[spamkillerf]

Hi,
Are philosophy and Buddhism mutually exclusive? Is there overlap? If so, what value does this have, if any? For example, can informal fallacies and Buddhism make beneficial contributions to each other? Or, are philosophy and Buddhism polar opposites with no overlap? What value does such a separation have? For example, does using informal fallacies to discuss and debate Buddhist truths and ideas corrupt Buddhism?
Or, are there other alternatives or ways of looking at this I'm not seeing right now?

May all beings find the causes of true happiness within.

[AnriXuinriZ]

Western (Greek) logic is a bit younger than the Pali suttas, and the suttas arose in a vastly different culture. That makes interpreting the texts in their original context more difficult, as we're prone to looking at the world through modern, Western, post-Scientific Enlightenment lenses. Richard Gombrich and Mark Siderits have done the subject very well, though.

Buddhism doesn't fit comfortably into the Western definitions of either Philosophy or Religion. Recently, though, the field of Experimental Philosophy has been developing, and I think that might be the best category for Buddhism.

Why are you specifying informal fallacies, if I might ask?

[moredasers]

Western (Greek) logic is a bit younger than the Pali suttas...

Greece is more on the "east/west" cusp than strictly western.

Why are you specifying informal fallacies, if I might ask?

Informal fallacies are the most common types of "ground rules" referred to on this (and other) Buddhist debate and discussion website. For examples, do an internal search here for terms like "straw man" and "ad hominem," "slippery slope," and "begging the question."

[Rasklad]

For examples, do an internal search here for terms like "straw man" and "ad hominem," "slippery slope," and "begging the question."

We have a thread which was posted in the TeaRoom in May entitled 'Fallacious argument styles' and there's a link from fojiao2 to a website which explains the different terms.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

and also another link which was given by Stuka :

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

[Gerribase]

Are philosophy and Buddhism mutually exclusive?

They are different things. But because one can make philosophies out of everything it is to be expected that philosophers and their addiction into intellectual entanglements tend to see the teachings of the historical Buddha as philosophy; in the same way, it is expected that religious people and their addiction into blind faith believes tend to see the teachings of the historical Buddha as a religious edifice...

...what this or other people can not see is that the teachings of the historical Buddha are neither philosophical amusements nor blind faith shelters but teachings, an outstanding group of teachings for deliverance of mind, including the deliverance of its usual jugglery around things. The teachings of the historical Buddha do not call for jugglery but for peaceful and quite contemplation and awareness of what is being taught, IMO.

For example, if we have a set of instructions to clone a cell or to recombine a liver gene into a bacteria you follow the instructions so to clone or recombine. You can choose just to sit down, argue and amuse your mind into the philosophy of cloning or recombining but you will never clone or recombine the gene.

In the same way, we can sit down and amuse ourselves making philosophies out from the teachings of the Buddha but we are not following the instructions of deliverance of mind and deliverance will never happen.

[fount_pirat]

The use of fallacies to support ones argument is a sign of unskilled reasoning, but it would be quite a leap to say it "corrupts" Buddhism. The Kalama Sutta is a warning against several informal fallacies, such as appeals to authority, tradition, emotions.

But a skilled thinker should also keep away from assuming that a conclusion is false just because the premises contain a fallacy.

[sabbixsweraco]

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy is far superior to these links. Shall I look for a link?

We have a thread which was posted in the TeaRoom in May entitled 'Fallacious argument styles' and there's a link from fojiao2 to a website which explains the different terms.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

and also another link which was given by Stuka :

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

[Jambjanatan]

The use of fallacies to support ones argument is a sign of unskilled reasoning, but it would be quite a leap to say it "corrupts" Buddhism. The Kalama Sutta is a warning against several informal fallacies, such as appeals to authority, tradition, emotions.

As are the four types of questions the Buddha taught, but can we generalize these teachings as similar enough to informal fallacy theory to be useful for purposes of practice?

