father has a great and grave responsibility to ful!ll toward his family. He must seek to produce virtue in his sons by being himself the best example of it. The fact that the present communist govern- ment speaks of making itself “father and elder brother” and claims for itself the !rst loyalty of every citizen has not totally invalidated the personal virtue of !lial piety in the context of family life.13

“!e noble-minded are calm and steady. Little people are forever fussing and fretting.”

—Confucius

WRITING AND REASONING CHAPTER 6

1. What kind of society would you prefer to live in—one based on the Confucian notion of filial piety or one focused on individual freedom and rights? Why?

2. What is your opinion of the Buddhist doctrines of karma and rebirth? Do they seem plausible? What is your judgment based on personal experience, faith, science, and philosophical or logical considerations?

3. Do you agree with some critics of Hinduism that the caste system is inherently unjust? Why or why not?

4. What are some of the practical implications of living according to the Four Noble Truths? In other words, what would your life be like if you based all your actions on these Truths? Would you prefer a life like this compared to your life now? Why or why not?

5. What is the ultimate goal in life according to Daoism? According to Confucianism? Which view seems more reasonable to you? Why?

REVIEW NOTES

6.1 HINDUISM • !e Vedas are regarded by almost all Hindus as eternal scripture and the es-

sential reference point for all forms of Hinduism. !ey are India’s oldest exist- ing literature. Hindus revere the Vedas, even though the majority of adherents are ignorant of their content, and their meanings are studied mostly by the educated.

• In the early Vedas, there is an emphasis on improving one’s lot in life through religious practice and faith in the gods. But in the Upanishads, the central aim is

Review Notes 157

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release from this world. Specifically, the goal is liberation from samsara. !e es- sential Hindu belief is that at death, one’s soul or self (atman) departs from the lifeless body and is reborn into a new body, residing for a time until death, then being reborn in yet another physical form—a dreary sequence that may repeat for thousands of lifetimes.

• !e Upanishads say that release from samsara can only come through the freeing power of a transcendent wisdom, which comes when an atman realizes the soul is not separate from the world or from other souls but is one with the impersonal, all-pervading Spirit known as Brahman.

• !e Bhagavad-Gita confronts the moral and philosophical questions and conflicts that arise in Hindu concepts and practice—devotion to the gods, the caste system, obligations to family, duties in time of war, the nature of the soul, the concept of Brahman, and the correct paths toward moksha. Unlike the Upanishads, the Gita insists that several paths can lead to moksha, a view that fits well with modern Hinduism.

6.2 BUDDHISM • Buddhism posits no creator God, no all-powerful, all-knowing deity that rules

the universe, takes an interest in humans, or answers prayers. It teaches that the Buddha himself was neither God nor the child of a God. He was instead the ulti- mate teacher and an example for all Buddhists to follow.

• !e Buddha rejected the caste system, extreme asceticism, the practice of animal sacrifice, the authority of the Vedas, submission to the Brahmins as priests, and the existence of the soul (a permanent, unchanging identity). He taught that women should not be barred from the spiritual life he proposed. He was nontheistic in the sense that he had no use for the idea of a personal creator God.

• !e Buddha’s teachings are known as the dharma, the heart of which is the Four Noble Truths: (1) Life is su"ering. (2) Su"ering is caused by desires. (3) To banish su"ering, banish desires. (4) Banish desires and end su"ering by following the Noble Eightfold Path.

• !e ultimate aim of all Buddhist practice and the liberation to which all the Bud- dha’s teachings point is known as nirvana. It is the extinguishing of the flames of desire and all that accompanies it—greed, hatred, pride, delusion, and more.

6.3 DAOISM • Daoism gets its name from the impossible-to-define notion of Dao, which has

been translated as the “Way” or the “Way of Nature.” Daoism is said to have been founded by Lao-Tzu, the supposed author of the classical Daoist text the Tao-te Ching (Classic of the Way and Its Power), destined to become, along with Confu- cius’ Analects, one of the two most respected books in Chinese writings.

• A fundamental notion in Daoism is that since everything and everyone is subject to the power of the Dao, the best human life is one lived in harmony with it. To

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live well is to go with the current of the Dao; to struggle against the stream is to invite discord, strife, and woe.

• Living in harmony with the Dao means realizing the virtue of wu-wei—active inaction, or e"ortless action. It can mean acting e"ortlessly without straining or struggling and without feverish obsession with the objects of desire. Or it may sug- gest acting naturally, spontaneously, without predetermined ideas of how things should go.

6.4 CONFUCIANISM • Confucianism is a school of thought that arose out of ancient China and, along

with Daoism, has been a dominant philosophical system there for hundreds of years. Its e"ect on Chinese and East Asian life, culture, and government has been enormous—comparable to the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in the West.

• Confucius veered away from the supernatural beliefs of the past, for his main in- terest was teaching a humanistic doctrine centered on social relationships. His aim was the creation of harmony and virtue in the world—specifically in individuals, in the way they interacted with one another, and in how they were treated by the state.

• Li has several meanings, including ritual, etiquette, principle, and propriety, but its essence is conscientious behavior and right action. To follow li is to conduct yourself in your dealings with others according to moral and customary norms. Ren is about social virtues; it encompasses benevolence, sympathy, kindness, gen- erosity, respect for others, and human-heartedness. At its core is the imperative to work for the common good and to recognize the essential worth of others regard- less of their social status.

• Confucius urges people not merely to try to live according to li and ren but to excel at such a life, to become a “superior person,” a noble. Confucius says that true nobility comes from noble virtues and wisdom, which anyone can acquire.

KEY TERMS ahimsa Analects anatta anicca asceticism

atman Bhagavad-Gita Brahman brahmins Dao

dukkha karma li nirvana

Ren samsara Upanishads Vedas

Notes 1. Anguttara Nikaya, Kalama Sutra, in !e Book of Gradual Sayings, 5 vols., trans.

F. L. Woodward and E. M. Hare, (London: PTS), 1932–36. 2. E. J. !omas, trans., “Pali Sermons, the First Sermon,” in Samyutta, V, 420

(London: Kegan Paul International, 1935), 29–31.

For Further Reading 159

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3. Ajahn Sumedho, cited in Buddha-Nature, ed. Satnacitto Bhikku (London: World Wide Fund for Nature, 1989).

4. Dhammacakapparattana Sutta, 1–8, in Buddhist Sutta: Sacred Books of the East, trans. T. W. Rhys Davids (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1881), 146–155.

5. Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1979), 43. 6. Chuang Tzu, 7. 18b; Richard Welhelm, Dschuang Dsi (Jena: Diederichs,

1912), 158. 7. Tao Te Ching, 1, 25, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin Classics, 1963). 8. Tao Te Ching, 19, trans. Lau. 9. Tao Te Ching, 57, trans. Lau. 10. Analects, 15: 23, !e Analects of Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley (New York:

Macmillan, 1939). 11. Analects, 2: 13–14, 14: 30, 14: 45, trans. Waley. 12. Analects, 2: 5, 7, trans. Waley. 13. John B. Noss, A History of the World’s Religions (New York: Macmillan,

1994), 323.

For Further Reading Satnacitto Bhikku, ed., Buddha-Nature (London: World Wide Fund for Nature, 1989).

Herrlee G. Creel, What Is Taoism? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Christmas Humphreys, Zen Buddhism (New York: MacMillan, 1971).

W. J. Johnson, trans., !e Bhagavad Gita (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

W. J. Johnson, !e Oxford Dictionary of Hinduism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Damien Keown, Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Kim Knott, Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

David Levinson, ed., Religion: A Cross-Cultural Dictionary (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1996).

Donald W. Mitchell, Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Jennifer Oldstone-Moore, Confucianism: Origins, Beliefs, Practices, Holy Texts, and Sacred Places (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Patrick Olivelle, trans., Upanishads (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

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Willard G. Oxtoby, ed., World Religions: Eastern Traditions (Oxford: Oxford Univer- sity Press, 2002).

Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1979).

Huston Smith, !e World’s Religions (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991).

Robert E. Van Voorst, ed., Anthology of World Scriptures (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2006).

F. L. Woodward and E. M. Hare, trans., !e Book of Gradual Sayings, 5 vols. (London: PTS, 1932–36).

vau28703_ch07_161-179.indd 161 05/09/17 06:01 PM

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

7.1 EPICURUS t�%FöOF�Hellenistic era, hedonism, Epicureanism,�BOE�atomism. t�&YQMBJO�XIBU�&QJDVSFBOJTN�JT�BOE�IPX�JU�EJòFST�GSPN�QPQVMBS�NJTDPODFQUJPOT� PG�JU�

t�6OEFSTUBOE�&QJDVSVT��DPODFQU�PG�QMFBTVSF�BOE�XIZ�VOSFTUSBJOFE�QMFBTVSF�JT� UP�CF�BWPJEFE�

t�,OPX�XIZ�&QJDVSVT�TBZT�UIBU�EFBUI�BOE�UIF�HPET�BSF�OPUIJOH�UP�GFBS� t�&YQMBJO�XIZ�&QJDVSVT�UIJOLT�UIBU�QMFBTVSF�JT�PVS�VMUJNBUF�BJN�

7.2 EPICTETUS t�%FöOF�Stoicism. t�&YQMBJO�XIZ�4UPJDJTN�IBT�CFFO�TP�JNQPSUBOU�JO�UIF�IJTUPSZ�PG�QIJMPTPQIZ� t�4VNNBSJ[F�UIF�IJTUPSJDBM�CFHJOOJOHT�PG�4UPJDJTN�BOE�UIF�GBDUT�PG�&QJDUFUVT��MJGF� t�6OEFSTUBOE�XIZ�4UPJDJTN�NBJOUBJOT�UIBU�QFPQMF�PG�USVF�4UPJD�WJSUVF�DBOOPU�CF� XPVOEFE�CZ�UIJOHT�FYUFSOBM�UP�UIFJS�TPVMT�

t�&YQMBJO�UIF�4UPJD�PCTFSWBUJPO�UIBU�TPNF�UIJOHT�BSF�BOE�BSF�OPU�VQ�UP�VT �BOE� IPX�UIF�OPUJPO�TVQQPSUT�4UPJDJTN�

t�3FTQPOE�UP�UIF�DMBJN�UIBU�UIF�4UPJD�JEFBM�JT�UPUBM�JNQBTTJWFOFTT�

7.3 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS t�%FöOF�skepticism�BOE�appearances. t�&YQMBJO�UIF�EJTUJODUJPO�CFUXFFO�BQQFBSBODFT�BOE�SFBMJUZ� t�6OEFSTUBOE�IPX�TLFQUJDT�DBO�NBJOUBJO�UIFJS�TLFQUJDJTN�BOE�TUJMM�MJWF�B� OPSNBM̓MJGF�

t�$SJUJDBMMZ�FYBNJOF�BU�MFBTU�öWF�PG�4FYUVT��UFO�BSHVNFOUT�GPS�TLFQUJDJTN�

!e Hellenistic Era

CHAPTER 7

162 CHAPTER 7 5IF�)FMMFOJTUJD�&SB

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In 323 BCE Alexander the Great—the conqueror of Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, the Punjab, and more—died in Babylon, leaving his vast empire without a supreme ruler. His generals divided up the conquered lands and ruled them as separate kingdoms. By scholarly agreement, Alexander’s death signifies the beginning of a new age in philosophy known as the Hellenistic era, which ends three hundred years later in 31 BCE when the Roman Republic dissolves and the Roman Empire emerges. In this period, the language and culture of Greece that Alexander had seeded into his empire (mostly through the many cities he had founded in his name) was further propagated by his generals, su"using all things Greek throughout the known world. Hence the name Hellenistic from Hellene, which means Greek.

!is age is known for the three philosophical movements that dominated philosophical debate and seeped into popular consciousness: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and skepticism. !ese philosophies competed with new cults from the East and the old beliefs in magic, divination, astrology, mysticism, ancestor wor- ship, god-kings, sacred mysteries, and messiahs. But they held their own, partly because they were meant to have universal, not just local, appeal, and because they emphasized ethics and prac-

tical wisdom for living over metaphysics and logic, the lofty spheres of Plato and Aristotle. All three were philosophies of life, and all three were motivated toward the same object: peace of mind and freedom from disturbance.

