Re Kai:
"Aristotle. . . is still quite relevant to ethics (virtue theory and the normative importance of emotions in cognition) and psychology . . ."

Yes Kai.
Aristotle is and will remain hugely important in ethics and virtue theory. In principle, in the abstract, to frame ths discussion.

However, Aristotle clearly viewed females as less than human and saw the aristocracy run slave state as natural and virtuous. Humna slavery is not a socila virtue.

In the same way, Confucius is also problematical. He said "A man with one teste is worth more than one hundred women."

So, from the standpoint of humanitarian ethics and democracy and naturla science and so forth, we have to scrap both Aristotle and Confucius.

For an number of reasons, some of the primary movers in modern ( open inquiry / democratic / law based / science based / humanitarian ) thought, i.e. The Enlightenment, are John Locke and Voltaire. I am a major major fan of both.

Karl Marx is a "modern thinker", and he did change the world, but he screwed up on everything. The theory and practice of One Party Marxism are both proven wrong and disastrous again and again in many countries. It's a completely failed ideology.

So basically, we keep John Locke and Voltaire, and we scratch Marx and Confucius, and keep a good part of Aristotle.

I know Hume is extremely important too, but I'm not up on Hume. Most of my "cognitive psychology" is classical Buddhist and/ or yogic. I don't waste my time with badly screwed up people like Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein or Sigmund Freud. These canonical clowns are for the unenlightened people in the universities.

KT

"I am found of Ricardo Gordon who said "I think thefore I am, is a default, not a proof. We can no more prove that we are conscious then prove that the universe is not""

John, any idea what Gordon means by this? Isn't asking to prove that we are conscious a bit like asking to prove that we have 2 legs? i.e. if one has to ask, does one really understand the words being used?

Re Artwit:
"Bishop Sheen ridiculed Einstein's cosmic god as "comic," which I think reflected rather poorly on the bishop! "


Yes Artwit.

The cosmic being of Spinoza, "natura naturans", literally means Nature Doing Nature, or Natural Law and Dynamics of the Cosmos. This is of course completely compatible with all natural science.

This is also completley compatible with Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor and world class ( Stoic ) philosopher. Rest assured that Marcus Aurelius is anything but a joke.

There is claimed quote for Einstein that I have been unable to track down, in which Einstein claims that "Buddhism is the Cosmic Religion of the Future etc. etc." That's approximate. Of course, Albert Einstein was unable in his day to see good translations of Buddhist texts.

I'm also a big Einstein fan ( independent of the above claimed quote ), as well as of Albert Camus. And I wrote an essay on Camus ethics, which can be seen under the Albert Camus picture at my tribe home.

With regard to ethics, I'm against Naziism, Communism, the Vatican, and Islam. I am also for sustainable environmental democracy, John Locke and Voltaire, and the Dalai Lama, UN human rights treaties / international law. My ethic is quite clear and functional.

I am glad we got the discussion to this point. It seems reasonable, given how the discussion has naturally moved this far, for me to later say some things about Buddhist psychology as it relates to modern psychology. I am not ready to do so at this time, but you can all find books on the Dalai Lama relevant to psychology, and may be aware of the new Dalai Lama centers at MIT, Harvard, and Stanford, not to mention all his liberal arts PhDs.

I have been connected to this tribe for over two years without heretofore saying anything, other than a single Dalaia Lama article here, which elicited no response. Anyway, you can all see that I come from a classical Renaissance / Enlightenment background, and am an independent thinker, not just a dogmatic Buddhist or whatever.

In fact, I disagree with some key points regarding the Dalai Lama's world view ( e.g. Islam and socialism ), even while I have put forward his work on over fifty tribes.

Much of my work on tribe.net is clearly tantric Buddhist, but more generally I have been working to build bridges ( contexts of functional mutual respect and communication ) between different tribes, with significant and broad success and also some determined opposition.

This is social psychological work, it is building a communications commons. My Dalai Lama article was significant on the Green Party tribe, an Environmentalist tribe, and so forth. In these and other cases, I was not only putting forward one perspective ( e.g. the Dalai Lama ), but also speaking on behalf of humanitarian ethics and the International Green Movement, the Rio Greens.

Thus my communication is real, multilateral, consciousness-building, not religious dogma per se. And I am very analytical in viewing and co-creating the ensuing dialogues on these different tribes. I read and use books on wht can be called Dialogue Theory.

Communication is vitally important. So is the whole area of ethics. So is cognitive / behavioral psychology and developmental psychology. These are in fact very very closely related.

That is the basic starting point for my communication here, not religious belief per se.

I am not a western university type. I am a licensed Buddhist teacher, since the mid eighties. I will take this opportunity to point out that there are now a number of western PhD psychologists who are practising tantric Buddhists. Given this remarkable new direction or path in western psychology, it seems reasonable that the whole "Einstein Goes For Buddhism" thing is significantly true, at least for some.

In any event, the pagan / Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius still holds up, though Wittgenstein, Freud and Marx do not. And, following on this point, I would say that the Dalai Lama social psychology and "meditative psychology" is doing quite well in some significant quarters, including among the very high level academics.

I have seen very little substantive attack ( almost none ) on the theory and practice of the Dalai Lama teachings. And he has published many books and shown up at many symposia worldwide. It surprises me that all these sharp people have yet to lay into the Dalai Lama, whne they've had so many years to do so.

So, if anyone here wants to wail away on the Dalai Lama, the opportunity is definitely on. As I said before, the Dalai Lama is a Major Player in Social Psychology. That is a testable statement.

Best,
KT, nonacademic but quite psychological