Why do we have to differentiate between religion and philosophy?

Religion - you do not have the liberty to question things, has a deity, there is a dogma
Philosophy - never ending inquiry

Billington - the significance of difference - its a bit dangerous that there is a blurry line
- It has become a verb
- Capitalism has been a religion
- Religion has caused conflicts
- The West thinks that Eastern philosophy as something they can’t comprehend
- CULTS - a large association of a particular belief
- Can consider nazism as cult, capitalism
- They wage wars,
- Main objective of philosophy is to motivate you to explore more and discover, assess,
criticize, inquire

Buddhism is more of a philosophy rather than a religion in its origins

Buddha is a religious protester
Philosophy can provide answers and a sense of security
Jesus was an activist
They can explain and prescribe what is happening about us, the difference is religion has
punishments if you do not adhere to these prescriptions
In Philosophy, none more on explanation and prescription than consequences
Approach
Metaphysics - we accept the fact that we are in a particular situation, affecting how we behave
and act, inquiry and assessment of what’s happening around us, we are we here, what are we
doing, why are we doing this, not with how we became. Why questions. More on our being?
Religion more on the cosmic and supreme beings (free from imperfections and limitations) that’s
why religions are dogmatic, it is the TRUTH. divine dimension
You can shift philosophies without any criticism and consequence

Michel Foucault - 3 forms of power; disciplinary power, sovereign power - how society is
punishing

Harari -

Ideologies are always evolving, from an ordinary individual not from a supreme being
Communism is a european ideology

In comparison with western philosophy, western is spacial philosophy challenging religion

Eastern philosophy is a hybrid of religion and philosophy
Main commonality is to be more curious or inquisitive about what is happening around us
Chakravarti - analysis of the ultimate goal
Western philosophers - wanted empirical evidence and tangible answers
Oriental philosophy - majority are more dependent on the mystic or the abstract
Indian Philosophy - is more psychological and mental discourse
Chinese - based on ethics, interactions between individuals, societies etc.
- Value of human relation
The Ultimate question keeps you wondering: Who we are, where we come from
Daoism
Yin and Yang
- There is bad in good, and good in bad
- Nothing is purely good, and nothing is purely bad
- Do unto other what you want other to do unto you

Brahman - Consciousness
Brahman is like their highest universal principle. It is formless, but it gave birth to all forms in
visible reality
Yoga - disciplines your mind
Your consciousness manifests itself in your behavior, and this necessitates a response
from another, creating a set of interactions, thus becoming a structure
You create your own reality
Western Philosophy is individualistic. Eastern Philosophy also talks about the individual, but
also talk about its relationship with its environment
From what I understand Sir, Brahman is something that is beyond human understanding, and
because it is something that we cannot explain directly, it humbles us into understanding that
everything we know and experience may not be what it seems to be.

POOH = SIMPLE MINDEDNESS = uncarved block P’u

Eastern Philosophy

For something to be considered a religion, it must be built upon the belief in a supreme being
and the purpose they have established.

- Belief in the reality of the spiritual dimension in the universe is a necessary condition of
a religion’s nature.

- Belief in the metaphysical

Metaphysical

- Investigation of the structure of reality

- Dissatisfaction with the structure of the world and what is seen to the naked eye
 - Everything is not what it seems

- Split in reality and appearance

- Attention on knowledge of the world not actions

- Seeking to help others may be a goal, but WHY? Is it because of God or because the
world says so?

Chinese Philosophy is ametaphysical, based on metaethics

ametaphysical

- Dissatisfaction with how people act in this world

- Attention on actions in the world, not knowledge

- Seeking ultimate questions alternative to the metaphysical

- Seeking questions of ultimate value through addressing situations that we experience in

the world

Metaethics

- The study of concepts, methods and assumptions of ethical issues

- Nature of goodness and right action

- “what should be done?” rather than “what is there?” (metaphysics)

- To know how to act

- A reflection on and assessment of the worth of our ideas of ethical conduct, leading to
ultimate answers

Indian Systems of thought (The World)

School of Sankhya

- earliest attempt to account for reality in a systematic way

- dualism – spirit and matter

- development of either the universe or the human psyche

Spirit - passive, a witness to the evolution of matter

Matter - the pure, the active, the passive

 The pure - intelligence, ego and sensory (gaining knowledge)

The active - the agency and energy through which the intelligence interacts with objects

The passive - the gross elements that make up, space and time

- General account of how the world and life came to be or

- A specific theory of how the consciousness develops
- In either case this speculative system lost ground