7.1 EPICURUS

!e Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–271 BCE) is considered the founder of Epicureanism, the hedonistic theory that life’s highest aim is happiness attained through moderate pleasures and the avoidance of mental disturbance. Hedonism is the doctrine that pleasure is the supreme good, a perspective that many others after Epicurus also maintained (including, for example, the utilitarian philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill). But Epicurus’ hedonism is of a peculiar kind and is often misunderstood. Contrary to popular myth, he did not propose what Epicureanism has sometimes been taken to mean: recklessly sensual, overindulgent living. He believed that the true life of pleasure consists in an attitude of imper- turbable emotional calm that needs only simple pleasures, a sensible diet, a prudent moral life, and good friends. As he puts it:

Figure 7.1 &QJDVSVT� ���o����BCE).

Hellenistic era !e period from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE to the end of the Roman Republic in 31 BCE in which Epicureanism, Stoicism, and skepticism flourished.

Epicureanism !e philosophy of Epicurus; the view that life’s highest aim is happiness attained through moderate pleasures and the avoidance of mental disturbance.

hedonism !e doctrine that pleasure is the supreme good.

&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

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&QJDVSVT� 163

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Epicurus was born at Samos, went to Athens at age eighteen for military and civilian service, then spent several years setting up Epicurean communi- ties in the Greek islands. Finally in 306 he returned to Athens where he estab- lished an Epi curean school known as the Garden. In contrast to the prejudices of the times, Epicurus opened his school to everyone—women, slaves, and aris- tocrats included.!e Garden, however, was more than a school. It was, in fact, an Epicurean community dedicated to simple living, the study of philosophy, and friendship, as well as a withdrawal from politics. Epicurus spent all his remain- ing years there.

He was an impressively productive writer, perhaps penning as many as three hundred books. But very little of his work survives. We have only three letters, some maxims, and a few fragments gleaned from a deteriorated papyrus contain- ing his greatest work, On Nature. What we know about his philosophy is largely based on the writings of his adherents and on the masterwork On the Nature of !ings, a treatise in verse by the philosopher-poet Lucretius (100–55 BCE), a devoted Epicurean.

“If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have per- ished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.”

—Epicurus

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“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

—Epicurus

164 CHAPTER 7 5IF�)FMMFOJTUJD�&SB

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For Epicurus, pleasure is primarily an absence of pain, rather than a quantity of satisfaction or enjoyment. A good life is a life free of trouble, and the chief aim of each person should be to attain this kind of tranquility. !at pleasure is our ultimate good is plain, he says. for all people everywhere seek it:

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

But not all pleasures are created equal, and although all pleasures are good, they are not all to be pursued:

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

!ere are physical pains and mental pains, Epicurus says, and the worst of them are mental. Specifically, the worst kind of mental pains, or disturbances of the mind, are fears engendered by false beliefs about death or the afterlife and about the gods. When these things are seen for what they really are, the fears dissolve.

As for death, Epicurus asserts that we should

“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”

—Epicurus

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

Why fear death? Epicurus asks. When death is here, we’re not. When we’re here, death is not. !is view is natural for Epicurus because he is a materialist—or more precisely, an ancient atomist. Atomism is the belief that reality consists of an infinite number of minute, indivisible bits called atoms moving rapidly in an infinite void, or empty space (see Chapter 2). For Epicurus, souls are also made of atoms, and

atomism !e belief that reality consists of an infinite number of minute, indivisible bits called atoms moving rapidly in an infinite void, or empty space.

&QJDVSVT� 165

vau28703_ch07_161-179.indd 165 05/09/17 06:01 PM

at death the atoms disperse just as they do in any other material object that decays. !us the soul is mortal, and no horrors await it after death.

As for the gods, Epicurus declares that although the gods are real, they are not the destructive meddlers in our lives that myth has made them out to be. !ey abide far from us in another realm and have nothing to do with us. So we need not fear the gods, nor believe the nightmarish stories and foreboding predictions o"ered up by the ignorant and superstitious.

So the happy life is one that is free of turmoil in body and mind, and attaining such a life requires the wisdom that philosophy can yield. For happiness requires a realistic view of both what exists and what matters.

Above all, Epicurus urges prudence in our pursuit of pleasures, in our choosing to satisfy or not to satisfy particular desires:

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“It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.”

—Epicurus

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“It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind.”

—Lucretius

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

Prudence teaches us to distinguish di"erent sorts of desires and to choose wisely among them:

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

166 CHAPTER 7 5IF�)FMMFOJTUJD�&SB

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Epicurus says that necessary desires include those that are necessary for happi- ness (desires for friendship, for example), for physical comfort (desires for clothing, warmth), and for life (desires for food, water, shelter). Pain results when these desires are not satisfied, but the pain is easily removed (which brings about pleasure) by the simplest and least extravagant means. As Epicurus argues:

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

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&QJDVSVT��Letter to Menoeceus

!ose who try to satisfy necessary but outsized desires or unnecessary vain de- sires (that is, desires for luxurious, trendy, or prestigious things) invite pain—pain from the side e"ects of overindulgence, from the strain of extravagant living, from the increased strength of desires, or from the failure to satisfy insatiable desires. !e proper control and moderation of our desires brings serenity, and an untroubled mind is the key to real happiness.

7.2 EPICTETUS

Stoicism is the view that we can attain happiness and peace of mind if we focus on controlling only what is up to us (attitudes, intentions, perceptions, and feelings) and ignoring what is not up to us (body, reputation, property, and political o#ce), thereby restraining our desires, cultivating virtue, and conforming our lives with Nature (or God). It arose in the fourth century BCE to eventually become one of the great moral systems in philosophy’s history. !is is how A. A. Long, a Stoicism scholar, describes its significance:

Stoicism !e view that we can attain happiness and peace of mind if we focus on controlling only what is up to us (attitudes, intentions, perceptions, and feelings) and ignor- ing what is not up to us (body, reputation, prop- erty, and political o#ce), thereby restraining our desires, cultivating virtue, and conforming our lives to Nature (or God).

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”

—Epicurus

"��"��-POH��Hellenistic Philosophers: Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics

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&QJDUFUVT� 167

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Lucretius Lucretius (100–55 BCE), a Roman poet and philosopher, was a zealous adherent of Epicureanism and an admirer of Epicurus, even though the two men lived far apart in time. !rough his long poem On the Nature of !ings, Lucretius transmitted Epicu- rean philosophy to the West and presented a worldview that is astonishingly modern and surprisingly fervent. On the face of it, his Nature may seem forlorn—it paints a picture of human beings as entirely material and transitory, configurations of atoms adrift in a vast material universe of atoms, with no pos- sibility of surviving the annihilation of the body. But Lucretius argues that we can strive to grasp the joys and pleasures of ex- istence and be free of the fears that imprison us. !is is how Stephen Greenblatt, a Lucretius scholar, characterizes the poet-philosopher’s legacy:

More surprisingly, perhaps, is the sense, driven home by every page of On the Nature of !ings, that the scientific vision of the world—a vision of atoms ran- domly moving in an infinite universe—was in its origins imbued with a poet’s sense of wonder. Wonder did not depend on gods and demons and the dream of an afterlife; in Lucretius it welled up out of a recognition that we are made of the same matter as the stars and the oceans and all things else. And this recognition was the basis for the way he thought we should live our lives.

In my view, and by no means mine alone, the culture in the wake of antiq- uity that best epitomized the Lucretian embrace of beauty and pleasure and propelled it forward as a legitimate and worthy human pursuit was that of the Renaissance. !e pursuit was not restricted to the arts. It shaped the dress and the etiquette of courtiers; the language of the liturgy; the design and decoration of everyday objects. It su"used Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific and technological explorations, Galileo’s vivid dialogues on astronomy, Francis Bacon’s ambitious research projects, and Richard Hooker’s theology.

Stephen Greenblatt, !e Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), 8.

PORTR AIT

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168 CHAPTER 7 5IF�)FMMFOJTUJD�&SB

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In this chapter, we concentrate on Stoic moral theory, but we should keep in mind that Stoicism is more than that. !e Stoics developed an impressive—and highly coherent—philosophical system comprising logic, epistemology, physics, meta- physics, linguistics, and theology. All these areas of Stoic thinking fit together well, with each one supporting and explaining others. Stoics believed, for example, that the universe is a kind of organizing being, or logos—a rational, all-pervading Nature, or God, that structured and directed everything. Human beings have the power of reason because they too have this logos within them. !ey are happiest and wisest when they live according to the logos, this inner spark of rationality, which in turn harmonizes their lives with the logos of Nature. !e result is a good life in the most profound sense.

Stoicism began in Athens with Zeno of Citium (334–262 BCE) discoursing on his philosophy in the marketplace from a porch (a stoa, the root word of Stoicism).9 Sto-

icism was attractive to many for a variety of reasons. First, it o"ered itself as an antidote for the miseries of the world: it addressed the question of how people can cope with, even surmount, all the su"ering that befalls them. And in Zeno’s time, and for hundreds of years after, immeasur- able pain and sorrow were extraordinarily common. For the Stoic, the only real harm that can be done to a person is self-inflicted injury to the soul by a lack of virtue. Zeno and the rest of the Stoics, like the Buddhists and other fol- lowers of Eastern religions, sought virtue and inner peace through moderation or elimination of desire.

Second, the antidote was available to everyone—high and low born, slave and master, rulers and the ruled. !e shining philosophies of Plato and Aristotle spoke of wisdom, truth, and virtue—but few non-philosophers could understand what all the fuss was about. Stoicism, however, could be grasped by Everyman. To receive the blessings of Stoicism, the advantages of wealth, status, and birth were not required. Virtue, a condition of the soul, was the only prerequisite, which anyone could acquire.

!ird, the Stoics were the first to preach cosmopolitan- ism, the idea that all men—whether Roman, Athenian, or

“!ere is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

—Epictetus

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barbarian—are brothers. We are all, they declared, made of the same stu", fated to travel the same mortal road, and part of the same universal community composed of humans and benign providence.

!e three most widely read Stoics can also claim to have the most interesting life stories. Seneca (after 4 BCE–65 CE) was a distinguished Roman statesman whose suicide (demanded by the emperor Nero) became an exemplar of Stoic indi"erence to misfortune. Epictetus (c. 55–135 CE) was a former slave, maimed in captivity, who took to heart Socrates’ claim that a good man cannot be harmed. Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE) was a Roman emperor who applied Stoicism to his life in a time of cultural tumult and confusion. !e views of these men on Stoicism are in remark- able agreement, despite their separation in time.

So Stoicism holds that people of true Stoic virtue cannot be wounded by things external to their souls. Trouble may swarm around them, yet they cannot be dis- tressed or frightened or coerced or enslaved or injured. !is is an astonishing claim, and the Stoics spend a lot of time explaining how it could be true. Here is Epictetus’ explanation:

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

—Epictetus

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&QJDUFUVT��Encheiridion

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Consider these two people in identical situations. Bailey’s sunglasses have been stolen, and so have Payton’s. !e sunglasses are alike, and the circumstances sur- rounding the thefts are the same. But Bailey gets angry and remains upset all day long, while Payton is slightly annoyed but soon forgets about the incident and later buys new sunglasses. !e di"erence between these two reactions cannot be due to anything inherent in the events themselves, because the events are the same. !e di"erence lies in the attitudes and feelings of the persons involved. One woman is unhappy and the other happy, because they think about the incident di"erently. And that means their happiness or unhappiness is up to them. !e power to be happy is theirs to use or not use. So it goes, says the Stoic, for everything in life. We may not be in charge of events, but we are in charge of our happiness. We may not be able to change the world, but we can change the way we think about it. Epictetus would say, as Shakespeare did, that the problem lies not in our stars but in ourselves.

