Category Archives: Philosophy

BOOK REVIEW: What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

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What Makes You Not a BuddhistWhat Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book provides exposition of the Four Seals (not to be confused with the more well-known Four Noble Truths.) As the title suggests, the author believes that accepting the truth of these four propositions is what distinguishes Buddhist from non-Buddhist (rather than many of the more well-known teachings and practices of Buddhism.)

The Four Seals are easily listed, but are challenging to intellectually grasp (hence the need for a book.) 1.) All compounded things are impermanent. 2.) All emotions are pain. 3.) All things have no inherent existence. 4.) Nirvana is beyond concepts. While I came away from the book with largely the same views on the Seals as when they were presented in the Introduction, I did learn a great deal, and had one epiphany (re: an explanation of Samsara and Nirvana.) [My own views remained: 1.) True to the best of my knowledge; 2.) This remains the most controversial teaching of the lot for me, even with elaborations. I think it does just what we should strive not to do, which is attach a value judgment to things; 3.) & 4.) I don’t know enough to have any firm opinion on these.

I found this book to be well-organized, highly readable, and to use humor and examples to good effect. While I remain “not a Buddhist,” the explanations in the book did move the needle on my way of thinking about a couple things. Along with Walpola Rahula’s What the Buddha Taught, I believe this book is an excellent means to gain greater understanding of an oft-misunderstood religion / philosophy. Check it out if you’re curious about whether you’re a Buddhist (whether or not your currently identify that way.)

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BOOK REVIEW: Hipparchus by Plato

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HipparchusHipparchus by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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In this Socratic dialogue about “lovers of gain,” Socrates and an unnamed friend debate whether pursuing gains can be wicked. Usually, the title of a dialogue is the name of Socrates’ philosophical sparring partner, but, herein, Hipparchus is a historical figure who Socrates cites as the reason he wouldn’t hornswoggle his friend, quoting “Walk with just intent” and “Deceive not a friend” as credos that he, Socrates, lives by.

The friend tries a number of approaches to argue the loathsomeness of lovers of gain. Recognizing the starting premise will be that a gain is a good, the friend argues that such people (presumably greedy / materialistic types) purse valueless gains. Socrates attacks that as an oxymoron. Next, the friend argues that lovers of gain seek gains that no honorable man would pursue. Again, Socrates argues that a gain is a good and all humans seek good. Since the friend doesn’t want to call the lovers of gain fools (i.e. unable to recognize a gain when they see it,) the friend is stuck. The third approach is to argue that a wicked gain could be considered a loss. This is also swiftly rebutted. The last tack is to argue that some gains are good, while some are evil, which runs afoul of the same argument.

This isn’t one of the best dialogues – in fact, many question whether it was written by Plato. That said, it brings up a few ideas that are worthy of consideration. It felt very much like a conversation I once heard in which a young woman argued, “No one should have that much more than they need.” Which drew the response, “You realize that 90% of the world would say you have tons more than you need?” Which resulted in the instigator walking off in a huff. If you want to engage in debates about the virtue (or vice) of wealth acquisition, this might be a good place to begin your reflection.

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BOOK REVIEW: Lovers by Plato

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LoversLovers by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Alternately titled “Rival Lovers,” “The Lovers,” or, simply, “Lovers,” this is one of the Socratic dialogues whose authorship by Plato is in doubt. While it follows the general approach of Plato’s dialogues, it does present a few anomalies, and so some experts include it while others do not.

In the dialogue, Socrates questions two youths, one athlete and one scholar, on the nature of philosophy, whether it is honorable, good, useful, and of what its study should optimally consist. The dialogue opens with Socrates questioning the athlete about what two other young men are discussing, when the athlete suggests that it’s just navel-gazing, Socrates asks the athlete whether he believes philosophizing to be a shameful endeavor. He does, and Socrates ends up spending most of his time questioning the scholar, who has a more flattering view of philosophy.

The scholar proposes that philosophy is learning, and that the philosopher should learn about all subjects – being the intellectual equivalent of the all-around athlete from athletics. Socrates challenges this by suggesting that the philosopher cannot be both useful and a generalist as the scholar claims because then the philosopher will always be of secondary value to the expert. Socrates seems to be setting up that there must be some expertise of philosophy about which the philosopher would be the first-tier expert. In other words, if philosophy is a worthwhile endeavor, there must be some reason that people would seek out a philosopher, rather than someone else. The dialogue ends abruptly, and does not engage in this question. (The ending is one of the reasons why authorship is in question, but it’s not the only Socratic dialogue to set out food-for-thought and leave it on the plate.)

