Visitors to this site who have been attracted by a series of recent posts may be wondering: what’s the connection between the Buddhism/meditation stuff and all this interest in psychopharmacology? Fair question; or two questions, actually. First question: What’s the relationship between the meditative practices that have developed in the Buddhist tradition, and the use of psychotropic medications to alter consciousness, alleviate suffering and enhance human wellbeing? Are they compatible? Is there an implicit contradiction, either in the theoretical commitments or the evaluative judgments involved in the two practices? The second question is: what’s the relationship between the theories which best explain how those medications work, and the body of philosophical doctrine that is the Buddhist dharma. (And the dharma is, among other things, a body of doctrine, despite what some people will try to tell you.)
I intend to address the first question here, and save the second for a later post.
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If anyone cares, I now have a Technorati Profile.
This is by the Dalai Lama:
The reason why we find so much discussion of epistemology, or how to define something as a valid cognition, in Buddhist writings is because all our problems, suffering and confusion derive from a misconceived way of perceiving things. This explains why it is so important for a practitioner to determine whether a cognitive event is a misconception or true knowledge. For it is only by generating insight which sees through delusion that we can become liberated.
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In view of how a recent discussion on this blog has touched upon Aristotle’s conception of friendship, I want to call attention to an article in Philosophy Now called Aristotle’s E-mail, Or: Friendship in the Cyber Age. The writer’s claim:
However, friendships of the good tend to be lifelong, are often formed in childhood or adolescence, and will exist so long as the friends continue to remain virtuous in each other’s eyes. To have more than a handful of such friends of the good, Aristotle states, is indeed a fortunate thing. Rare indeed are such friendships, for people of this kind are rare.
. . .
And yet, for us living in the frenetic 21st Century, it can be difficult to maintain such ties. Friendships of utility and pleasure come and go quickly as we move from job to job and relationship to relationship. But for Aristotle this need not be a tragedy. Since the interchanges of both types are less intense or permanent, their endings are not necessarily detrimental to one’s self. But to lose a friend of the good — ah, there is tragedy indeed.
Email has added a new wrinkle to Aristotle’s threefold schemata. Thanks to it, and the wonders of the internet in general, it is now easier than ever to stay in touch with people from throughout one’s life. Old acquaintances, long forgotten, can be found relatively easily . . . .
. . .
There’s something about email’s democratic nature that makes it easy to send a message to someone you haven’t talked to in decades. A phone call out of the blue seems too potentially disturbing, and a written letter seems too formal; but email makes it seem quite natural to contact acquaintances from years ago. Should they choose not to answer, one can shrug it off with an “Oh, well, that’s how it goes.” But should they reply, it can be the continuation of a beautiful friendship.
Often discussions of personal relationships in the Cyber Age dwell upon the negative — the superficial connections, the dangers of identity theft, and information overload. Aristotle does warn us that, at least where friendships of the good are concerned, there are limitations to just how many it is feasible to handle. He writes, “To be a friend to many people in the way of the perfect friendship is not possible.”
Still, it seems to me that email has made it possible for friendships of all three categories to thrive and prosper in ways Aristotle could never have anticipated.
Religion and Philosophy
I concluded my previous post on the “Prozac debate” by noting that Aspazia (whose views I was criticizing) presents her case in three online posts (”This Is No Mother’s Little Helper“, “The Psychopharmacological Hedonist’s Orthodoxy“, and “The Autonomy Enhancer“), and that the relationship between the arguments made in the three segments was unclear to me.
Aspazia’s since informed me that her project has changed quite a bit in the two years since these pieces were posted, as would be expected with a work in progress. It would, therefore, be unfair be unfair to construe them as representing her views.1 Nonetheless, some of the claims she makes in “The Autonomy Enhancer” in particular are interest to me, and I will be responding to them in this post. There’s a second reason why my remarks here should be construed more as my own ruminations than as an examination of Aspazia’s views: she breaks off right where she gets to what (IMO) is the most interesting part: how the concept of “rejection-sensitivity” emerged out of Donald Klein’s original diagnostic label of “hysteroid dysphoria.”
With those caveats issued, on y va.
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I found this in an interview with Ajahn Amaro at Inquiring Mind:
It seems to me that for many laypeople in our society who go to the nice retreat centers, the whole role of renunciation is excised from the Dharma field. Monasticism is forgotten or seen as a quaint lifestyle that happens off on the edges. It’s not really a central piece of Dharma. The fact that the Buddha was a monk gets lost.
Of course, people are free to practice as they want. Nonetheless, many Western Dharma centers seem to marginalize what to the rest of the Buddhist world is central and historically vital to the whole process of Dharma practice and enlightenment. It’s like opening up the chest, detaching all the veins and arteries, carefully removing the heart, and maintaining the body on a life-support system. One can’t help but wonder, is this thing really alive? Is this really going to carry on? Obviously, my perspective is slanted; I’m a card-carrying monk. But in wedging Dharma teachings into a comfortable life, one may be missing something that’s crucial to the Dharma. I would suggest that people look closely at that: is the Dharma something that I tack onto my life or is it something that I offer myself up to?
It makes an interesting counterpoint to this article in today’s New York Times.
Religion and Philosophy
A shorter version of my three-part review of Paul Griffiths’ On Being Mindless is now posted at Amazon.com.
This is my first Amazon review. Newt, here I come.
Religion and Philosophy