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

—Epictetus

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!e Stoic way of thinking about things involves observing an important di"er- ence in how things are. As Epictetus says:

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&QJDUFUVT��Encheiridion

!e idea of distinguishing what is up to us from what is not up to us—what be- longs to us from what doesn’t—is a theme that runs throughout the Stoics’ writings. Here is Epictetus driving the point home:

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“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

—Epictetus

&QJDUFUVT��Encheiridion

Note that the Stoic ideal is not total impassiveness, a complete lack of emotion or desire in every situation. !e Stoics were not, as some ancient critics asserted, “men of stone.” !e ideal Stoic—the Stoic sage—is not emotionless. But he is se- lective about what he does and does not feel. He does not give in to excessive and “irrational” feelings—anger, fear, dread, lust, and anxiety. But he does experience “good emotional states”—kindness, generosity, joy, and goodwill. !e central Stoic insight is the need to moderate our attitudes and feelings through reason: to ask our- selves whether things not in our control are really appropriate objects of our desires, whether our desires are in proportion to the true worth of what we seek, and whether we have attained an evenness of mind and a sense of calm regarding the ups and downs of life.

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!e Stoic attitude toward su"ering and tragedy is not a relic of the third century. Today it’s often on display in the aftermath of disasters, although it’s not called Stoicism; it’s called grace. When a woman’s house has been obliterated by a tornado, and she has lost every material possession she has, and she says, “We’re lucky; I’m alive, and my children are alive, and we can always rebuild”—that’s grace: Stoicism by another name.

7.3 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

Skepticism is the view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way. We assume we know a great many things—dogs bark, grass is green, fire is hot, the Earth is round, 2 ! 2 " 4, and a jump from a tall building may be deadly. But skeptics balk: they say we, in fact, don’t know what we think we know. !ey may raise fundamental doubts about any knowledge claims based on sense experience or reason or both. Or they may limit skepticism to particular domains such as the existence of material objects, the past and future, other minds, or God. In any case, philosophers throughout the centuries have recognized the seriousness of the skep- tics’ challenges, and they have been trying to counter or accommodate them ever

skepticism !e view that we lack knowledge in some fundamental way.

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“!e essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.”

—Epictetus

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THEN AND NOW

Stoicism Today Is Stoicism relevant in the twenty-first century? Plenty of thoughtful people think so— including Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni, coauthors of Rome’s Last Citizen. In a recent Forbes article, they o"er five reasons why Stoicism matters:

1. It was built for hard times. Stoicism was born in a world falling apart. Invented in Athens just a few decades after Alexander the Great’s conquests and premature death upended the Greek world, Stoicism took o" because it o"ered security and peace in a time of war- fare and crisis. !e Stoic creed didn’t promise material security or a peace in the afterlife; but it did promise an unshakable happiness in this life. . . .

Stoicism tells us that no happiness can be secure if it’s rooted in changeable, destructible things. Our bank accounts can grow or shrink, our careers can prosper or falter, even our loved ones can be taken from us. !ere is only one place the world can’t touch: our inner selves, our choice at every moment to be brave, to be reasonable, to be good.

!e world might take everything from us; Stoicism tells us that we all have a fortress on the inside. !e Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who was born a slave and crippled at a young age, wrote: “Where is the good? In the will. . . . If anyone is unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone.” . . .

2. Stoicism is made for globalization. !e world that gave birth to Stoicism was a parochial, often xenophobic place: most people held fast to age-old divisions of nationality, religion, and status. If openly embracing those divisions sounds strange to us, we have Stoicism to thank. It was perhaps the first Western philosophy to preach universal brother- hood. Epictetus said that each of us is a citizen of our own land, but “also a member of the great city of gods and men.” !e Roman emperor Marcus Aure- lius, history’s best-known Stoic, reminded himself daily to love the world as much as he loved his native city. . . .

3. If you’re Christian, you’re already part-Stoic. Imagine a religion that stressed human brotherhood under a benevolent creator God; that told us to moderate and master our basic urges rather than giving in to them; that nevertheless insisted that all humans, because we’re human, are bound to fail at this mission; and that spent a lot of time talking about “con- science” and the multiple aspects, or “persons,” of a unitary God. All of that

since the rise of skeptical schools in the Hellenistic period. (See Chapters 9 and 10 for additional discussions of skepticism.)

!e most influential tradition of skepticism from this era can be traced to Pyrrho of Elis (c. 365–270 BCE), an obscure figure whose ideas about skepticism were preserved in the works of Sextus Empiricus (fl. c. 200 CE), a later follower. In Outlines

4FYUVT�&NQJSJDVT� 173

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might sound familiar. But the philoso- phy that invented all of those ideas was not Christianity, but Stoicism. . . .

4. It’s the uno!cial philosophy of the military. In 1965, James Stockdale’s A-4E Skyhawk was shot down over Vietnam. He later re- membered the moment like this: “After ejection I had about thirty seconds to make my last statement in freedom before I landed . . . And so help me, I whispered to myself: ‘Five years down there, at least. I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.’”

Stockdale spent more than seven years in a Vietnamese prison, and he wrote that Stoicism saved his life. Stockdale had spent years studying Stoic thought before deploying, and he drew on those teach- ings to endure his captivity. . . .

5. It’s a philosophy for leadership. Stoicism teaches us that, before we try to control events, we have to control our- selves first. Our attempts to exert influence on the world are subject to chance, disappointment, and failure—but control of the self is the only kind that can succeed 100% of the time. From emperor Marcus Aurelius on, leaders have found that a Stoic attitude earns them respect in the face of failure, and guards against arrogance in the face of success. . . .

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Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni, “Five Reasons Why Stoicism Matters Today,” Forbes, September 28, 2012.

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of Pyrrhonism, Sextus presents the Pyrrhonist case against the “dogmatists”— philosophers such as Aristotle, Epicurus, and Epictetus who believe we can indeed come to know things about the world. He lays out ten Pyrrhonist arguments, or “modes,” that purport to show that we cannot be sure whether any beliefs are true and therefore must suspend judgment about them. !e suspension of judgment is a

“Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.”

—George Santayana

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failure to attain knowledge, and the wholesale application of the arguments would spread skepticism to a wide range of beliefs.

But how could a skeptic get through the day without firm beliefs? In order to act at all don’t we have to make judgments? (An ancient canard has it that since Pyrrho didn’t believe what his senses told him, he had to be contin- ually rescued from obvious dangers by his friends.) Sextus says that skeptics manage to get through life just fine by attending to appearances—that is, to the way things in the world appear to us. We are all aware of how things seem to be—which is not necessarily the way things are. Appearances may not be reality. (!roughout philosophy’s history, the relationship between appearance and reality has been explored and disputed time after time.) Sextus says that skeptics act according to how things appear with- out believing that the appearances reflect the actual world, without any claims to knowledge. As Sextus explains:

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DETAILS

The Self-Destruction of Skepticism For Sextus Empiricus, skepticism is a matter of questioning whether anything can be known. !is amounts to suspending judgment about the truth of knowledge claims. But he does not assert that “nothing can be known” or “no proposition can be known.” Why? Because such statements would get him into a logical tangle. !e assertion that “no proposition can be known” applies to all propositions—including “no proposition can be known.” So if the proposition is true, it must be false, which means that it is self-refuting. No respectable skep- tic would meander into such an obvious trap.

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To the Pyrrhonists, living without beliefs but in conformity with the “ordinary regimen of life” means conducting daily life according to the demands of nature and of the laws and customs of society.

Like the Epicureans and the Stoics, the skeptics aim toward peace of mind. !ey reason that the search for genuine knowledge always involves doubt, and doubt can be a profoundly disturbing state. To rise above the inner turmoil and achieve tran- quility, it is necessary to end the painful chase after knowledge and to suspend judg- ment on all matters. !e result is ataraxia, imperturbability of soul.

Sextus’ ten arguments for skepticism have the same general form: since there are di"erences or conflicts between appearances, we cannot trust any of them to reveal the truth about how things really are. !e most reasonable response, then, is a suspension of judgment—a principled skepticism. Here are a few of Sextus’ modes:

appearances !e way things in the world appear to us.

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“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.”

—David Suzuki

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“Dogmatism and skepti- cism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.”

—Bertrand Russell

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WRITING AND REASONING $)"15&3��

1. What is Epicureanism and how is it di"erent from pure hedonism and the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure? How does the reputation of Epicurus di"er from his actual character and teachings?

2. What is Epicurus’ view of the mental pains caused by fear of death, the after- life, and the gods? Why does he say that we have nothing to fear from these?

3. What is the significance of Epictetus’ distinction between controlling only what is up to us and ignoring what is not up to us? According to Epictetus, what e"ect would focusing ourselves only on what is up to us have on our lives?

4. Why does Stoicism claim that people of true virtue cannot be wounded by things external to their souls? Do you agree? Why or why not?

5. Explain and critique at least three of Sextus’ arguments for skepticism.

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R&7*&8�/OTES

7.1 EPICURUS t� &QJDVSVT� JT� DPOTJEFSFE� UIF� GPVOEFS� PG� &QJDVSFBOJTN � UIF� IFEPOJTUJD� UIFPSZ� UIBU�

life’s highest aim is happiness attained through moderate pleasures and the avoid- ance of mental disturbance.

t� &QJDVSFBOJTN�JT�OPU�BCPVU�SFDLMFTTMZ�TFOTVBM �PWFSJOEVMHFOU�MJWJOH��*U�TBZT�UIBU�UIF� true life of pleasure consists in an attitude of imperturbable emotional calm that needs only simple pleasures, a sensible diet, a prudent moral life, and good friends.

t� "�HPPE�MJGF�JT�B�MJGF�GSFF�PG�USPVCMF �BOE�UIF�DIJFG�BJN�PG�FBDI�QFSTPO�TIPVME�CF�UP� attain this kind of tranquility. But not all pleasures are created equal, and although all pleasures are good, they are not all to be pursued.

t� &QJDVSVT�TBZT�UIFSF�T�OP�SFBTPO�UP�GFBS�EFBUI �CFDBVTF�XIFO�EFBUI�JT�IFSF �XF�SF�OPU�� When we’re here, death is not.

t� ɨPTF�XIP�USZ�UP�TBUJTGZ�OFDFTTBSZ�CVU�FYDFTTJWF�EFTJSFT�PS�VOOFDFTTBSZ�WBJO�EFTJSFT� invite pain.

7.2 EPICTETUS t� 4UPJDJTN�JT�UIF�WJFX�UIBU�XF�DBO�BUUBJO�IBQQJOFTT�BOE�QFBDF�PG�NJOE�JG�XF�GPDVT�

on controlling only what is up to us and ignoring what is not up to us, thereby restraining our desires and conforming our lives with Nature, or God.

t� 4UPJDJTN� XBT� BUUSBDUJWF� UP� NBOZ� GPS� B� WBSJFUZ� PG� SFBTPOT�� *U� PĊFSFE� JUTFMG� BT� BO� antidote for the miseries of the world, and the antidote was available to everyone— high and low born, slave and master, rulers and the ruled. !e Stoics were also the first to preach cosmopolitanism, the idea that all men—whether Roman, Athenian, or barbarian—are brothers.

t� 'PS�UIF�4UPJD �UIF�POMZ�SFBM�IBSN�UIBU�DBO�CF�EPOF�UP�B�QFSTPO�JT�TFMG�JOnJDUFE�JOKVSZ� to the soul by a lack of virtue. Zeno and the rest of the Stoics, like the Buddhists and other followers of Eastern religions, sought virtue and inner peace through moderation or elimination of desire.

t� ɨF�QPXFS�UP�CF�IBQQZ�JT�PVST�UP�VTF�PS�OPU�VTF��8F�NBZ�OPU�CF�JO�DIBSHF�PG�FWFOUT � but we are in charge of our happiness. We may not be able to change the world, but we can change the way we think about it.

7.3 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS t� 4LFQUJDJTN�JT�UIF�WJFX�UIBU�XF�MBDL�LOPXMFEHF�JO�TPNF�GVOEBNFOUBM�XBZ��4LFQUJDT�

may raise fundamental doubts about any knowledge claims based on sense experi- ence or reason or both. Or they may limit skepticism to particular domains such as the existence of material objects, the past and future, other minds, or God.

t� *O�Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus presents the Pyrrhonist case against the “dogmatists.” He lays out ten Pyrrhonist arguments, or “modes,” that purport to show that we cannot be sure whether any beliefs are true and therefore must

178 CHAPTER 7 5IF�)FMMFOJTUJD�&SB

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suspend judgment about them. !e suspension of judgment is a failure to attain knowledge.

t� 4FYUVT�TBZT�UIBU�TLFQUJDT�NBOBHF�UP�MJWF�B�OPSNBM�MJGF�CZ�BUUFOEJOH�UP�BQQFBSBODFT� to the way things in the world appear to us. Skeptics act according to how things appear without believing that the appearances reflect the actual world, without any claims to knowledge.

t� -JLF�UIF�&QJDVSFBOT�BOE�UIF�4UPJDT �UIF�TLFQUJDT�BJN�UPXBSE�QFBDF�PG�NJOE��ɨFZ� reason that the search for genuine knowledge always involves doubt, and doubt can be a profoundly disturbing state. To rise above the inner turmoil and achieve tranquility, it is necessary to end the painful chase after knowledge and to suspend judgment on all matters.

