5 best philosophy books 2017....

[Nearly Sane]

According to Nigel Warburton.


I've read, and posted links for, the first on the list. May well seek out the others


https://fivebooks.com/best-books/best-philosophy-books-2017/

[Shaker]

No. 3 (the Robert Wright book) was already on my wishlist; some interesting stuff to chew over. Great article.

[Dicky Underpants]

No. 3 (the Robert Wright book) was already on my wishlist; some interesting stuff to chew over. Great article.

Interesting to note recently that the arch-critic of monotheism, Sam Harris, seems to incline to this view* too. I hadn't realised this before.

*That Buddhism is true.

[Shaker]

Well, it's not that straighforward - it's more the case that Harris (and presumably Wright - I haven't yet read the book) thinks that some of the techniques associated with Buddhism are useful. Buddhism doesn't make anywhere near the same amount of putatively factual claims that theistic religions do but it makes some - I see no reason to think that these are true.

[Nearly Sane]

I am far from Harris's biggest fan but agree here with Shaker, he doesn't nor does Wright see it as true - rather a useful method.

[Shaker]

Unlike one hapless former member of this forum there's nothing inherently and intrinsically Buddhist about meditation, although Buddhism is certainly linked very strongly to meditation. This as as fat-headed as saying that eating a salad makes you a Buddhist because a salad is a vegetarian meal and vegetarianism is associated with Buddhism. It really is that silly.

To ask if Buddhism is true in this context is a category error, it seems to me. That the birth of Siddhartha Gautama was attended by a torrential rain of flowers falling from the sky is a supernatural claim to which we can bring to bear all the methods and tools of rational scepticism that we apply to all such claims. These are the buttons, boxes and bows of Buddhism - the dispensible trivia. More interesting are the issues of Buddhist practice such as meditation and whether these are useful to the individual and whether they work (bearing in mind JeremyP's question on the dowsing thread, "What do you mean by 'work'?"). In this regard asking whether Buddhism is true is like asking if irritation is light blue - wrong question for the job.

[Nearly Sane]

So asking if dowsing works in any measurable sense is meaningless because works means cheese.

[Shaker]

So asking if dowsing works in any measurable sense is meaningless because works means cheese.

No. There is a straight path from A to B in such a case - it's a testable hypothesis in the scientific sense. Dowsing is a putative objective claim which can be tested empirically. In that regard, so is "practice Buddhist meditation for 20 to 30 minutes a day twice a day every day for a lengthy period and see what, if anything, results in terms of your sense of mental clarity and physical/psychological/emotional tranquility". The troublesome aspect is that this is so subjective that many run the experiment and find the results absolutely remarkable (like me) and others run the experiment and report nothing but lengthy periods of stultifying boredom and an itchy ear. It's Michael Persinger's "God helmet" all over again.

Nevertheless, w.r.t. meditation I think we know enough by now to say that the evidence is in in its favour - the scientific aspect is the question as to why some reports results (negative as well as positive - it's uncommon but does happen) while others report nothing at all. Dowsing appears to me to be in the same bracket.

[Nearly Sane]

No. There is a straight path from A to B in such a case - it's a testable hypothesis in the scientific sense. Dowsing is a putative objective claim which can be tested empirically. In that regard, so is "practice Buddhist meditation for 20 to 30 minutes a day every day and see what results in terms of your sense of mental clarity and physical/psychological tranquility". The troublesome aspect is that this is so subjective that many run the experiment and find the results absolutely remarkable (like me) and others run the experiment and report nothing but lengthy periods of stultifying boredom and an itchy ear. It's Michael Persinger's "God helmet" all over again.

And so if works is subjective then it's meaningless

[Shaker]

And so if worjs is subjective then it's meaningless

I don't regard subjective as meaningless.

[Nearly Sane]

Then you think Alan Burns contact lens miracle works 

[Shaker]

Then you think Alan Burns contact lens miracle works

Objectively? No. Subjectively (for Burns, A.). Yes. His worldview has within it meaning wherein this "works".

[Nearly Sane]

Objectively? No. Subjectively (for Burns, A.?). Yes.

Which then makes it meaningless because you can have x and non x as valid

[Shaker]

Which then makes it meaningless because you can have x and non x as valid

What do you mean by "valid"? I like (in no order): the music of Jean Sibelius; Jack Daniels with Coke and ice; cats; the smell of freesias; Hoyo de Monterey double coronas. These things are all valid to me despite the existence of non-musical, teetotal, ailurophobic, anosmic non-smokers.

Your idea of valid needs a bit more work, I think.

[Nearly Sane]

What do you mean by "valid"? I like (in no order): the music of Jean Sibelius; Jack Daniels with Coke and ice; cats; the smell of freesias; Hoyo de Monterey double coronas. These things are all valid to me despite the existence of non-musical, teetotal, ailurophobic, anosmic non-smokers.

Your idea of valid needs a bit more work, I think.

So dowsing is the same as your like of JD&C.

[Shaker]

So dowsing is the same as your like of JD&C.

Dowsing makes putatively and potentially empirical claims. My fondness for JD&C does too. Are they the same?

[Dicky Underpants]

Well, it's not that straighforward - it's more the case that Harris (and presumably Wright - I haven't yet read the book) thinks that some of the techniques associated with Buddhism are useful. Buddhism doesn't make anywhere near the same amount of putatively factual claims that theistic religions do but it makes some - I see no reason to think that these are true.

Yes, my observation was a bit hasty. But I think Harris goes a tad further than simply saying that some of the techniques associated with Buddhism are useful. I think he claims that phenomenological analysis of the subjective states many people experience in meditation show a very common and repeatable pattern. At least that is what I thought he was saying in "The End of Faith". I wouldn't go as far as saying that there are any particular comparative features which can be experienced by everybody in meditation. And, like you, I don't accept that the more 'religious' claims of Buddhism are necessarily true (That there is an "Unborn, uncompounded, not made" reality which we can aspire to and contact.