But a skilled thinker should also keep away from assuming that a conclusion is false just because the premises contain a fallacy

Or, as the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy puts it:

The criterion of satisfactory argument typically taken as relevant in discussing formal fallacies is validity. In this regard, it is important to observe the rules of inference and argument forms that are not valid may have instances (which may be another rule or argument form, or may be a specific argument) that are valid. (p. 316; 1999: Cambridge Press)

Further, a skilled thinker should not only be aware of the differences between formal and informal logic, but also aware of when the use of both formal and informal fallacies may be used in arguments without comprising the validity of the argument. The use exceptions of informal fallacies are much more numerous than use exceptions with formal fallacies:

"INFORMAL FALLACY, an error of reasoning or tactic of argument that can be used to persuade someone with whom you are reasoning that your argument is correct when really it is not. The standard treatment of the informal fallacies in logic textbooks draws heavily on Aristotle's list, but there are many variants, and new fallacies have often been added, some of which have gained strong footholds in the textbooks. The word 'informal' indicates that these fallacies are not simply localized faults or failures in the given propositions (premises and conclusion) of an argument to conform to a standard of semantic correctness (like that of deductive logic), but are misuses of the argument in relation to a context of reasoning or type of dialogue that an arguer is supposed to be engaged in. INFORMAL LOGIC is the subfield of logical inquiry that deals with these fallacies. Typically, informal fallacies have a pragmatic (practical) aspect relating to how an argument is being used, and also a dialectical aspect, pertaining to a context of dialogue--normally an exchange between two participants in a discussion. Both aspects are major concerns of informal logic.

Logic textbooks classify informal fallacies in various ways, but no clear and widely accepted system of classification has yet become established. Some textbooks are very inventive and prolific, citing many different fallacies, including novel and exotic ones. Others are more conservative, sticking with the twenty or so mainly featured in or derived from Aristotle's original treatment, with a few widely accepted additions. The[list of informal fallacies in the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy] cover most of these 'major' or widely featured fallacies, the ones most likely to be encountered by name in the language of everyday educated conversation" (Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd Edition; p. 431. Cambridge University Press: 1999; my emphasis).

[Keyclenef]

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy is far superior to these links. Shall I look for a link?

No thanks Bucky, I don't think there's any interest to be honest....and people can easily Google for that kind of info if they should want it.

[PristisoliTer]

As are the four types of questions the Buddha taught, but can we generalize these teachings as similar enough to informal fallacy theory to be useful for purposes of practice?

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?

Without so much copypasta this time, if you don't mind.

[ebBPxIai]

Greece is more on the "east/west" cusp than strictly western.

Oh, come on Bucky. Greece is in the EU, they use the Euro for currency, and the Ancient Greek civilisation influenced the development of the Western World. They are also in the Eurovision Song Contest, but are not likely to win any time soon. I would say that Greece is strictly Western by comparison with the Middle East and the Far East.

Informal fallacies .... For examples, do an internal search here for terms like "straw man" and "ad hominem," "slippery slope," and "begging the question." The fact that people claim these terms have been used in argument does not prove that the terms have truly been used.

Can you find a dictionary definition covering reference to an informal fallacy when the reference itself is erroneous? Would this be a valuable help to us in any way, do you think?

[pesty4077]

Oh, come on Bucky. Greece is in the EU, they use the Euro for currency...

At least for now...!

[Beauseaccerce]

Oh, come on Bucky. Greece is in the EU, they use the Euro for currency, and the Ancient Greek civilisation influenced the development of the Western World. They are also in the Eurovision Song Contest, but are not likely to win any time soon. I would say that Greece is strictly Western by comparison with the Middle East and the Far East.

You're conflating Ancient Greece and Modern Greece. When the ancient greeks thought of "the West" it was something entirely different than what modern people mean by "the West" In many ways back then, it was all East.

The fact that people claim these terms have been used in argument does not prove that the terms have truly been used.

I couldn't have said better.

Can you find a dictionary definition covering reference to an informal fallacy when the reference itself is erroneous?

I cannot divine the meaning of this utterance. Please rephrase/clarify.

Would this be a valuable help to us in any way, do you think?

I cannot divine the meaning of this utterance. Please rephrase/clarify.