,&:�5&3.4 appearances atomism

Epicureanism hedonism

Hellenistic era skepticism

Stoicism

/PUFT 1. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, in !e Extant Remains, trans. Cyril Bailey (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1926), 131–132. 2. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, trans. Bailey, 128–129. 3. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, trans. Bailey, 129–130. 4. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, trans. Bailey, 124–127. 5. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, trans. Bailey, 132. 6. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, trans. Bailey, 127–128. 7. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, trans. Bailey, 130–131. 8. A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophers: Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1986), 107. 9. Not to be confused with Zeno of Elea, the purveyor of paradoxes. 10. Epictetus, Encheiridion, trans. Wallace I. Matson, in Classics of Philosophy, 3rd

edition, ed. Louis P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

11. Epictetus, Encheiridion, trans. Matson. 12. Epictetus, Encheiridion, trans. Matson. 13. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. Benson Mates (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1996). 14. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. Mates.

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Volume 1: Greece and Rome: From the Pre-Socratics to Plotinus (New York: Doubleday, 1993).

Stephen Greenblatt, !e Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH� 179

vau28703_ch07_161-179.indd 179 05/09/17 06:01 PM

Ted Honderich, ed., !e Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Anthony Kenny, Ancient Philosophy: A New History of Western Philosophy, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics (Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1986).

A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, !e Hellenistic Philosophers: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

Lucretius, !e Nature of !ings, trans. A. E. Stallings (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).

Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945).

Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, trans. Robin Campbell (New York: Penguin, 1969, 2004).

vau28703_ch08_180-209.indd 180 05/09/17 06:02 PM

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

CHAPTER 8

!e Medieval Period

8.1 BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN t�6OEFSTUBOE�UIF�IJTUPSJDBM�DIBOHFT�UIBU�MFE�UP�UIF�.JEEMF�"HFT� t�4VNNBSJ[F�UIF�TPDJBM�BOE�DVMUVSBM�DPOEJUJPOT�UIBU�PCUBJOFE�JO�UIF�%BSL�"HFT� t�&YQMBJO�IPX�QIJMPTPQIZ�BOE�UIF�$IVSDI�XFSF�JOUFSEFQFOEFOU�JO�UIF�NFEJFWBM� FSB�

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t�%FöOF�Neoplatonism, necessary truth �BOE�moral evil. t�&YQMBJO�UIF�TJHOJöDBODF�UP�"VHVTUJOF�PG�UIF�CJCMJDBM�RVPUBUJPO �i6OMFTT�ZPV� CFMJFWF �ZPV�TIBMM�OPU�VOEFSTUBOE�w

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t�4VNNBSJ[F�"VHVTUJOF�T�EPDUSJOF�PG�UIF�great chain of being. t�6OEFSTUBOE�IPX�"VHVTUJOF�FYQMBJOT�UIF�QSFTFODF�PG�FWJM�JO�UIF�XPSME�

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t�&YQMBJO�(BVOJMP�T�PCKFDUJPO�UP�"OTFMN�T�BSHVNFOU� t�%FöOF�ontological argument, cosmological argument, natural law theory, BOE̓UIF�doctrine of double e!ect.

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8.1 BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN

By the end of the Hellenistic and Roman eras, Greek philosophy in the rigorous style of Plato and Aristotle—with its commitment to logical argument and the open- ended search for truth—had ebbed in every corner of the Western world. !e grand tradition of rational inquiry that first blossomed in Athens and then spread to all the places subdued by Alexander and his Greek culture seemed to be fading away. Sto- icism, Epicureanism, and Neoplatonism still had their adherents—but so did a new crop of pagan cults, oracles, superstitions, prophets, magicians, and mystics. !e most powerful trend of all was the rise of Christianity from a banned cult to the o"- cial state religion dominating the political and intellectual life of the Roman Empire. In many ways, philosophy then had to answer to religion. When in 476 CE the Goths sacked Rome, the Western empire fell, and civilization itself was in general decline. But the Church emerged from the chaos as the supreme power in Europe, becoming philosophy’s master, censor, and—indirectly—its patron. Philosophy had tumbled far from its pinnacle in ancient Greece, but it was far from dead, and a few thinkers in the Middle Ages (the medieval era) set about proving it.

Some experts take medieval philosophy to span a thousand years from (very roughly) 500 to 1500 CE. Before this time, ancient philosophy had flourished; after this period, modern philosophy arose. !ere is little agreement about these dates (or any others), but they seem at least plausible because they more or less correspond to the virtual takeover of philosophy by Christianity in the first millennium CE and the weakening of Christianity’s grip during the Renaissance in the second millennium.

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182 CHAPTER 8 5IF�.FEJFWBM�1FSJPE

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In any case, ancient times and the Middle Ages overlap considerably, and so do the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. !us Augustine is traditionally thought to appear at the beginning of the period, even though he could be counted as a figure of late antiquity, living before 500 CE. And toward the end of the era, we encounter the renowned philosopher William of Ockham (of “Ockham’s razor” fame), who died in 1349, over a hundred and fifty years before the supposed beginning of the Renaissance.

Scholars used to contend that no philosophy worth reading came out of the medieval period. Histories of philosophy typically skipped the period altogether and focused on the philosophical achievements of the ancients and the moderns. Now we know that this attitude was understandable but unjustified.

It’s true that civilization fell under a shadow of ignorance when the Roman Empire was undone. Progress in everything from astronomy to physics was all but halted, and culture stagnated. For good reason, experts label this time the Dark Ages, a period stretching from around 500 to 1000 CE. Almost all of the great works of the ancient philosophers were inaccessible, either because the original texts were lost or because very few people knew how to read Greek or to translate the texts into Latin. (Around the same time in the Arab world, the original Greek texts were being rescued from oblivion and studied by Islamic scholars from India to Spain.) It’s also true that philosophy became a servant of the medieval Church, being relegated mostly to the role of explaining or commenting on Church dogma. Philosophy had to be careful not to directly challenge received doctrine: devia- tion was o"cially condemned, and transgressors could be excommunicated or imprisoned.

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"VHVTUJOF� 183

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But all this is only half the story. !e Church may have placed shackles on philosophy, but philosophy also had its hooks in the Church. !e latter needed philosophy to work out the de- tails of doctrine or to make sense of the Church’s teachings or to show that there was no real conflict between religion and reason. Little wonder that countless clerics and Church o"cials studied philosophy. !e inevitable result of this mingling of philosophy and religion was that some good philosophical work got done. Cleric-philosophers were free to delve into philosophical topics that did not infringe on religious doctrine, and they eagerly ap- plied their philosophical expertise to theological puzzles that the Church had trouble unraveling. !is environment produced an occasional beacon in the dim medieval light: Augustine, Bo- ethius, Anselm, Avicenna, Maimonides, Hildegard, William of Ockham, and—perhaps the greatest medieval thinker of all— !omas Aquinas.

8.2 AUGUSTINE

Augustine (354–430 CE) was a Christian philosopher and theo- logian who had an enormous influence on Christian thought and on the West’s appreciation of Plato and Aristotle. He a#ected Christian theology more than any other early Christian author, introduced Plato to generations of thinkers, and forced philosophers in every epoch to reckon with his ideas and authority. Pascal, Luther, Wittgenstein, and others had to take Augustine into account. He was the pivot point between Greco-pagan and Christian thinking, a transition that would change both the Church and future philosophy.

Augustine was born to a Christian mother (St. Monica) and pagan father (Patri- cius) in Roman North Africa (now Algeria). In his autobiography Confessions, he describes an idle youth spent in an uninhibited romp through sensuality:

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“Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

—Augustine

“[T]he cause of moral evil is not the Creator but the created will.”

—Augustine

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Augustine was trained in rhetoric at Carthage and devel- oped an intense interest in philosophy after being exposed to some classical philosophy from Cicero. Later he became an adherent of the religion of Manicheanism, which held that the world is not ruled by a benevolent God, but by two great competing forces, one good and one evil. Augustine thought Manicheanism o#ered a better explanation of why evil exists than Christianity did. In 383 he left for Rome to teach rhetoric, and a year later he sailed to Milan for the same reason. In Rome his belief in Manicheanism weak- ened considerably, and in Milan he was impressed by the sermons of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. He also became intrigued by a doctrine that seemed to shine new light on Christianity: Neoplatonism. !is view is a blend of Plato’s metaphysics (primarily concerning the theory of Forms) and other nonmaterialist or religious ideas. In the “Platonic books,” Augustine found musings about an immaterial

transcendent realm, about high and low levels of reality, about a supreme entity (the One in Plato), and about the possibility of knowledge of all these things. Moreover, Augustine thought he saw analogs of these concepts in the Christian worldview. After a very long, anguished struggle with these ideas, he finally converted to Christianity in 386 at age thirty-one and was baptized by St. Ambrose on Easter Day.

In 388 Augustine returned to Africa, and in 395 or 396 he became the bishop of Hippo (now the city of Annaba in Algeria), a post he kept for the rest of his life. During his long journey from reprobate to learned Christian bishop, he produced a vast trove of writings—about five million words. !e most renowned of these include Confessions (an autobiography cum meditation), City of God (a synthesis of Christian and classical philosophy), On the Trinity (a commentary on the mysterious doctrine of the unity of three persons in one Godhead), and On Free Will (a dialogue about human choice).

From both classical and Christian threads, Augustine wove a distinctive set of doctrines about God, the world, knowledge, ethics, and existence. In epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, he shaped new doctrines from old ideas and original analyses. Along the way, he found that in his search for wisdom there was a place for both faith and reason, both belief and understanding. He thought that to attain wisdom belief had to come first, then understanding. On this point, a verse from the Bible spoke volumes to him: “Unless you believe, you shall not under- stand.” So he came to believe in the Christian God, but he wanted more: he wanted to understand God and how He relates to the world and to him. And he was prepared by his faith to finally receive the truth with the help of philosophy. (Centuries later, !omas Aquinas and countless other philosopher-theologians would also see faith and reason as partners, not enemies.)

Truth But could Augustine or anyone else know anything at all? !e skeptics from Plato’s time said no, and for a while Augustine wonders whether they might be right. He

Neoplatonism !e philo- sophical view consisting of a blend of Plato’s metaphysics (primarily concerning the theory of the Forms) and other nonmaterialist or religious ideas.

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finally reasons his way out of his doubts in much the same way that Descartes does in the seventeenth century (Descartes declared, “I think, therefore I am”). !e skep- tics say we can know nothing because we can always be mistaken. But Augustine replies, “‘If I am mistaken, I exist.’ A nonexistent being cannot be mistaken; there- fore I must exist, if I am mistaken.”2 And he asserts that if he has this proof that he exists, he cannot be mistaken in thinking that he exists. He therefore knows he exists. And if he is glad of these two facts, he can add a third fact—he knows he is glad. So Augustine knows at least that he exists, that he knows it, and that he is glad. In fact, he can know the contents of his direct experience, his subjective sen- sory impressions. About these he cannot be mistaken, just as the man who says “this tastes sweet to me” cannot be mistaken. So, contrary to the skeptic’s view, Augustine says, there is such a thing as truth. But can we trust our senses to give us knowledge about the world (not just our inner subjective experience)? Complete skepticism, says Augustine, is not justified. !at we are sometimes mistaken about the objects of our sense experience is no reason to be an extreme skeptic.