Nyaya - Vaisesika School

- Pluralism and Realism - take the material world as having an ultimate structure
- Aim is to develop a commonsensical analysis of things
- They start without any denial of the world as we encounter it
- Seek to understand structures of reality but we already experience that reality
- Reality is not just experienced with sensory
- Puts forward a logical view of reality, upon reflection its categories are evident
- things are what we experience them to be, its reality is not far from our experience of it
- Substantial objects that are independent of us have a nature that is essential to them,
they are continuous and persistent just like what our sense are making them out to be

Vaisesika Ontology
- Built up of a cascading series of categories and their constituents, we cannot examine
them all in detail
- Objects (which we experience)
- Entities (which structure them)
- Substance, quality, motion, universal/genus, particular species, and inherence,
absence

1. SUBSTANCE
a. A thing that exists through possessing qualities and motion
b. Precedes them in existence
c. Example: the self and mind
i. Mind - separate immaterial substance that the self uses to perceive its
own states
ii. Self - merely the entity that has a mind
2. QUALITY
a. Located in substance, never independent
b. Material qualities - five sense
c. Immaterial qualities - pain, pleasure, desire, aversio
d. Qualities that are relational bet 2 diff substances - proximity distance contact
e. Dispositional - explain why substance behave the way they do - weight fluidity etc
f. Merit and demerit are also qualities - consequence of moral actions
3. MOTIONS
 a. Brings about contact and separation between substances
b. Orientations (upward, downward etc)
c. Transformations - expansion, contraction etc
d. Locomotion
4. UNIVERSAL / GENUS - generic entities that bring particulars tgt in a single class
a. Highest universal is “existence” - notion of being
b. To say that there is a reality made up of things is to say that all things fall under a
class defined by the universal existence
5. PARTICULAR/SPECIES
a. Indivisible entities that are intrinsically distinguishable from one another, and
have no further components
b. Ultimate entities that are required for objects to exist
6. INHERENCE
a. Explanation why things go together the way they do
b. Specific relationship between things that go together
7. ABSENCE
a. A part of reality
b. Prior absence - ground before the plant grew
c. Destructional absence - ground after tree is cut
d. Absolute absence - a singing tree, non existing
e. Mutual absence - tree not being a boulder
Mimamsa School
- The material world is ultimate with no further reality required
- Not set about components of the world
- About defending the need to act to uphold order
- DHARMA - cosmos of ordered function
- Injunction to perform rituals (help maintain dharma)
- Order is sustained by the natural functioning of all the elements in the world
- Natural functioning includes actions by humans - problem in humans can choose
- Humans can choose to realize their capacity to perform natural functions
- Moral realism

BUDDHISM
In toto - insight that lies at the heart of what he teaches
For Buddhism, the ultimate is the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS
1. The world is suffering
2. Desire is the cause of suffering
3. Cessation of desire is cessation of Suffering
4. Can be achieved by following the eightfold path

Suffering (Dukha) - sickness, sorrow, pain, ageing, death

- Life is unsatisfactory and limited
- Unsatisfactory = pursuing satisfaction = desire
Desire - pressing quest, not just focusing on a goal
- Craving or thirst (Pali/Sanskrit)

Buddha offers path that will lead to cessation of desire

The Eightfold Path
- A combination of ethical, psychological and body discipline

The Buddha says that he will not concern himself with questions of ultimate reality
- If you are undergoing suffering, do you want to cease it or investigate the structure of the
world in which you suffer?

2 MAJOR CLAIMS ABOUT REALITY

1. The world and human beings are not ultimately substantial. They lack intrinsic
nature/self
2. Thus, everything is constituted. There is no self, all things arise in dependence on each
other

Pratitya - Samutpada
- All things arise in mutual dependence
- We cannot explain anything without recognizing its relationship with other things
- Things are SUNYA (empty, zero)
- Nothing is self sufficient, thus no God
- Stability and persistence are mere appearance - not intrinsic to things-they are only an
image created by their passing and contingent connection to each other
- We should accept things as we experience them, but realize that there is nothing to
them that is ultimate or more fundamental.
- Ultimately, there is no ultimate reality

Indian Buddhism

Abhidharma (the understanding of Dharma)

DHARMA

- Teachings or the way of Buddha

- General name for every element of existence, those that Buddha said are fleeting and
interdependent

- Includes all aspects of existence, not just physical objects

Vaibhasika

- First major Abhidharma school

- Seeks to list all elements to make a catalogue to prove their interdependence

- Led the school to construct elaborate MATRIKA (matrices) of elements

- each and every element has to have some special function that makes it what it is

