A few weeks ago there was a flurry of activity in the NYTimes on topics relating meditation to contemporary science and culture. The eminent scholar Donald Lopez summed it up well in an article posted at The Immanent Frame, a blog sponsored by the Social Science Research Council:
On Sunday May 25, 2008, the New [...]
The following is a longish quotation from the beginning of Chapter 4 of Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. I post it here not as an endorsement, since I disagree with Dennett’s conclusions, but because I may want to use it as a reference later on.
You don’t do serious zoology by just strolling through the zoo, [...]
My idea of utopia is of a place where, instead of a Gideon Bible, in every hotel room there is a copy of On the Nature of the Universe.
Will Buckingham
(Also, there’s an interesting-looking study guide to Lucretius’ classic work online here.)
Back when I used to teach philosophy, one of my maxims was, “The purpose of a philosophy class is to convert confusion into perplexity.” (This may have something to do with why I’m no longer a teacher.)
It turns out that John Dewey said something similar:
An indeterminate situation becomes a “problematic” one through the process [...]
(previous installment here)
Joseph Goldstein: I’ll give you an example of something you have experienced. When you’re listening to music, your mind is quiet, it’s concentrated on the music. Is your mind grasping at any one particular note you know? Probably not.
Wright: Actually, different music is kind of different.
Joseph Goldstein: But you have at least [...]
(previous installment here)
Wright:There are people who report absolute ecstasy through meditation. Is it realistic to hope for that?
Joseph Goldstein: Well, first it’s important to understand that there are different kinds of meditation and some kinds of meditation have this vague goal of blissful states. Other kinds of meditation have as their goal wisdom.
Wright: And [...]
(previous installment here)
Wright: I gather that Buddhists, as a metaphysical matter, believe in free will, at least in the sense that they believe that people are capable of true freedom. But in One Dharma you were saying that, still, what most people think of as freedom is kind of backwards. Most people think that [...]
(previous installment here)
Wright: What is it about the pursuit of pleasure in the conventional way that makes it the road to unhappiness, according to Buddhism?
Joseph Goldstein: First, I think it’s important to realize that the path for each of us will depend on the form that we engage in it, so what I’m saying will [...]