In addition to these propositions, Augustine thinks he also knows mathemati- cal truths. Seven plus three equals ten, now and forever, and for anyone who thinks about it. Likewise we can know logical truths: for example, that either it is raining or not raining; that the world either exists or it does not exist. Moreover, we can know particular value statements. We know for example that good is better than evil and that the eternal is better than the temporal. Of all these mathematical, logical, and evaluative truths, we can have certain knowledge; they are eternal, changeless, and necessary. !ey are not truths that we concoct; they are not dependent on our minds for their existence. As Augustine says, “You will never be able to say that [truth] belongs particularly to you or to me or to any man, for it is available and o#ers itself to be shared by all who discern things immutably true.”3 Augustine concludes that necessary truth (a truth that could not have been false) is extremely precious— more valuable even than rationality (“superior to our minds,” Augustine says), which is our means for discovering such truth. It is valuable precisely because it has the superlative properties of immutability, timelessness, and necessity. Necessary truth is a candidate for being the very highest good, the best of things, and the zenith of the intrinsically valuable.

From this notion of necessary truth, Augustine argues for the existence of God. He reasons that if truth is the highest good, then truth must be God, because God is the highest good, the most excellent of all things. If an entity is higher and more excellent than truth, then that entity must be God. Either way, God must exist. By starting with an understanding of truth and with the concept of God as the highest good, Augustine reasons that whether God is truth, or God is higher than truth, God is. “Whether there is or is not such a higher thing,” says Augustine, “you cannot deny that God exists.”4 (In the next section, you will see that Anselm makes a similar but more nuanced argument.)

The Hierarchy of Being From Plato and Neoplatonists, Augustine derived a view of the world as an all- encompassing hierarchy of existing things and their value. Recall that Plato had

necessary truth A truth that could not have been false.

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“Augustine’s Confessions will always rank among the greater masterpieces of Western literature. Like Rousseau’s book with the same title . . . the work has a perennial power to speak, even though written virtually sixteen centuries ago and certainly a book rooted in antiquity.”

—Henry Chadwick

186 CHAPTER 8 5IF�.FEJFWBM�1FSJPE

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insisted that reality consists of two worlds: the ordinary world of sense experience and the world of the inde- pendently existing Forms, or Ideas. !e former is fleet- ing, physical, and imperfect; the latter is perfect, eternal, nonphysical, and changeless. !e Forms are the ideals, or standards, that we can first come to know through reason and then use to understand the objects of everyday experi- ence. !e imperfect world is a mere shadow of the world of the Forms: the Forms are more real than physical objects. And greatest of the Forms is the Form of the Good, the ultimate source of all that is.

For Augustine, the Good is God—the ultimate re- ality, the source and creator of everything that is. Like Plato’s Good, God is eternal, immutable, and perfect. All that exists is God and what he creates out of noth- ing (ex nihilo). Creation out of nothing means that God did not take existing primordial materials and fashion the

world; there were no preexisting primordial materials. He brought the world into existence from nonexistence. Moreover, since God is all-good, everything he cre- ates is also good. But he is the supreme good, and everything else is less good. All these things fit into a hierarchy of goodness, with God (the highest possible good) at the summit and everything else varying by degrees of value from higher good to lowest good. !is ranking of existing things—what has been called the great chain of being—ranges from material objects (the least good entities), to the simplest living organisms, to animals possessing a degree of consciousness, to thinking and feeling human souls (with good souls higher than bad ones), to angels, and to (at a great distance from everything else) God.

Like Plato, Augustine also ranks things according to degrees of being—that is, by how real they are. And he correlates gradations of being with gradations of good- ness: the more real something is, the greater its goodness. So God, the supremely good, is the most fully real. Everything else is much less real, with their reality (and goodness) extending from nothingness up to a higher level of reality (and goodness) below God, the supreme reality.

Good and Evil Augustine’s hierarchy of being has interesting implications for the concepts of good and evil. If goodness is correlated with being, then anything that exists must be good. If something has zero goodness, then it must have zero being; it must not exist at all. So nothing in God’s creation can be absolutely evil. Pure evil is not. !at is, evil as a discrete reality does not exist; it is not a thing or an object to be removed or diluted. We cannot point to an entity in creation and say, “!at’s evil” or “!at evil should be cast out.” Augustine says that what we typically call evil is a deficiency of goodness, a privation of good. He reports that he once mistakenly “believed that evil is a kind of material substance with its own foul and misshapen mass . . . [!e Manicheans] imagine it to be a malignant mind creeping through the earth.”5

Figure 8.4 "�QBHF�GSPN�UIF�NBOVTDSJQU�PG�"VHVTUJOF�T�City of God

“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”

—Augustine

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“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.”

—Augustine

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!is notion of evil allows Augustine to assert, contrary to the Manicheans, that the world is not a battleground in which good and evil struggle against each other in perpetual conflict. !ere is no evil deity contending against an all-good God. Furthermore, God, the creator of all things, is not the source of evil. God creates only good. God created good things and set them in proper order. It is only when this order is upended that we see a privation of the good.

But what about the evil that comes from human choices and actions—what philosophers call moral evil? According to Augustine, this too is a deprivation of God’s good. It is God who creates human will, and it is God who endows it with the power of free choice. So the will itself can only be good. But through their free choices, humans cause disorder: they turn away from God’s high and immutable good toward the low and fading goods of mortal life. As Augustine says:

moral evil Evil that comes from human choices and actions.

"VHVTUJOF��On Free Will

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8.3 ANSELM AND AQUINAS

After Augustine, philosophers in the Middle Ages increased their e#orts to reconcile faith with reason and to integrate Christian doctrine with classical Greek ideas. Augustine had been preoccupied with these projects, but to many later thinkers his contribution seemed inadequate or at least incomplete. He had tried to meld Plato to Christianity, but philosophers who came after him (especially Aquinas) thought Aristotle shed more light on Christian beliefs. And Augustine’s style of doing philosophy—with its heavy emphasis on scripture, church fathers, and cre- ative theorizing—was mostly abandoned by many other thinkers (notably Anselm and Aquinas) who relied more on logic and argumentation.

Anselm St. Anselm (1033–1109) was born in northern Italy, became a Benedictine monk, and was eventually appointed archbishop of Canterbury. He championed both the prerogatives of the Church and the application of reason in theology. He is most famous (and influential) for an attempted proof of the existence of God known as an

“For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.”

—Augustine

188 CHAPTER 8 5IF�.FEJFWBM�1FSJPE

vau28703_ch08_180-209.indd 188 05/09/17 06:02 PM

ontological argument. He was the first to articulate a precise state- ment of such an argument, and, ever since, other philosophers have been o#ering their own versions.

Some arguments for the existence of God appeal to the evidence of experience—either to the empirical facts about the cosmos (cosmological arguments) or to the apparent signs of design or purposeful creation in the world (teleological argu- ments). But ontological arguments appeal not to observations of the universe but to the concept of God itself. From the defi- nition of God, we prove with logic alone that a supreme deity is a reality. In Anselm’s ontological argument, he first posits a definition of God as the greatest possible being. !is assertion, Anselm says, implies that God must actually exist, because if he did not exist in reality (and only existed in our minds), he would not be the greatest possible being. (Existing in reality is thought to make something greater than if it exists merely in someone’s mind.) !erefore, God exists. Here is the argument in Anselm’s own words:Figure 8.5 4U��"OTFMN� ����o���� �

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teleological arguments Arguments that reason from apparent signs of design or purposeful creation in the world to the existence of a supreme designer.

ontological arguments Arguments that reason from the concept of God to the existence of God.

"OTFMN�BOE�"RVJOBT� 189

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Here’s the argument stated more formally:

1. God, by definition, is the greatest being possible. 2. Suppose the greatest being possible exists only in the understanding (in the

mind, as a mental object). 3. !en a greater being than the greatest being possible can be conceived, one

existing not just in the understanding but also in reality (for a being is greater if it exists in reality than if it exists only in the understanding).

4. But this yields a contradiction, for a being greater than the greatest being pos- sible is impossible.

5. !erefore, God, the greatest being possible, must exist in reality, not just in the understanding.

Many have found fault with this line of reasoning. !e first major criticism came from an eleventh-century monk named Gaunilo, who thought that Anselm was trying to define God into existence. He maintained that if Anselm’s argument were a good piece of reasoning, we could use it to prove the existence of many things that obviously do not exist—for instance, the greatest island possible. We could argue that the greatest island possible must actually exist because if it existed only in the understanding, there could conceivably be an island that is greater, namely, one that exists in reality as well as in the understanding.

Anselm replied that his reasoning does not pertain to things like Gaunilo’s island, but only to God, the greatest being possible. Others have suggested that Gaunilo’s critique fails because his island is not a possibility. To them it seems that for any island thought to be the greatest possible, we can always imagine how it can be greater by enhancing its properties. Such an island could therefore never be the greatest. Critics have rejected both of these suggestions, and some have countered that Anselm’s line could prove the existence of absurd things other than a perfect island—like a supremely evil super being.

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“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

—Voltaire

190 CHAPTER 8 5IF�.FEJFWBM�1FSJPE

vau28703_ch08_180-209.indd 190 05/09/17 06:02 PM

In putting forth his argument, Anselm makes two assumptions: (1) existence makes something greater (that is, something is greater if it exists in the world than if it exists only in the mind as an idea), and (2) existence can be a defining property. Critics have questioned both of these. On the first count, they contend that there is no good reason to think that existence adds to the value of an entity. After all, it is not obvious that it is better for, say, a thoroughly evil being to exist than not to exist. On the second count, they doubt that existence can be any kind of defining property at all. Anselm assumes that one thing can be greater than another thing even though they have exactly the same properties, di#ering only in that the first thing exists and the second does not. On his view, existence is another defining property—the essential attribute that the one thing has and the other lacks. But is this plausible? Suppose you imagine an incredibly beautiful beach, detailing in your mind its every property (white sand, lovely palm trees, blue water, etc.). !en you add one more attribute—actual existence. Does this last step change the defining properties of your beach—or does it simply indicate that the beach with all its defining proper- ties is actual? Many philosophers, including Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), would choose the latter. As Kant says:

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*NNBOVFM�,BOU��Critique of Pure Reason

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"OTFMN�BOE�"RVJOBT� 191

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In any case, some detractors think the weakest link in Anselm’s chain of reason- ing is premise 2, the supposition that the greatest being possible exists only in the understanding. !is claim gives rise to the contradiction that a greater being than the greatest being possible can be conceived (one existing in reality). But they argue that the contradiction dissolves if we take premise 2 to mean not that the greatest being possible exists in some sense in the mind (the view that Anselm seems to take), but simply that the concept of the greatest being possible does not refer to any actu- ally existing thing. !e latter, they insist, is the more reasonable reading of “exists only in the understanding,” and it does not yield any contradictions about the nature of God. With this reading of premise 2, Anselm’s argument does not go through.

Aquinas St. !omas Aquinas (1225–1274) was born into a noble family in Southern Italy to eventually become the greatest philosopher of the medieval period and, to this day, the o"cial theologian of the Roman Catholic Church. Because his family had de- cided that he should be a great church leader, they packed him o# before the age of six to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino for training. At fourteen, he was sent to the University of Naples for further study, and there his life took what his family considered a radical turn. At age twenty, he joined the scholarly Dominican order and pursued, not a leadership position in the church, but the rarefied life of the intellect.

Becoming alarmed at Aquinas’s change of plans, his family had him kidnapped and locked in the family castle for several months. When it became clear that he was not going to relinquish his scholarly ambitions, they released him, and he continued his studies and his writing at the University of Paris and in Cologne, Rome, Naples, Vit- erbo, and Orvieto.

Aquinas’s great contribution to both philosophy and Christianity was his fusion of Aristotle’s philosophy with Christian doctrines. In theology he distinguished between reason and faith, giving each its own domain of inquiry. Reason can be used to prove the existence of God, he says, but only through faith can we know such mysteries as the incarnation and the trinity.

Aquinas produced significant works in many areas of philosophy, including logic, epistemology, ethics, and phi- losophy of religion. Nowadays he is most famous for his arguments for the existence of God and for his system of ethics known as natural law theory.

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“Faith seeking reason.” —Anselm

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“A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.”