[c6vkuNRg]

Without so much copypasta this time, if you don't mind.

That's hand typed hard work.

[hopertveyk]

They are different things.

A is never B? Are you claiming absolute mutual exclusivity? The form(s) more appropriate to the topic questions are: What parts of A and what parts of B coincide? Under what conditions do they vary? Etc....

But because one can make philosophies out of everything it is to be expected that philosophers and their addiction into intellectual entanglements tend to see the teachings of the historical Buddha as philosophy; in the same way, it is expected that religious people and their addiction into blind faith believes tend to see the teachings of the historical Buddha as a religious edifice...

...what this or other people can not see is that the teachings of the historical Buddha are neither philosophical amusements nor blind faith shelters but teachings, an outstanding group of teachings for deliverance of mind, including the deliverance of its usual jugglery around things. The teachings of the historical Buddha do not call for jugglery but for peaceful and quite contemplation and awareness of what is being taught, IMO.

For example, if we have a set of instructions to clone a cell or to recombine a liver gene into a bacteria you follow the instructions so to clone or recombine. You can choose just to sit down, argue and amuse your mind into the philosophy of cloning or recombining but you will never clone or recombine the gene.

In the same way, we can sit down and amuse ourselves making philosophies out from the teachings of the Buddha but we are not following the instructions of deliverance of mind and deliverance will never happen.

Don't confuse the way some people "philosophize" with philosophy. Not all philosophers are "addicted to intellectual entanglements," or in it for "amusement" or "jugglery." Philosophy is simply the pursuit of wisdom where wisdom is defined as the capacity for sound judgment. One can practice the teachings of Buddha and utilize the tools of philosophy simultaneously without compromising skillfulness.

[StarsWorld]

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).

[Hokimjers]

@ BuckyG:

Thanissaro Bhikkhu's academic inquiry is interesting, but I still don't see the relevance to either formal or informal fallacies, as Socrates is not known to have dealt with them. If I might be forgiven for copypasta:

However, not just any type of mistake in reasoning counts as a logical fallacy. To be a fallacy, a type of reasoning must be potentially deceptive, it must be likely to fool at least some of the people some of the time. Moreover, in order for a fallacy to be worth identifying and naming, it must be a common type of logical error.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

History

Aristotle was both the first formal logician—codifying the rules of correct reasoning—and the first informal logician—cataloging types of incorrect reasoning, namely, fallacies. He was both the first to name types of logical error, and the first to group them into categories. The result is his book On Sophistical Refutations.

However, Aristotle's teacher, Plato, deserves credit for being the first philosopher to collect examples of bad reasoning, which is an important preliminary piece of field work before naming and cataloging. Plato's "Euthydemus" preserves a collection of fallacious arguments in dialogue form, putting the perhaps exaggerated examples into the mouths of two sophists. For this reason, fallacious arguments are sometimes called "sophisms" and bad reasoning "sophistry". Aristotle refers to a few of these examples as instances of his named fallacies. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/introtof.html

[Berta]

@ BuckyG:

Thanissaro Bhikkhu's academic inquiry...

Academic?

...is interesting, but I still don't see the relevance to either formal or informal fallacies...,

My OP topic is a claim to philosophy in general, not just logic

...as Socrates is not known to have dealt with them.

Socrates was the the main character of Euthydemus. Socrates' career was a battle against sophistry. Is this an example of the dubiousness of the link below? Ingnorance of the history of philosophy? This is basic stuff.

If I might be forgiven for copypasta:



http://www.fallacyfiles.org/introtof.html

[Poowssnople]

A is never B? Are you claiming absolute mutual exclusivity?

Absolutly. I have never felt or seen any sort of philosophical struggle at any of the teachings of the historical Buddha. Where I have seen such a thing is in the Mahayana tradition that become the proper place for doing such struggles with the teachings. Just give a read to the Mulamadhyamakakarika verses of Nagarjuna.

