Philosophy about East Asia Religions
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Hinduism
Arguably the oldest of all the world’s surviving organized religion
A tremendously diverse set of traditions
The Vedas (~1500 - 1000 BCE)
Written in Sanskrit
4 of item
Rigveda
Yajurveda
Samaveda
Atharvaveda
Each has 4 parts
Samhites: mantras and benedictions
Aranyakas: texts on rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices
Brahmanas: commentaries on rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices
Upanishads: philosophical, discussion meditation and spiritual knowledge
U (at) pa (foot) nishat (sitting down)
About 200 0f them
The Katha Upanishad
Written in verse, poetic language
Dialog between Yama (god of death) and Nachiketas (a mortal man)
Has a narrative structure
Nachiketas is killed bu his father
Nachiketas ends up in the land of the dead, goes to visit Yama
Yama is unavailable, and Nachiketas has to wait for three days
As a form of reconciliation, Yama offers three boons (wishes)
Reconciliation with his father
Learn how to do the fire ritual
The answer to one question: what happened after death?
“what is the ultimate destiny of us all?”
Yama hesitates, and cautions that the answer to the question to something that not even the gods truly understand
Yama recommends asking for pleasurable tings: wealth, women, song, etc.
Nachiketas insists that he does want the answer, Yama is impressed, and he begins to explain.
Two main concepts that arise in this dialog
The Self, Atman
Brahman
Not the same as
Brahma: one of the three most fundamental deities
Brahmin: the priestly caste
The Big Claim: Atman is Brahman
Question 1: what is it the makes a person the same person over time?
“what makes the table the same table over time?”
Same material
Looks the same
Been through the same wear and tear
Has the same apparent bumps and bruise
The same history
Functions the same way
Same component: two legs
Same chemical structure
Same form
All the same chemicals
Same location
“what makes materials/chemicals/etc the same over time?”
Atomism: all material things are made up of fundamental, indivisible particles.
Philosophers have replaces the word “atom” with “simple”
Claim: identity of material is just containing the same simples over time
Claim: what makes a simple the same simple is its continuous causal history
What about humans?
Same essence
Person’s soul
Same mind
Same personality
Same experiences
Same genetic makeup
Some thoughts from the teleportation case
Maybe we want there be some THING that continues from state to state
The thing that has the experience, etc
Candidates
Soul
The body (Brain)
A continuous history of functionality
Ship of Theseus
The parts matter
And the continuity of function matters
But neither is enough its own to establish identity
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
In this story, we are invited to accept that there are two people residing in the same body
If this is the case, then continuity of body is not sufficient for personal identify
What we’ve learned so far
Personal identity over time is not a straightforward philosophical issue
The two most common answers are continuity of consciousness and continuity of body
But each of these face serious objections
What causes the problem?
The subjects we are considering (the people) are complex, made up of many things
Ans it is not clear which / how many of things are sufficient for identity
A proposed solution: Atman
A continuity of soul view
T make this as philosophically resilient as possible
Now part
No properties
Does not change
What makes it different from other souls?
Nothing
So there is only one soul: Atman
This is clearest with living thing, but ultimately all things are identical
If we all have the same soul, what makes things different?
Nothing
Nothing is different
The appearance of difference is an illusion
Hopefully a helpful analogy
What we believe about everyday material objects vs what science says
Question 2: what is the ultimate explanation of the world around us?
The Cosmological Argument
There are many things that need to be explained
Especially things that change and have a variety of properties
We can explain them in terms of prior parents, etc
Children explained by their parents, etc
There should be a thing that explains all the other things, but does not need to be explained
Aquinas: call this thing “God”
First Cause
Unmoved Mover
Necessary Being
But there is still a puzzle
What about properties like God’s goodness?
Why is God good rather than evil?
A principle: the explanation of a thing must transcend that thing
Ex: the ultimate explanation of matter can not be a material object
Implication: the explanation of all things must transcend all distinctions
What would that be like?
Simple
Changless
Featureless
brahman: the ultimate explanation in Hinduism
Conclusion: Atman is Brahman, the should of the individual is the cause of the Universe, I am God.
How do we live with this insight?
We can not understand this
We are not going to be able to reason ourselves into believing that al things are ultimately One.
Should this worry us?
No
Hinduism is a mystical religion
Mystical: the true nature of a thing to be inaccessible by reasoning and intellect. BUT accessible via certain experience
Some terminology
Samsara: reincarnation, the cycle of death and rebirth
Moksha: liberation from samsara
Karma: a bitch, what goes around comes around, perfect justice, having done to you what you have done to others
Yoga: any set of practices that is aimed at the achievement of Moksha
Bendy body stuff
Many forms of meditation
Practical activities
Some more intellectual and philosophical
Hindu meditation
Moksha
Hyper - wakefulness
Wakefulness
Barely awake
Light sleeping
Dreaming sleep
Deep sleep / dreamless
Moksha
An engagement with the reality of Brahman
There is an experience, but it has no qualities
A pure conscious experience, to experience being, but not being any particular thing
Om: the source of reality, how Brahman would sound if you could hear it
The Chandogya Upanishad
Chapter VI
So far, we’ve been trying to engage the very difficult claim that all things are identical to a single featureless cosmic soul
But, Hinduism is more diverse than that
This passage invites a variety of interpretation of the relationship between Atman and Brahman
Context
Svetaketu is talking to his father, Uddalaka
Uddalaka is giving to the son about how to live his life
Uddalaka repeals one phrase many times in the passage
Tat tvam asi - you are that
Analogies
Clay / gold / iron
If you truly know what thing is made of, then you know about all other things made if the same stuff
By studying the individual thing, we can come to know it’s fundamental properties and thereby know about all other thing with those fundamental properties
We know about ultimate reality because of shared properties (not necessarily stick identity)
Riveters merging into the ocean
The rivers flow into (become part of) the ocean
Brahman is like the ocean
The rivers are Brahman (the Ataman) that dissolve and become part of the sea
Brahman is a composite of all the parts that exist
Although all branches of Hinduism believe a deep metaphysical union of all things, there is a good amount of variation in how this is interpreted
Some of them are more easy to understand than others
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