—Aquinas

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vau28703_ch08_180-209.indd 192 05/09/17 06:02 PM

Aquinas’s Five Ways. As mentioned earlier, cosmological arguments reason from the existence of the universe, or cosmos (or some fundamental feature of it), to the conclusion that God exists. !ey can boast a long lineage, having been set out by many theorists besides Aquinas—from Aristotle, Plato, Ghazali, Averroës, and Spi- noza to contemporary philosophers such as Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig. !e arguments all begin with the empirical fact that the universe, or one of its essential properties, exists—and end with the conclusion that only God could be responsible for this fact. In his masterpiece Summa !eologica, Aquinas o#ers five “proofs” (his famous “Five Ways”) of God’s existence, the first three of which are cosmological arguments. !is is how Aquinas lays out the first two:

cosmological argu- ments Arguments that reason from the existence of the universe, or cosmos (or some fundamental feature of it), to the con- clusion that God exists.

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"OTFMN�BOE�"RVJOBT� 193

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Aquinas’s argument from motion (his first way) goes like this: It is obvious that some things in the universe are moving (that is, changing), and if they are moving, something else must have caused them to move. And this “something else” must also have been moving, set in motion by yet another thing that was moving, and this thing set in motion by another moving thing, and so on. But this series of things- moving-other-things cannot go on forever, to infinity, because then there would not be something that started all the moving. !ere must therefore be an initial mover (a first mover), an extraordinary being that started the universe moving but is not itself moved by anything else—and this being we call God.

Aquinas’s second way is his famous first-cause argument. He maintains that ev- erything we can observe has a cause, and it is clear that nothing can cause itself. For something to cause itself, it would have to exist prior to itself, which is impossible. Neither can something be caused by an infinite regress of causes—that is, a series of causes stretching to infinity. In any series of causes, Aquinas says, there must be a first cause, which causes the second, which causes the third, and so on. But in an infinite series of causes, there would be no first cause and thus no subsequent causes, including causes existing now. So infinite regresses make no sense. !erefore, there must be a first cause of everything, and this first cause we call God. (Here Aquinas is not thinking of a first cause of a temporal series of causes, as in a sequence of falling dominoes, but of a first cause that sustains the whole series of causes, like the bottom building block that holds up all the others in a stack.)

Against these two arguments, philosophers have lodged several criticisms. One of the strongest takes aim at Aquinas’s claim that an infinite regress is not possible. Aquinas thinks that a chain of causes must have a first cause; otherwise there would be no subsequent causes in the world. In an infinite regress of causes, he contends,

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“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

—Aquinas

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there would be no first cause and therefore no subsequent causes. Critics reply that just because an infinite chain of causes has no first cause, that doesn’t mean that the chain of causes has no cause at all: in an infinite chain of causes, every link has a cause. Many philosophers, including David Hume (1711–1776), see no logical con- tradiction in the idea of an infinite regress. !ey hold that the universe need not have had a beginning; it may be eternal, without beginning, and without a first cause or a first mover. !e universe may have simply always been.

Some claim that the worst problem with Aquinas’s arguments is that at best they prove only that the universe had a first mover or first cause—but not that the first mover or first cause is God. For all the arguments show, the first mover or first cause could be an impersonal substance or energy, or several minor deities, or a supreme but evil demon. Perhaps the universe is, as many scientists and philosophers allege, simply an eternal, uncaused brute fact.

Science and the Uncaused Universe !e notion that some events in the universe are entirely uncaused is now widely accepted among quantum physicists, the scientists who study the realm of subatomic particles (such

DETAILS

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Aquinas’s fifth way is a teleological argument (an argument from design). He contends that since the world shows signs of order and purposeful design—since things in nature act toward ends even though they lack intelligence or awareness— the world must be purposefully designed by an intelligent being, which we call God. As Aquinas puts it,

!e fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it is directed by some being en- dowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the

as electrons, positrons, and quarks). According to quantum physics, subatomic particles frequently pop in and out of existence randomly—that is, they appear and disappear uncaused out of a perfect vacuum. From these findings, some scientists have speculated that the universe itself may have arisen uncaused. !is is how two physicists describe the phenomenon:

[T]he idea of a First Cause sounds somewhat fishy in light of the modern theory of quantum mechanics. According to the most commonly accepted in- terpretation of quantum mechanics, individual subatomic particles can behave in unpredictable ways and there are numerous random, uncaused events.— Richard Morris, Achilles in the Quantum World, 1997

[Q]uantum electrodynamics reveals that an electron, positron, and photon occasionally emerge spontaneously in a perfect vacuum. When this happens, the three particles exist for a brief time, and then annihilate each other, leaving no trace behind. . . . !e spontaneous, temporary emergence of particles from a vacuum is called a vacuum fluctuation, and it is utterly commonplace in quan- tum field theory.—Edward Tryon, “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?” Nature, 1973

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archer. !erefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.10

Some modern philosophers have cast this sort of design argument as an inference to the best explanation, an argument form that we use every day and that science relies on heavily. It says the best explanation for a state of a#airs is most likely to be true. So Aquinas’s argument can be expressed like this: !e universe exhibits order and purposeful design; the best explanation for this order and purposeful design is that the universe was designed by God; therefore it is probably true that the universe was designed by God.

But philosophers deny this conclusion. !ey argue that naturalistic (nontheis- tic) explanations are better. For one thing, such explanations are simpler—that is, they are based on fewer assumptions. !e God explanation, however, assumes an unknown entity (God) with unknown powers and unknown properties. Naturalis- tic explanations do not leap to such assumptions. A case in point is the question of what best explains the apparent design of biological life. Science maintains that the best explanation for the apparent design of biological life is the theory of evolution, which says living things, in all their variety and complexity, arose through natural processes.

Aquinas’s Moral Philosophy. From ancient times to the present day, many people have thought that the outlines of the moral law are plain to see because they are written large and true in nature itself. !is basic notion has been developed over the centuries into what is known as natural law theory, the view that right actions are those that conform to moral standards discerned in nature through human reason. Undergirding this doctrine is the belief that all of nature (including humankind) is teleological, that it is somehow directed toward particular goals or ends, and that humans achieve their highest good when they follow their true, natural inclinations leading to these goals or ends. (Recall that this was also Aristotle’s view.) !ere is, in other words, a way things are—natural processes and functions that accord with the natural law—and how things are shows how things should be. !e prime duty of humans, then, is to guide their lives toward these natural ends, acting in accordance with the requirements of natural law.

Implicit in all this is the element of rationality. According to natural law theory, humans are rational beings empowered by reason to perceive the workings of nature, determine the natural inclinations of humans, and recognize the implications therein for morally permissible actions. !at is, reason enables human beings to ascertain the moral law implicit in nature and to apply that objective, universal standard to their lives.

!ough natural law theory has both religious and nonreligious forms, Aquinas’s theistic formulation has been the theory’s dominant version. It is not only the o"cial moral outlook of the Roman Catholic Church, but it has also been the intellectual starting point for many contemporary variations of the theory, secular and other- wise. For Aquinas, God is the author of the natural law who gave humans the gift of reason to discern the law for themselves and live accordingly. Aquinas argues that

natural law theory !e view that right actions are those that conform to moral standards discerned in nature through human reason.

“All that I have written seems like straw to me.”

—Aquinas

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human beings naturally tend toward—and therefore have a duty of—preserving human life and health (and so must not kill the innocent), producing and raising children, seeking knowledge (including knowledge of God), and cultivating coop- erative social relationships. In all this, Aquinas says, the overarching aim is to do and promote good and avoid evil.

Natural law theory does not provide a relevant moral rule covering every situa- tion, but it does o#er guidance through general moral principles, some of which are thought to apply universally and absolutely (admitting no exceptions). Among these principles are absolutist prohibitions against directly killing the innocent, lying, and using contraceptives. In his list of acts considered wrong no matter what, Aquinas includes adultery, blasphemy, and sodomy.

Of course, moral principles or rules often conflict, demanding that we fulfill two or more incompatible duties. We may be forced, for example, to either tell a lie and save people’s lives or tell the truth and cause their death—but we cannot do both. Some moral theories address these problems by saying that all duties are prima facie: when duties conflict, we must decide which ones override the others. !eories that posit absolute duties—natural law theory being a prime example—often do not have this option. How does the natural law tradition resolve such dilemmas? Among other resources, it uses the doctrine of double e!ect, a principle derived partly from Aquinas’s discussion of the morality of self-defense.

!is principle, now a cornerstone of Roman Catholic ethics, a"rms that per- forming a bad action to bring about a good e#ect is never morally acceptable but that performing a good action may sometimes be acceptable even if it produces a bad e#ect. More precisely, the principle says it is always wrong to intentionally perform

doctrine of double e!ect !e moral principle that performing a bad action to bring about a good e#ect is never morally acceptable but that performing a good action may some- times be acceptable even if it produces a bad e#ect.

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a bad action to produce a good e#ect, but doing a good action that results in a bad e#ect may be permissible if the bad e#ect is not intended although foreseen. In the former case, a bad thing is said to be directly intended; in the latter, a bad thing is not directly intended.

!ese requirements have been detailed in four “tests” that an action must pass to be judged morally permissible. We can express a traditional version of these tests like this:

1. !e action itself must be morally permissible. 2. Causing a bad e#ect must not be used to obtain a good e#ect (the end does

not justify the means). 3. Whatever the outcome of an action, the intention must be to cause only

a good e#ect. (!e bad e#ect can be foreseen but never intended.) 4. !e bad e#ect of an action must not be greater in importance than the good e#ect.

Consider the application of these tests to euthanasia. Suppose an eighty-year-old, hopelessly ill patient is in continuous, unbearable pain and begs to be put out of her misery. Is it morally permissible to grant her request (either by giving a lethal injection or ending all ordinary life-sustaining measures)? If we apply the doctrine of double e#ect as outlined above, we must conclude that the answer is no: euthanasia—either active or passive—is not a morally permissible option here. (In the Roman Catholic view, all forms of euthanasia are wrong, although it is permissible not to treat a hope- lessly ill person for whom ordinary life-sustaining treatments are useless.) Failing even one of the tests would render an action impermissible, but in this case let us run through all four as a natural law theorist might:

1. Taking steps to terminate someone’s life is a clear violation of test 1. Whatever its e#ects, the action of taking a life is in itself immoral, a violation of the cardinal duty to preserve innocent life.

2. Ending the woman’s life to save her from terrible su#ering is an instance of causing a bad e#ect (the woman’s death) as a means of achieving a good e#ect (cessation of pain)—a failure of test 2.

3. !e death of the woman is intended; it is not merely a tragic side e#ect of the attempt solely to ease her pain. So the action fails test 3.

4. Causing the death of an innocent person is a great evil that cannot be counter- balanced by the good of pain relief. So the action does not pass test 4.

!e verdict in such a case would be di#erent, however, if the patient’s death were not intentionally caused but unintentionally brought about. Suppose, for example, that the physician sees that the woman is in agony and gives her a large injection of morphine to minimize her su#ering—knowing full well that the dose will also probably speed her death. In this scenario, the act of easing the woman’s pain is itself morally permissible (test 1). Her death is not a means to achieve some greater good; the goal is to ease her su#ering (test 2). Her death is not intended; the intention is to alleviate her pain, though the unintended (but foreseen) side e#ect is her hastened death (test 3). Finally, the good e#ect of an easier death seems more or less equivalent in importance to the bad e#ect of a hastened death. !erefore, unintentionally but knowingly bringing about the woman’s death in this way is morally permissible.

“!ere is a desire for good in everything: good, the philosophers tell us, is what all desire.”

—Aquinas

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“!e natural law is common to all nations.”

—Isidore

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8.4 AVICENNA AND MAIMONIDES

As we’ve seen, in the early Middle Ages, access to classical Greek learning was limited. !e works of the great Greek thinkers were generally unavailable in the West—while many of the surviving manuscripts were being translated, preserved, and studied in the Arab world. As a result, there arose in later medieval times several brilliant philosophers who were not Christians. Some came out of Islam and some Judaism. !e brightest star from the former is Avicenna, and the greatest figure from the latter is Maimonides.