I think that people with some philosophical skills or addicted to that way of finding meanings tend to see "philosophy" in the teachings that are not "a priory" about for:

1. Problems about the validity of knowledge and/or/why/how knowledge is get.

2. Problems about the conceptual explanation of the self.

3. Problems about the meaning of the Absolute, God, infinite and Infinity.

4. Problems about the existence of man/woman as an entity.

5. Problems about the constitution and evolution of the Universe or the Multi verse.

6. Problems about Ethics, Logic and Aesthetics.

7. Etc.

Philosophy is about problems, doing problems, finding problems and increasing problems as the main amusement of mind. The teachings of the historical Buddha are about facts and solutions.

Now, why do people with, existential worries or concerns and intellectual curiosity tend to look at the teachings of the historical Buddha as a philosophical essay?

The teachings of the historical Buddha are about:

1. The ultimate meaning of things: Anatta, Anicca and Dukkha from where there is nothing more to speculate. To the wandering mind this is a big challenge. The wandering mind will never settle into the quite contemplation of this.

2. The teachings of the historical Buddha are a huge corpus of a very fine and well developed propaedeutic system. And as any propaedeutic, the teachings are to lead, to take on, to open to the knowledge of the ultimate meaning of things experiencing them as facts and not as intellectual amusement or struggle.

The Buddha did not set problems through his teachings but he is giving us to realize the final solution about the ultimate existence of things and beings. This implies a monumental challenge to the wandering mind. The wandering mind will struggle by any means (one of it is the use of philosophical entanglements) to wander around endlessly and never be quite enough to experience through contemplation the fact of Anatta, Anicca and Dukkha.

Philosophy is essentially so entangled that it can take the teachings of the historical Buddha as its formal object and thus the confusion of the teachings of the historical Buddha as a philosophical endeavour. There is a natural human tendency or more accurate, a mind tendency to do metaphysics with anything at hand.

Philosophy can kidnap the entire teaching of the historical Buddha because it does that by nature: To get deep, endlessly, into its object of struggle and takes the teachings of the Buddha as another human problem. An example of this can be the Mahayana (philosophical) religion.

But the teachings of the historical Buddha are not an object for such existential concern:

1. The teachings of the historical Buddha are about realization and experience and of a given solution and not of a stated problem. So the problems that one can face with the teachings of the historical Buddha are not in the teachings but in the inappropriate approach and propaedeutic taken.

2. In essence, the act of doing philosophies is out of any real interest but just the absolute satisfaction of the intellect. The teachings of the historical Buddha are not the case of an intellectual satisfaction but a deep concern about realizing the fact of the ultimate meaning of things. This ultimate meaning of things that are given in the teachings of the historical Buddha are not a proper object for intellectual curiosity because this ultimate meaning is a fact and not a ground for speculation.

I recommend to go thoroughly to the The Brahmajala Sutta: The All Embracing Net of Views (DN 1) so to taste the temper of the Buddha as a teacher and what is his teaching about.

Along the given Sutta this formula is repeated again and again as a warning of what the teachings are about:

36. "This, bhikkhus, the Tathāgata understands. And he [the Buddha] understands: 'These standpoints, thus assumed and thus misappre*hended, lead to such a future destination, to such a state in the world beyond.' He understands as well what transcends this, yet even that understanding he does not misapprehend. And because he is free from misapprehension, he has realized within himself the state of perfect peace. Having understood as they really are the origin and the passing away of feelings, their satisfaction, their unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, the Tathāgata, bhikkhus, is emancipated through non-clinging. But, anyway, I can be proved wrong because philosophy is not my best strength to deal with...

[AlexDatig]

Philosophy is simply the pursuit of wisdom where wisdom is defined as the capacity for sound judgment.

Hmm... I don't agree completely with such statement. Philosophy is about cleverness. So you can refute anything because cleverness and with enough cleverness you can refute or not the entire or a given portion of the teachings of the historical Buddha, because cleverness. Where is the wisdom in the life of... Nietzche, when he died full of bitterness and existential stress???

One can practice the teachings of Buddha and utilize the tools of philosophy simultaneously without compromising skillfulness The teachings of the Buddha ARE tools for skillfulness. If you have been given the adequate hammer by the Buddha, why you go for another one?