Sautrantika

- Rejects Vaibhasika teachings

- Elements are fleeting in the real sense of being momentary, coming into being only so
as to have an effect on another element,and THEN CEASING TO EXIST
- We fabricate a sense of persistence and continuity in our minds
- Elements are MOMENTARY points
- Experienced world is constructed

Yogacara

- Fully develops the thought that there is a mental act of putting imagined things together
to form our experiences
- The world of objects is actually constructed by consciousness

Vasubandhu

- It is possible for us to have experience of apparently external things without them being
external
- Like Dreaming, hallucinations, errors

Dinnaga

- What’s really out there is not a world, only mental constructions as if of a world
- It is part of the very nature of consciousness to make things appear external

CAN I NOT DESIRE MY OWN CONSTRUCTIONS?

How Indian and Chinese Buddhism differ

Yogacara - there is no I, no real self that can desire anything

- Emphasizes on the significance of mental activity as the way to nirvana

- Transcending the world = nirvana

Vs.

Qan Buddhism

- Seeks for the attainment of a state in which the mind is not engaged in the minor details
of thoughts and objects
- With a mind free of internal divisiveness, a person can act without desire
- A unitary mind = nirvana
- Psychological and moral freedom from the world
Madhyamaka by nagarjuna
- No accounts just critique of metaphysical systems
- No theory of the essence of things is possible, as Buddha did not say anything about the
ultimate reality
- Things are empty and exist only interdependently
- Contradictory as this can be seen as a metaphysical position, but NO
- Nothing means nothing
- Complete denial
- The emptiness of emptiness
- Emptiness - an anti-metaphysical doctrine that things have no independent and
essential natures
- TWO TRUTHS
- Acceptance of the world as we encounter it, where suffering is present
- Ultimate truth = there is no ultimate reality
+

Huayen Buddhism
- Positive interpretation of emptiness
- They are empty because they are not independent
- But they exist ultimately in that interdependent state
- Every element (dharma/fa) exists in itself but also somehow contains or is contained by
every other element
- Coexist in a harmonious relationship = their nature

Jainism
- Founded by Mahavira
- Reality is many-sided
- Goal of humans is to be free from conditions of life that bring suffering (like Buddha)
- SUFFERING = consequences of actions
- Attitudes and values must be changed
- Non-violence, open-minded acceptance of other
- Accepting of people’s variety of beliefs, as reality is many-sided = will result to a
nonviolent world
- NOT PLURALIST - The acceptance that there are many things and principles
- There is intrinsic nature to things but it is constantly changing and becoming something
else
- CHANGE IS THE INTRINSIC NATURE OF REALITY
- Reality is both being and becoming
- Reality is not complex, it is multiplex
- Complex - bringing together of different truths
 - Multiplex - containing separate and incommensurable truths

Advaita School
- Founded by Sankara
- Ancient texts of Upanisads

Brahman
- The sole ultimate reality
- Everything and everyone are manifestations of the Brahman
- Despite the appearance of plurality, there is only one being
- Sat-cit-ananda - existence, awareness, bliss
- Existence - brahman is the only thing in existence
- Awareness - only a universal consciousness exists in brahman; this limitless
awareness is the foundation of all things
- Bliss - another way of saying that it is limitless consciousness
- We cannot say what Brahman is; everything we experience (our consciousness, our
language etc.) are limited parts of this world (that is not real) and cannot comprehend
Brahman
- Ou experiences are only based on the body’s senses, which aren’t real
- It is beyond of this world
The World
- The world is not as real as the Brahman, it is not independent of the Brahman as it
occurs only because of brahman
- It is illusory (maya), appearance may not be reality
- Just because we experience something, does not mean it exists just as we experienced
it

CHINESE PHILOSOPHY
CONFUCIANISM
Heaven (tian)
- Shang-ti (deity joined by deceased ruler in the realm of ti) + tian (distant and impersonal
force modelled on the sky)
- Source of ethical agenda in both these senses

Way (dao)
- Very much rooted in human action
- Not independent of human action
- It is the human being who is able to extend the dao/way
- The sum total of the norms of Confucius’ culture
 - The accumulation of correct texts, rituals, rules, and performances that enable order to
be achieved
- tradition
- It is created, but not subject to the decisions of specific individuals
- It is indeterminate and open to interpretation
- People attach different values to the same rules and actions

HOW ARE TIAN AND DAO RELATED?