Despite the unclear authorship, I found this dialogue to be worth a read.

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BOOK REVIEW: Charmides by Plato

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CharmidesCharmides by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Temperance is the subject of this Socratic dialogue, debated with Charmides and Critias. The opening may feel a bit icky as it’s essentially a few old men obsessing over beautiful youths (of which Charmides is one) in a way that may not explicitly be lecherous, but kind of feels that way. However, they soon get into systematic reflections of the nature of temperance. Charmides is said to have this quality in droves, but, of course, that begs the question of just what it is.

It’s worth noting, they aren’t using “temperance” in the way the English word is typically defined, i.e. the quality of knowing to what degree one should participate in varied activities, if at all. At least, they don’t get to that definition within the dialogue, but – in point of fact – they don’t arrive at any definition. However, they seem to equate “temperance” with “wisdom.” They do try out a series of alternate definitions, which Socrates systematically disassembles, including: temperance as quietness, as modesty, as “doing one’s own business,” as a science of itself and of the absence of science, and as the science of recognizing good and evil. The first couple of these are summarily dismissed, the latter ones take more effort and elaboration to tease out, but ultimately don’t produce a definition that’s both agreeable and useful.

In the process there is a discussion of epistemology as it pertains to what one can know, and whether one can have any clear understanding of one’s “known unknowns” and how they compare to the “unknown unknowns.” The relevance is rooted in a discussion of whether temperance is the ability to know what one knows and what one doesn’t.

This isn’t one of the best Socratic dialogues, but it does provide food for thought.

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BOOK REVIEW: Euthydemus by Plato

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EuthydemusEuthydemus by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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In this Socratic dialogue, Socrates is pitted against two brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who are Pankrationists turned Sophist. [Pankration is an ancient Greek martial art, but Socrates is verbally sparring with the men in their role as roving philosophy teachers and not as wrestlers.] We don’t hear the interaction firsthand, but rather as Socrates describes events to his friend Crito after the fact.

Socrates seeks to get the two sophists to answer his favorite question, whether virtue is a form of knowledge and can be taught. The brothers take a tag-team approach against a youth named Cleinias to “teach.” Soon, Socrates attempts to reign in the conversation, which has devolved into nonsense because the brothers use a go-to approach that involves logical fallacies that turn on false dichotomies, semantic manipulation, and the imposition of all-or-none conditions on propositions that aren’t all-or-none.

This moves to the brothers proposing that the crowd wants Cleinias to perish because they seek to make him become something he isn’t (i.e. wise.) This brings Ctessippus angrily into the debate (he is fond of Cleinias and sharp-witted, but more emotionally ruled than Socrates.) While a Buddhist would destroy the brothers’ fallacious reasoning with ease, it takes a second for Socrates to undermine the argument by pointing out that if that version of Cleinias perished only to be seamlessly replaced by a new and improved version, it would – indeed – be a great thing.

The rest of the dialogue is the brothers using faulty logic to “prove” such things as that a person knows nothing or everything, and side-stepping questions about why individuals who already know everything would benefit from paying a Sophist. I’d call this a better than average dialogue, well worth reading.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Fall by Albert Camus

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The FallThe Fall by Albert Camus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This is a novel for someone who revels in philosophizing. It’s not a book for those who like to get lost in a story. It reads as if one sat down at a bar next to an obviously intelligent, but also obviously tipsy individual, who proceeded to tell his life story reflectively and analytically – without emphasis on thrilling exploits.

It falls among books that deal in the crisis of modernity – by which I mean, the challenges that arise from being evolutionary optimized to live a certain kind of life, while living one that is completely different. (i.e. It’s like “Fight Club,” but both far more boring and less broadly introspective.) The protagonist, Clamence, tells us about how he once got hit in public and how angry he was with himself for not getting in a lick of his own. He also describes hearing a woman jump / fall into the Seine, and not lifting a finger to help – despite hearing the woman’s screams. Adherence to laws and norms (in conflict with animal impulse,) disconnection from community, and ethical ambiguity are recurring themes in such books. What one does in a post-god world is also reflected upon. Religion and belief, like it or loathe it, fulfilled a function for humanity, and a vacuum was created for people for whom the cons of belief came to outweigh the pros.

