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**StarsWorld** · 07-05-2011, 05:56 PM

As I pointed out above, the Kalama sutta addresses several - but not all - informal fallacies. However, I'd rather not just guess at where you're making the connection with the four kinds of questions. Would you mind elaborating a little further?

Not at all. First, I'm not "making" connections. I'm exploring similarities and differences. Second, I'm only on page 13, but Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book, Skill In Questions: How the Buddha Taught (2010), explores the similarities and differences between Buddha and Socrates, especially as the pertain to the four types of questions. I don't know if it's online or not yet, but like Aloka-D says, people can look for it if they really want to look at it.

Buddha and Socrates did not always mean the same thing by "wisdom," but does that mean they always meant something different?

"I have frequently compared the Buddha's approach to asking and responding to questions with Socrates' approach as recorded in the Platonic dialogues.... [S]ome modern commentators have asserted that the Buddha employed the Socratic method in his teaching, and I felt that a close examination of the Buddha's approach to the four types of questions would offer a good opportunity to test exactly how far this assertion is true.... [S]ome have noted that the Buddha and Socrates were near contemporaries in the Axial Age, and that as seminal figures representing the spirit of inquiry in that age they shared a common agenda. A comparative study of how they handled questions is a good way to test this assertion as well.... The extent that Socrates and Plato set the agenda for Western intellectual life..., comparing the Buddha's approach to dialogue with Socrates' would be a useful starting point for comparing the Buddha's thought with Western thought in a way not limited to superficial or invidious generalities--to see precisely where his approaches to wisdom differs from the assumptions about wisdom that Westerners have absorbed, often unthinkingly, from the history of their culture.... I found that the comparisons between the Buddha's approach and Socrates' help highlight what is truly distinctive and important in the Buddha's manner of teaching. To make clear what he was doing in his teaching strategy, it's useful to have a clear point of comparison to show what he wasn't" (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Skill In Questions: How the Buddha Taught, p. 9).

07-05-2011, 05:56 PM	#16
StarsWorld Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 425 Senior Member	As I pointed out above, the Kalama sutta addresses several - but not all - informal fallacies. However, I'd rather not just guess at where you're making the connection with the four kinds of questions. Would you mind elaborating a little further? Not at all. First, I'm not "making" connections. I'm exploring similarities and differences. Second, I'm only on page 13, but Thanissaro Bhikkhu's book, Skill In Questions: How the Buddha Taught (2010), explores the similarities and differences between Buddha and Socrates, especially as the pertain to the four types of questions. I don't know if it's online or not yet, but like Aloka-D says, people can look for it if they really want to look at it. Buddha and Socrates did not always mean the same thing by "wisdom," but does that mean they always meant something different? "I have frequently compared the Buddha's approach to asking and responding to questions with Socrates' approach as recorded in the Platonic dialogues.... [S]ome modern commentators have asserted that the Buddha employed the Socratic method in his teaching, and I felt that a close examination of the Buddha's approach to the four types of questions would offer a good opportunity to test exactly how far this assertion is true.... [S]ome have noted that the Buddha and Socrates were near contemporaries in the Axial Age, and that as seminal figures representing the spirit of inquiry in that age they shared a common agenda. A comparative study of how they handled questions is a good way to test this assertion as well.... The extent that Socrates and Plato set the agenda for Western intellectual life..., comparing the Buddha's approach to dialogue with Socrates' would be a useful starting point for comparing the Buddha's thought with Western thought in a way not limited to superficial or invidious generalities--to see precisely where his approaches to wisdom differs from the assumptions about wisdom that Westerners have absorbed, often unthinkingly, from the history of their culture.... I found that the comparisons between the Buddha's approach and Socrates' help highlight what is truly distinctive and important in the Buddha's manner of teaching. To make clear what he was doing in his teaching strategy, it's useful to have a clear point of comparison to show what he wasn't" (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Skill In Questions: How the Buddha Taught, p. 9).
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