Ren dao (human way, normative cultural tradition) = tian dao (way of Heaven)

Analects
- Concentrate on the actions, not on “the way to Heaven”
- Heaven - engenders the potency of virtue (de) that enables him to be a representative of
the ethical path
- Wishes to preserve the style and manner (wen) of ritual action in society
- Gives Confucius the strength to be what he is and to do what he wants to do
- Confucius is not interested in explaining what Heaven is
- He just wishes to show that Heaven (whatever it is), manifests itself in his actions
Heaven
- Appears to be an entity in the natural order that intervenes in human affairs and gives
Confucius the responsibility of transmitting teachings on proper action
- However, it is NOT TRANSCENDENT - quality of being in a higher order
- It is a DIMENSION of the same world we live in
- It is part of the world
- A personal fundamental force within this world that motivates ethical action but to which
no theory attaches
- “UNITY OF HEAVEN AND HUMAN”
- Anthropocosmic - conception of a natural realm of things in which all dimensions are
unified at the same level

MENCIUS
- Confucius first and best known successor
- Human nature is naturally good and given to ethical performance, as evidenced by the
tian
- Heaven endows human nature with goodness
- Metaethics - focus on what Heaven does rather than what it is
- Heaven motivates the Confucian pursuit of a society in which proper action can secure a
stable and harmonious order

XUNZI
- Third of the classical Confucians
- Wrote a treatise on Heaven
- We have a clearer idea of Heaven - the total order and collection of things in the world,
in short nature
 - TWO NOTIONS OF HEAVEN
- As nature in its totality, with no purpose and norms.
- Proper ritual (li) can guide and correct such action
- Heaven forms only the constant and natural backdrop for human action
- Heaven is nature, but nature also contains ethical significance because it
includes human beings who naturally possess ethical capacities that are
normative and purposive
- IN SUMMARY, nature is not intrinsically good, but there is something in human
beings (rationality?) that can tell what is good and what is not

NEO CONFUCIANISM
- Under the influence of Buddhism, there emerged an idea of some ultimate state of being

Zhou Duni
- TAI JI (The Great Ultimate)
- The source of the elements in the world and all the moral categories of
Confucianism
- Only a place holder, an empty formal name for the unknown source of culture and codes
of conduct = which are the relevant things in Confucianism

DAOISM
- Zhuang Zi and Lao Zi
- Spontaneous movement is natural, and each such movement is an expression of
dao/way
- Constructed action is unnatural and alienates humans from their dao/way
- Contrasting on the ethical and ritualistic nature of Confucianism
- There is a world that we live in, and how we behave is different from how our nature is

HOW IS THE DAO TO BE FOLLOWED THEN?

Dao
- Not something to be determined but is to be followed

Zhuangzi
- Social construction of action leads to disagreement
- Where there is natural freedom, there is dao/way
- Humans are in their dao/ways like fish are in water
- Any attempt to assert the right dao/way is bound to fail, so that all we are left with
is the actual doing
- A dao/way comes about as we walk it
- Realize natural action in oneself

Lao zi
- “The dao that can be made a dao is not the constant dao.”
 - “Dao is constantly nameless”
- The dao’s characterization is that it cannot be characterized.
- A sense of wholeness - the constant dao/way
- But the only constant is that there are dao/ways to be followed
- Guidance requires a specific dao/way, to be followed through the person’s interpretation
of it
- There are natural dao/ways to be discovered in the constantly changing flux of the
world in which humans find themselves
- Zi ran - everything becoming itself
- Each thing does its own thing
- Dao is an uncarved block - it is waiting to be given shape by particular or differentiated
guides and actions

Wang Bi
- Dao is wu
- Wu - nothing
- No specific thing
- Not differentiated
- Yu - being
- What has name and form
- Dao is not anything differentiated

LAST LECTURE

Dhamapada
- Main arguments only

Reconstructing and Deconstructing

Importance
- To know our human nature better
- Recognizing yourself
- Mencius inherently good
- Sun tzu bad
- Trying to ...other insights
- Continuous cycle

Xun zi
- Human are inherently bad
- It makes sense that we have to cultivate it, because it is naturally bad
- Critiqued meng zi: what’s the point of cultivation if human nature is bad

Mengzi
 - Humans are inherently good
- To be able to reconstruct your individuality, you have to understand that human nature is
good
- We can consider that act of cultivation is actually human nature

Similar prescriptions
- Still under Confucianism
- The need to cultivate and nourish individuality
- filial piety
- Benevolence

Korean Society
- Joseon period
- Confucianism was the state ideology

Mohism
- Impartial utilitarianism
- How to strive human civilization? Not on rituals and traditions
- More on scientific and empirical processes
- Social order may not benefit all people