Personally, I’m prone to philosophizing, and so I did get into this book – despite not finding it engaging as a story. When I read one particular line, I learned I was a suitable drinking companion for Clamence: “I have never been able to believe, deep inside, that human affairs are serious matters.” [Virtue or vice, I can relate.]

If you’re prone to philosophize, check out this book.

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Stone Sages [Free Verse]

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They shouted irate philosophies
about the foul leviathan.

The angry measure
of angry men,
and all those foul
winds blew back on them.

BOOK REVIEW: Protagoras by Plato

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Protagoras AnnotatedProtagoras Annotated by Aristocles Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Hippocrates woke Socrates to announce that the famous sophist, Protagoras, is in town. Hippocrates hopes Socrates will make introductions and recommend him as a student to the sophist. The two head off to meet with Protagoras who is at the home of a wealthy Athenian, along with an assembly of wisdom-seekers. Along the way, Socrates questions Hippocrates as to whether the young man actually knows what a sophist is and what such a person teaches. (i.e. A painter would teach one to paint, but what does one get for one’s money paid to a Sophist?)

This is one of the more popular early Socratic dialogues of Plato, perhaps because it’s not so one-sided as many others — Protagoras holds his own more than most. In fact, when the discussion begins with the question of whether virtue is teachable, Socrates comes away convinced by Protagoras’ arguments that it is. (Though it’s also possible Socrates is just agreeable to fast-forward to the question that he’s interested in – i.e. the nature of virtue.) Protagoras offers a mythology-based explanation for the teachability of virtue and then preempts counterarguments such as good parents raising despicable children (and vice versa) via reasoning.

However, then Socrates takes the debate to his wheelhouse – the questions of what virtue is, is it one thing or many, and – if many – can one be both virtuous and non-virtuous through a mix of different traits? Protagoras says that there are distinct parts to virtue (e.g. courage, temperance, wisdom, etc.) Socrates then inquires about the nature of these parts. Are they parts like the various parts of the face (i.e. distinct of both form and function?) Or are they like a series of gold pieces (different in size and shape, but materially identical?) Protagoras claims they are more like the former (i.e. parts of the face / substantially different.) Socrates uses this to work Protagoras into a corner, seemingly advocating that each of the aspects of virtue is substantially distinct, but also that they can be so intermingled as to be indistinct.

For some reason, Protagoras doesn’t challenge the false dichotomization on which Socrates’ arguments are based. (Consider the distinction between the nose and the mouth. If the question is about getting food into the body, these are completely different. If the question is getting air in and out, they are veritable twins.) It’s possible that Protagoras doesn’t challenge these false dichotomies because he has an interest in maintaining them for his own purposes, but by that point it’s also possible that he is just seeing red. Protagoras gets miffed, and even more so when Socrates tries to insist that the sophist give up the mode of argument with which Protagoras is most persuasive (i.e. stories and extended / elaborate explanations.) Socrates wants to keep his sparring in the kind of fast-paced Q&A slug-fest at which Socrates excels. The dialogue ends with Protagoras questioning Socrates, an endeavor for which Socrates seems to score a point (though the abrupt cut leaves some ambiguity – like the spinning top at the end of “Inception”)

This is definitely a must-read among early Socratic dialogues.

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BOOK REVIEW: Musashi’s Dokkodo ed. Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder

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Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone): Half Crazy, Half Genius-Finding Modern Meaning in the Sword Saint's Last WordsMusashi’s Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone): Half Crazy, Half Genius-Finding Modern Meaning in the Sword Saint’s Last Words by Miyamoto Musashi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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“The Dokkōdō” consists of 21 precepts written by Miyamoto Musashi in his last days. Musashi was solitary, a minimalist, and single-mindedly resolute as a swordsman – all to extremes few of us can fathom. [Imagine a cross between Diogenes and Muhammad Ali.] These twenty-one sentences barely fill a page, let alone a book. However, as with sutras of yoga and Buddhism, a book’s worth of material comes from elaboration and analysis. This approach is taken in this book by way of five commenters from different walks of life, though all with martial arts experience.

However, normally the explanations would be made by: a.) someone who understands the language (particularly the archaic form the author wrote in – i.e. Musashi’s lifespan overlapped with Shakespeare’s, so consider the changes in the English language that transpired,) or b.) someone with a depth of understanding of the worldview of the author (in this case, that would be someone immersed in a mélange of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, the Chinese classics, and the influence of life in the wake of centuries of feudalism and militancy on a person’s psychology.) This isn’t the approach taken in this book. While the five commenters are clearly well-read and intelligent individuals, they are also firmly ensconced in a worldview that is Western, Abrahamic, and materialistic. [I suspect this was the editors’ intention – to relate to the lives of the likely readership, but it does have stark implications for how the book is perceived.]