Avicenna Known in the Arab world as Ibn Sina, the Persian philosopher and physician Avi- cenna (980–1037) was a prodigy and polymath who made extraordinary contribu- tions to both philosophy and science. He was born in present-day Uzbekistan (then Persia) and educated in mathematics, medicine, physics, and logic, purportedly mas- tering these subjects in his teens. By age sixteen he was a practicing physician, and by age twenty he had published an encyclopedia. In his life he wrote approximately two hundred books in both Arabic and Persian, including the Canon of Medicine (a medical textbook used in the West for hundreds of years) and the philosophical works Metaphysics, !e Healing, and Deliverance. He advanced important distinctions in on- tology (the study of being, or existence), discovered useful relationships in logic, and made unique contributions to the field of medical diagnosis.

In philosophy Avicenna developed a systematic and comprehensive metaphysics— that is, a view of the fundamental nature of reality. Constructing this metaphysics was his greatest achievement: he combined his own interpretation of Aristotelian concepts with Neoplatonism and reconciled the whole with a version of Islamic theology. For him, there was no conflict between truth acquired through reli- gion and truth arrived at through reason and argument. Truth is truth wherever it is found.

Avicenna is esteemed by Western readers for having devised a new argument for the existence of the soul. He asks us to imag- ine a fellow (a “flying man”) suspended in empty space, unable to detect his body or to receive any sensations from any sense organs. Despite the man’s inability to have sense experience or to even tell whether he has a body, the man would know that he exists, that he is a being. (Descartes o#ered a similar argument in the seventeenth century.) And since a body is not necessary to determine whether he exists, says Avicenna, the man must be essentially an immaterial being—in other words, a soul.

He also developed a sophisticated cosmological argument, one that Aquinas would use two hundred years later. It depends on the philosophical concepts of necessity and contingency. A contingent being is one that is possible but not necessary: it

“!e world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.”

—Avicenna

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could have failed to exist. A horse is a contingent being, because it is possible for it to never have come into existence. A necessary being is one that could not have failed to exist; it is impossible for it not to exist. Avicenna argues that reality consists of beings (entities) arranged in a hierarchy in which each thing causes a subordinate thing to exist. Since each being is caused (sustained) by something else (and the chain of causes cannot go on forever), all such beings must be contingent, and their ultimate cause must be a necessary being—that is, God.

Maimonides Moses Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, 1138–1204) is an unsurpassed scholar of Jewish law and the most important Jewish philosopher in history. His comprehen- sive attempt to reconcile religious tradition with philosophy, especially Aristotelian thought, engages thinkers to this day.

Maimonides was born in Cordova, Spain, a Muslim-ruled city whose intellectual life was among the liveliest and most permissive of the medieval world. !at atmo- sphere changed in 1148 when the Muslim Almohads conquered Cordova and de- manded that non-Muslims immediately convert or submit to exile or death. Having little choice, Maimonides and his family fled the city, traveling about for years, seek- ing refuge in Morocco, Palestine, and finally Egypt.

In Cairo, he served as court physician and Egypt’s foremost rabbinic leader, all the while writing the works that would influence generations to come. His pre- eminent authority as a rabbinic jurist was forever established by his Book of the

Commandments; the Commentary on the Mishnah; and the four- teen-volume Code of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah. His creden- tials as a philosopher were secured by his masterpiece, !e Guide for the Perplexed.

Like ancient Greek thinkers and some philosophers of his day (including a few Arabic scholars), Maimonides sought truth through reason and tried to apply rational methods of inquiry not just to philosophy and science but also to religious and biblical be- liefs. !is approach led him to argue in his Guide for the Perplexed that biblical and rabbinic writings embody, in figurative language, truths that can be discovered and demonstrated by philosophy. !ere can be no contradiction between religious texts and the deliverances of reason, although the former must be interpreted figuratively to agree with the latter. To interpret scripture liter- ally is to fall into error. For example, scriptural language seems to suggest that God is corporeal and that he possesses essential attributes. But, Maimonides says, philosophy shows that these literal understandings are false, so the passages must be given a figurative meaning. God has no body and cannot be conceived of or described at all. We can only characterize God negatively (for instance, “God does not lack power” instead of “God is power- ful”), which is simply a way of acknowledging that God is beyond our comprehension.

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“Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.”

—Maimonides

“You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.”

—Maimonides

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8.5 HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

As we’ve seen, after the fall of Rome, philosophy was practiced under the auspices of the Church, and philosophy was largely a Christian a#air. It was also a male a#air. Both culture and religion said it must be so. Generally only men could get a good education, which could be acquired only through the Church—and without educa- tion, no one was likely to do philosophy. In such an inhospitable environment, what chance did a woman have of doing philosophy? Slim, perhaps—but a few women nevertheless beat the odds and produced important philosophical writings that de- serve much more scholarly attention than they have received so far.

Probably the most remarkable woman philosopher-theologian of the era was Hil- degard of Bingen (1098–1179). She was one of the first religious mystics in the West, and her endeavors and writings (including her philosophy) were often inspired and guided by her lifelong involvement in Christian mysticism. (Mysticism is belief in the alleged ability to access, through trances or visions, divine knowledge that is unattainable through sense experience or reason.)

She was born in a small town in Germany to a noble German family, the tenth of ten children. At eight years old, she was given over to the Church where she received a religious education, including training in Latin. She later wrote that it was as a young girl that she started to experience visions. Some scholarship suggests that her

mysticism !e belief in the alleged ability to access, through trances or visions, divine knowledge that is unattainable through sense experience or reason.

PORTR AIT

Averroës Averroës, or Ibn Rushd (1126–1198), was an eminent Islamic philosopher who wrote renowned commentaries on Aristotle and defended philosophy as a Koran-sanctioned method to re- flect on God’s (Allah’s) design. He was born in Cordoba, stud- ied science and Islamic law, became a judge in Seville, and finally died in Marrakesh, Morocco. He argues for the legitimacy of phi- losophy in !e Decisive Treatise and for naturalism in his Incoherence of the Incoherence.

In several works he departs from Muslim orthodoxy, a move that resulted, at one point, in his being persecuted by the authori- ties. He rejected ideas in Neoplatonism, took a skeptical view of Platonic Forms, and attacked Avicenna’s cosmological argument. He also arrived at some non-Christian views, holding that the world is eternal (not created at a moment in time) and that all minds are one and eternal (as opposed to being individual immortal souls). He insists that if the Koran appears to contain contradictions, the discrep- ancies can be reconciled via a better grasp of philosophy.

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visions arose from migraines, a serious ailment known to produce some of the kinds of visual e#ects and physical symptoms that Hildegard described. In any case, the extraordinary experiences led Hildegard to the philosophical and theological insights that she wrote down and preached.

Perhaps her main contribution in philosophy is in ethics, but like many other thinkers of the past she also wrote about natural science and medicine. She composed poetry and liturgical music, wrote a musical morality play, and established two convents where ancient philosophical manuscripts were copied and women learned Latin. In a time when female intellects were generally ignored by Church o"cials, Hildegard earned the respect of monks, archbish- ops, emperors, and even popes. She preached publicly (even going on preaching tours), corresponded prolifically, and attracted fol- lowers, including some fanatical ones. (!e movie Visions depicts her life, and her music is now available on CD.)

Most of her most important writings are found in three major works. In the first, Scivias (“Know the Ways of the Lord”), she elaborates Christian cosmology and Church doctrine. In the second, “!e Book of Life’s Merits,” she presents her theory of ethics as an allegorical conflict between thirty-five vices and their associated virtues, detailing penance and punishment for each. In her allegory, vices are hideous but tempting, while virtues are wise

and powerful, exhorting us to overcome temptation. !e third, “Book of Divine Works,” is simultaneously a treatise on Christian cosmology and man’s relationship to God. !e central metaphor is man as a microcosm reflecting the glory and intri- cacy of the macrocosmic universe.

We might expect that since Hildegard lived in the Church-dominated, sin- obsessed Middle Ages, she would take a prudish nun’s view of sexuality. She didn’t. She had a much more favorable opinion of sex than we would expect, and she—like a liberated woman—wrote about women’s sexual pleasure. She may even have given us the first written account of the female orgasm:

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In 2012 Pope Benedict XVI declared Hildegard a saint and gave her writings the same lofty status as those produced by such luminaries as St. Augustine and St. !omas Aquinas.

8.6 WILLIAM OF OCKHAM

William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347) was an English philosopher and theologian who, like a few other philosophers in the late Middle Ages, was willing to challenge the views of the Church and the venerated philosophers of the past. He brought new ideas and fresh insights to logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and language—and in the process was excommunicated for heresy.

Ockham was born in the English village of Ockham, joined the Franciscan order when he was young, and studied philosophy in London and theology in Oxford. He lectured in philosophy and wrote a logic textbook, commentaries on Aristotle, and several works on current philosophical controversies. Because of his writings, he was involved in numerous philosophical and theological disputes with critics (including the pope). Inevitably he was accused of heresy. !e last straw came in 1328 when he argued that the pope’s view on the Church’s ownership of property was wrong, contrary to scripture, and in conflict with the positions of previous popes. !e papal reaction was excommunication. Ockham had to flee to Munich and live under the protection of the emperor of Bavaria. He remained there, writing treatises, until his death, possibly caused by the Black Death.

Aside from Ockham’s quarrels over Church doctrine, he is best remembered for the principle of parsimony (also called “Ockham’s razor”) and for his strong stand against the possibil- ity of real universals (which earned him the title of the “father of nominalism”). In defining the principle of parsimony, he is often quoted as saying, “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity”—something he never actually said. !e principle, which became associated with him because of his style of phi- losophy, admonishes that in devising explanations or theories to explain a phenomenon, we should prefer the simpler theory over the more complex. !e principle is widely applied in sci- ence and everyday life and is often formulated as a requirement to prefer theories that, all things considered, make the fewest assumptions.

His rejection of universals concerns a philosophical contro- versy that feverishly preoccupied philosophers and theologians throughout the late Middle Ages. A universal is a term (such as a noun) that refers to several particular things—for exam- ple, “man” or “triangle.” “Man” does not apply to a particular man, but to the many individuals that make up humankind. “Socrates,” on the other hand, applies to just one particular thing, the philosopher Socrates. !e debate over universals has

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been ongoing and complex, but in its simplest form it amounts to this: On one side are the realists, who believe, as Plato does, that universals exist outside the mind, that they somehow have an actual existence beyond our thinking of them. For Plato, universals are the Forms, existing independently of the mind in a perfect, timeless realm that is more real than material reality. For realists, however, it’s pos- sible to deny the existence of Plato’s Forms and still believe that universals somehow correspond to real things. !e opposing view is taken by the nominalists, who claim that universals do not apply to anything really existing but are merely names or con- cepts representing many things. Ockham’s position on the matter has been called nominalist, even though his view is more subtle than the one presented here.

It’s easy to dismiss the medieval scholars’ obsession with universals as pedantry run amok. But the implications of realism or nominalism are far-reaching. !e phi- losopher Frederick Copleston explains one of the di"culties like this:

Bertrand Russell, !e Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912, 1959), 97–98.

THEN AND NOW

Modern Realism about Universals Probably most people today would not have gone along with Ockham’s nominalism. Common sense and modern science prefer some form of realism regarding universals. One eminent thinker who took this realist stand was the twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). He gave one of the clearest defenses of the realist position, focusing on universals that denote relations (such as “over” or “beside”) and arguing that they are neither mental nor material but nevertheless real:

Consider such a proposition as ‘Edinburgh is north of London’. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. !e part of the earth’s surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. . . . Hence we must admit that the relation [“north of ”], like the terms it relates, is not dependent on thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.

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8.1 BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN t� "U�UIF�CFHJOOJOH�PG�UIF�.JEEMF�"HFT �UIF�USBEJUJPO�PG�SBUJPOBM�JORVJSZ�UIBU�mSTU�

blossomed in Athens and then spread to all the places subdued by Alexander and his Greek culture was fading.

t� ɨFSF�XBT�B�WJSUVBM�UBLFPWFS�PG�QIJMPTPQIZ�CZ�$ISJTUJBOJUZ�JO�UIF�mSTU�NJMMFOOJVN� CE and a weakening of Christianity’s grip during the Renaissance in the second millennium. In the first millennium, the Church dominated philosophy, but it also needed philosophy to work out the details of doctrine or to make sense of the Church’s teachings or to show that there was no real conflict between religion and reason. Countless clerics and Church o"cials studied philosophy. !e inevitable result of this mingling of philosophy and religion was that some good philosophi- cal work was achieved.