If one is looking for a book that will explore what – if anything – from the legendary swordsman’s deathbed lesson aligns with a Western / Abrahamic / American-suburban strip mall dojo lifestyle, this is your book — 5-stars – buy it immediately. However, if one approaches the book from the assumption that Musashi was an exceptional person who must have had valuable insight into how to be exceptional, then one is likely to find this book presumptuous and dismissive of Eastern values and philosophies.

Much of the book is the commenters dismissing Musashi’s ideas as wrong-headed. In some cases, this is because Musashi was such an extremist that few could hope to live a life like his. [It’s not “the way of going alone” for no reason. Though that’s arguably why we are still interested in what Musashi has to say 400 years after his death.] However, in many cases, the commenters seem to be talking past Musashi’s ideas because their assumptions are inconsistent with the swordsman’s cultural milieu.

This is most often seen with respect to a fundamental difference between Eastern and Western psychology. In Buddhism, there are purely mental constructs that have no reality except within the mind, and which can cause suffering with no material upside. For example, in precept #6 when Musashi argues against regret, some of the resulting commentary was as if the precept was “Don’t learn from your mistakes. Never change.” For a Buddhist, not holding onto regrets does not at all mean that one doesn’t learn or make corrections – mid-course or otherwise. It just means that there is this cancerous mental construct that can’t help one because the past is the past, and so it is jettisoned. Another example involves not having preferences, which – again – doesn’t mean that one won’t make a choice (if the situation allows one a choice.) It means not holding onto a mental attachment. [e.g. If I like coffee more than tea, and a choice presents itself, I order coffee. What I don’t do is let my mind obsess about not being offered a choice.]

There are some beautiful insights peppered throughout this book, some that appear to be in line with Musashi’s thinking and others that I suspect the swordsman wouldn’t recognize as related to his own words. However, there is also a lot of commentary that sounds like college students railing against how bad Shakespeare is, in part because they are missing much of the Bard’s nuance and in part because his works seem unrelatable to their experience.

My recommendation of this book would be contingent upon where you fall on dichotomy that I mention in paragraph three. You might love it, or you might loath it.

P.S. If you’d like to know what differences can result from translation, you can find a scholarly translation that is done by a Japanese linguist (Terou Machida) and published in the Bulletin of Nippon Sport Sci. Univ. right here. You’ll note that most of the precepts are (for-all-intents-and-purposes) the same, except the conversion from first to third person. However, you will notice that several precepts (10-12, 15, and 20) are substantially different, and one (#16) is arguably of the exact opposite meaning.

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BOOK REVIEW: Introducing Plato: A Graphic Guide by Dave Robinson

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Introducing Plato: A Graphic Guide (Introducing...)Introducing Plato: A Graphic Guide by Dave Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This is a concise guide to the philosophy of Plato. Its numerous short (page-length) sections are logically arranged: beginning with background context – e.g. life in ancient Athens and the ways of Plato’s teacher, Socrates — and ending with discussion of the post-Platonic world of Aristotle and later philosophers influenced by Plato’s work. Through the heart of this book, it explores the various dimensions of Plato’s philosophy: his epistemology, his take on virtue ethics, his political philosophy, his form-based conception of metaphysics, his thoughts on rhetoric, and his surprising rejection of art and poetry. Along the way, the book discusses about ten of the Socratic dialogues, specifically (others are mentioned in passing as they relate to topics under consideration,) as well as many of the well-known ideas that came from these works (e.g. Plato’s Cave from “Republic.”)

The book uses graphics to help convey ideas, mostly drawings that emphasize key points. There is also a “Further Reading” that lists some works that elaborate on Plato’s philosophy and life from various perspectives, as well as listing a number of the Socratic dialogues and whether they fall into the early, middle, or late phases of Plato’s career. (Note: There isn’t complete agreement on how many Socratic Dialogues were written by Plato – 35 is a disputed number, but one often cited. The importance of the period is that Plato appears to increasingly present his own ideas, rather than those of Socrates, who continues to serve as the central character in Plato’s writings.)

This book is highly readable, but skims the surface. Whether it will serve one’s purpose depends upon what one knows about Plato and his canon to begin with. I would recommend it for a neophyte who doesn’t want to get bogged down in a lot of obscure ideas or complex explanations.

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