'SFEFSJDL�$PQMFTUPO��A History of Philosophy, Volume II: Medieval Philosophy: From Augustine to Duns Scotus

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WRITING AND REASONING $)"15&3��

1. What were some of the most important contributions that Augustine made to Christianity?

2. What are Aquinas’s Five Ways? What criticisms have been launched against them by philosophers? Do you accept any of the Ways? Why?

3. What is Avicenna’s argument for the existence of the soul? Is his argu- ment sound? Why?

4. What is Anselm’s ontological argument? What are two assumptions that Anselm makes in putting forth his famous argument? Are these assumptions well founded? Explain.

5. What is Ockham’s razor? Provide an example of how the principle can be applied in science or everyday life.

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8.2 AUGUSTINE t� "VHVTUJOF� ���o����CE) was a Christian philosopher and theologian who had an

enormous influence on Christian thought and on the West’s appreciation of Plato and Aristotle. He a#ected Christian theology more than any other early Christian author, introduced Plato to generations of thinkers, and forced philosophers in every epoch to reckon with his ideas and authority.

t� 'SPN�CPUI�DMBTTJDBM�BOE�$ISJTUJBO�UISFBET �"VHVTUJOF�XPWF�B�EJTUJODUJWF�TFU�PG�EPD- trines about God, the world, knowledge, ethics, and existence. In epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy, he shaped new doctrines from old ideas and original analyses. Along the way, he found that in his search for wisdom there was a place for both faith and reason, both belief and understanding. He thought that to attain wisdom, belief had to come first, then understanding.

t� "VHVTUJOF�SFKFDUT�TLFQUJDJTN�BOE�JOTJTUT�UIBU�SFHBSEJOH�NBUIFNBUJDBM �MPHJDBM �BOE� evaluative truths, we can have certain knowledge; they are eternal, changeless, and necessary.

t� 'SPN�IJT�OPUJPO�PG�OFDFTTBSZ�USVUIT �"VHVTUJOF�BSHVFT�GPS�UIF�FYJTUFODF�PG�(PE�� He reasons that if truth is the highest good, then truth must be God, because God is the highest good, the most excellent of all things. If an entity is higher and more excellent than truth, then that entity must be God.

t� 'SPN�1MBUP�BOE�/FPQMBUPOJTUT �"VHVTUJOF�EFSJWFT�B�WJFX�PG�UIF�XPSME�BT�BO�BMM� encompassing hierarchy of existing things and their value—a great chain of being.

t� "VHVTUJOF�SFBTPOT�UIBU�FWJM�BT�B�EJTDSFUF�SFBMJUZ�EPFT�OPU�FYJTU��JU�JT�OPU�B�UIJOH�PS� an object to be removed or diluted. We cannot point to an entity in creation and say, “!at’s evil” or “!at evil should be cast out.” He says that what we typically call evil is a deficiency of goodness, a privation of good. Moral evil arises through the free choices of humans. !ey cause disorder: they turn away from God’s high and immutable good toward the low and fading goods of mortal life.

8.3 ANSELM AND AQUINAS t� "OTFMN�JT�GBNPVT�GPS�IJT�POUPMPHJDBM�BSHVNFOU��)F�mSTU�QPTJUT�B�EFmOJUJPO�PG�(PE�

as the greatest possible being. !is assertion, he says, implies that God must actu- ally exist, because if he did not exist in reality (and only existed in our minds), he would not be the greatest possible being. (Existing in reality is thought to make something greater than if it exists merely in someone’s mind.) !erefore, God exists. Detractors think the weakest link in Anselm’s chain of reasoning is premise 2, the supposition that the greatest being possible exists only in the understanding.

t� "RVJOBT� QSFTFOUT� B� mSTU�DBVTF� BSHVNFOU�� )F� NBJOUBJOT� UIBU� FWFSZUIJOH� XF� DBO� observe has a cause, and it is clear that nothing can cause itself. For something to cause itself, it would have to exist prior to itself, which is impossible. Neither can something be caused by an infinite regress of causes—that is, a series of causes stretching to infinity. In any series of causes, Aquinas says, there must be a first cause, which causes the second, which causes the third, and so on. !erefore, there must be a first cause of everything, and this first cause is God.

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t� "RVJOBT�BSHVFT�GPS�UIF�OBUVSBM�MBX�UIFPSZ�PG�FUIJDT �UIF�WJFX�UIBU�SJHIU�BDUJPOT�BSF�UIPTF� that conform to moral standards discerned in nature through human reason. Under- girding this doctrine is the belief that all of nature is directed toward particular goals or ends, and that humans achieve their highest good when they follow their true, natural inclinations leading to these goals or ends. !ere is, in other words, a way things are— natural processes and functions that accord with the natural law—and how things are shows how things should be. !e prime duty of humans, then, is to guide their lives toward these natural ends, acting in accordance with the requirements of natural law.

8.4 AVICENNA AND MAIMONIDES t� "WJDFOOB �B�1FSTJBO�QIJMPTPQIFS�BOE�QIZTJDJBO �XBT�B�QSPEJHZ�BOE�QPMZNBUI�XIP�

made extraordinary contributions to both philosophy and science. t� "WJDFOOB�JT�GBNPVT�GPS�EFWJTJOH�B�OFX�BSHVNFOU�GPS�UIF�FYJTUFODF�PG�UIF�TPVM��)F�BTLT�

us to imagine a fellow (a “f lying man”) suspended in empty space, unable to detect his body or to receive any sensations from any sense organs. Despite the man’s inability to have sense experience or to even tell whether he has a body, the man would know that he exists, that he is a being. And since a body is not necessary to determine whether he exists, says Avicenna, the man must be essentially an immaterial being—a soul.

t� .PTFT�.BJNPOJEFT�XBT�BO�VOTVSQBTTFE�TDIPMBS�PG�+FXJTI�MBX�BOE�UIF�NPTU�JNQPSUBOU� Jewish philosopher in history. His comprehensive attempt to reconcile religious tradi- tion with philosophy, especially Aristotelian thought, engages thinkers to this day.

t� .BJNPOJEFT�TPVHIU�USVUI�UISPVHI�SFBTPO�BOE�USJFE�UP�BQQMZ�SBUJPOBM�NFUIPET�PG� inquiry not just to philosophy and science but also to religious and biblical be- liefs. !ere can be no contradiction between religious texts and the deliverances of reason, he says, although the former must be interpreted figuratively to agree with the latter. To interpret scripture literally is to fall into error.

8.5 HILDEGARD OF BINGEN t� )JMEFHBSE�PG�#JOHFO�XBT�POF�PG�UIF�mSTU�SFMJHJPVT�NZTUJDT�JO�UIF�8FTU �BOE�IFS�

endeavors and writings (including her philosophy) were often inspired and guided by her lifelong involvement in Christian mysticism.

t� $POUSBSZ�UP�UIF�DVMUVSF�BOE�$ISJTUJBO�PSEFS�PG�UIF�UJNFT �)JMEFHBSE�FBSOFE�UIF� respect of monks, archbishops, emperors, and even popes. She preached publicly (even going on preaching tours), corresponded prolifically, and attracted followers.

t� )JMEFHBSE�QSFTFOUT�IFS�UIFPSZ�PG�FUIJDT�BT�BO�BMMFHPSJDBM�DPOnJDU�CFUXFFO�UIJSUZ� five vices and their associated virtues. !e vices are depicted as hideous but tempt- ing, while virtues are wise and powerful, exhorting us to overcome temptation.

8.6 WILLIAM OF OCKHAM t� 8JMMJBN�PG�0DLIBN�XBT�BO�&OHMJTI�QIJMPTPQIFS�BOE�UIFPMPHJBO�XIP �MJLF�B�GFX�

other philosophers in the late Middle Ages, was willing to challenge the views of the Church and the venerated philosophers of the past. He brought new ideas and fresh insights to logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and language.

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t� #FDBVTF�PG�IJT�XSJUJOHT �IF�XBT�JOWPMWFE�JO�OVNFSPVT�QIJMPTPQIJDBM�BOE�UIFPMPHJDBM� disputes with critics (including the pope). Inevitably he was accused of heresy. Ockham had to flee to Munich and live under the protection of the emperor of Bavaria. He remained there, writing treatises, until his death, possibly caused by the Black Death.

t� )F� JT� CFTU� SFNFNCFSFE� GPS� UIF� QSJODJQMF� PG� QBSTJNPOZ� BMTP� DBMMFE� i0DLIBN�T� razor”) and for his strong stand against the possibility of real universals. !e prin- ciple, which became associated with him because of his style of philosophy, ad- monishes that in devising explanations or theories to explain a phenomenon, we should prefer the simpler theory over the more complex. !e principle is widely applied in science and everyday life and is often formulated as a requirement to prefer theories that, all things considered, make the fewest assumptions.

t� 0DLIBN�T�SFKFDUJPO�PG�VOJWFSTBMT�DPODFSOT�B�QIJMPTPQIJDBM�DPOUSPWFSTZ�UIBU�GFWFSJTIMZ� preoccupied thinkers throughout the late Middle Ages. !e debate over universals has been ongoing and complex. On one side are the realists, who believe, as Plato does, that universals exist outside the mind, that they somehow have an actual existence beyond our thinking of them. !e opposing view is taken by the nominalists, who claim that universals do not apply to anything really existing but are merely names or concepts representing many things. Ockham’s position on the matter has been called nominalist, even though his view is more subtle than the one presented here.

,&:�5&3.4 cosmological arguments doctrine of double e#ect

moral evil mysticism natural law theory necessary truth

Neoplatonism ontological arguments

teleological arguments

/PUFT 1. Augustine, Confessions, II.2, 4, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1992). 2. Augustine, City of God, 11.27, trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, Mid-

dlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972). 3. Augustine, On Free Will, 2.12, 33, Augustine: Earlier Writings, trans. John H. S.

Burleigh (London: SCM Press, 1953). 4. Augustine, On Free Will, 2.15, 39, trans. Burleigh. 5. Augustine, Confessions, V. 20, trans. Chadwick. 6. Augustine, On Free Will, 2.53, trans. Burleigh. 7. Anselm, Proslogium, chs. II–III (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1962), 53–55. 8. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (London: Macmillan and St. Martin’s

Press, 1929), 504–505. 9. !omas Aquinas, Summa !eologica, Question 2, “Whether God Exists,” trans.

Anton C. Pegis, Basic Writings of St. !omas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1944), 22.

10. !omas Aquinas, Summa !eologica, “Whether God Exists,” trans. Anton C. Pegis, Basic Writings of St. !omas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1944), 23.

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH� 209

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11. Hildegardis Causae et Curae, ed. Paul Kaiser (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903). 12. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume II: Medieval Philosophy:

From Augustine to Duns Scotus (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 139.

'PS�'VSUIFS�3FBEJOH Anselm, St. Anselm: Basic Writings, trans. S. N. Deane (New York: Open Court, 1966).

!omas Aquinas, Summa !eologica, Basic Writings of St. !omas Aquinas, trans. A. C. Pegis (New York: Random House, 1945).

Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Stephen Buckle, “Natural Law,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer (Cam- bridge: Blackwell, 1993), 161–174.

Joseph Buijs, ed., Maimonides: A Collection of Critical Essays (University of Notre Dame Press, 1988).

Henry Chadwick, Augustine: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume II: Medieval Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, 1962).

Herbert Davidson, Maimonides: !e Man and His Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, ed., !e Oxford Handbook of Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).

M. Friedlander, trans., !e Guide for the Perplexed (New York: Dover, 1956).

Richard M. Gale, On the Nature and Existence of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

Anthony Kenny, Medieval Philosophy: A New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

J. Kraemered, Perspectives on Maimonides (Oxford University Press, 1991).

Kristina Lerman, “!e Life and Works of Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179),” May 24, 1995, Fordham University, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.asp.

Mark Murphy, “!e Natural Law Tradition in Ethics,” !e Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2002), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2002/entries/natural-law-ethics/.

Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger, Reason and Religious Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

S. Pines, trans., !e Guide of the Perplexed (University of Chicago Press, 1929).

Kenneth Seeskin, “Maimonides.” !e Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/.