Making Sense of āthe Meaning of Lifeā
Most of this article was written in 2017. I never finished it, but rather abandoned the project halfway Ā§12 for reasons explained below. Until the horizontal line separating old from new, the following is the unchanged text of the 2017 draft. Ā§1. There is a common idea that philosophy is concerned with figuring out the meaning of life. Although there are exceptions, such as James Tartaglia, most academic philosophers will deny this. But when I ask my students during the first day of class of my āIntroduction to Philosophyā course what philosophy is about, then āthe meaning of lifeā is...
SotA-R-9: Some Comments on Model 4 (and Another Error)
[(This is part 9 of the āStages of the Anthropocene, Revisitedā Series (SotA-R).) The latest iteration of the model I have been developing in this series in an attempt to predict how much carbon we are going to emit in stage 1 of the anthropocene predicted that weāll heat up the planet by about 3.3Ā°C (67% interval: 2.3~5.0Ā°C), and that this will imply (or involve) widespread famines, civil war, refugee crises, and societal collapse. Rather than take that prediction for granted, it seemed a better idea to compare this prediction with some other predictions, and to have a closer look...
On Hedgehogs, Koalas, and Other Animals
Outside academia, Isaiah Berlin is probably best known for his distinction between āfoxesā and āhedgehogsā based on Archilochus saying that āthe fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thingā. When I first encountered a reference to this distinction I assumed that it had something to do with broad versus narrow knowledge or learning, with the Renaissance/āEnlightenment ideal of the homo universalis (or polymath) versus the academic (hyper-) specialist, or with Thomas Aquinasās fear of āa man of one bookā (homo unius libri), that is, someone who knows one book/āthing really well, but doesnāt know much else. I...
Carbon-neutrality by 2050 (version of June 2022)
(Originally published on December 15, 2020. This version: June 13, 2022. The latest version can be found here.) In the year before publication of the original version of this article (2020) several governments announced that their countries will be carbon neutral by 2050. (Since then, other countries have joined them, but often with different target years. China and India, the worldās two most populous countries, aim for 2060 and 2070, respectively, for example.) This is a cheap promise, as the target is so far in the future that it doesnāt commit them to do any significant now, but even if...
A Note on the PÄli Canon
(Originally posted on April 27. Major revisions on June 3, 2022.) In chapter 5 of A Buddha Land in This World, I wrote that until the sÅ«tras in the PÄli canon were written down they were recited in periodic meetings of monks, but we have no consistent evidence about the nature, form, and frequency of these meetings, nor about how reliable this process was. However, when I reread this, I wasnāt entirely happy with this sentence because it seems to suggest that I think that oral transmission is the biggest problem for the authenticity of the content of the PÄli...
SotA-R-8: Climate/Society Feedback Model 4 Predicts 3.7Ā°C of Average Global Warming
(This is part 8 of the āStages of the Anthropocene, Revisitedā Series (SotA-R).) (This post was updated on July 28.) ā Earlier this year I found a serious error in the equations I was using to calculate warming due to carbon emissions. As explained in March, this meant that the climate/society feedback models presented in the previous three episodes in this series were all wrong, and thus that I needed to patch up the latest iteration of those models. The result of that āpatching upā is model 4, which is mostly identical to model 3. The only differences are the...
A Buddha Land in This World (New Book)
My new book, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism, has just been published. Here is the abstract/back cover blurb: In the early twentieth century, Uchiyama GudÅ, Senoāo GirÅ, Lin Qiuwu, and others advocated a Buddhism that was radical in two respects. Firstly, they adopted a more or less naturalist stance with respect to Buddhist doctrine and related matters, rejecting karma or other supernatural beliefs. And secondly, they held political and economic views that were radically anti-hegemonic, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary. Taking the idea of such a āradical Buddhismā seriously, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy,...
COā Emissions and Global Warming ā Have All My Calculations Been Wrong?
Yes. ā Thatās the short answer to the question in the title. An obvious follow up question would then be: By how much? ā Thatās where things gets complicated. There have been quite a few articles in this blog that relied on equations to estimate average global warming. Typically this involves two equations. One estimates atmospheric carbon increases as a function of COā-e emissions. The other estimates average global warming as a function of atmospheric carbon increases. To model things like the feedbacks between climate change and social change as in the ongoing Stages of the Anthropocene, Revisited series, and...
Nan-in and the Professor ā A Western Zen Parable
āA Cup of Teaā is a short Zen story that is quite famous and popular among Western (Zen) Buddhists. Itās a bit of a peculiar story, however, as I hope to make clear in the following. Before we turn to that, letās start with the story itself: Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitorās cup full, and then kept on pouring.The professor watched the [cup] overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. āIt is overfull. No more will go in!āāLike this...
Mythos, Wisdom, and Scavenger Philosophy
According to Karl Jaspers, philosophy arose in the āAxial Ageā as a kind of critical reflection on myth and tradition. Nowadays, there is widespread agreement among historians of ideas that the notion of an āAxial Ageā is itself a myth, but I think that the other part of Jaspersā idea is right, that is, philosophy indeed originates in critical reflection on myth and tradition. This doesnāt mean that this defines the scope and purpose of philosophy, of course ā as a āmatureā discipline, philosophy mostly reflects on itself ā but I believe that reflection on this idea about the origins...
āDo Your Own Researchā
There has been considerable push-back against ādoing your own researchā recently, and Iām not entirely happy with that. Iām aware, of course, that the phrase ādo your own researchā tends to be used by and/or associated with rather delusional people who believe that watching a Youtube video or googling something counts as āresearchā, but pushing back too hard (or in the wrong way) against such silliness risks ending up with the other extreme: elitism and counterproductive conformism. There are (at least) two aspects of ādoing your own researchā and the push-back that are worth paying closer attention to. One has...
On Selfish and Selfless Readings of Buddhist Scripture
In Indian religions and philosophy, mokį¹£a ā the escape from the cycle of death and rebirth (saį¹sÄra) and, thereby, the liberation from suffering (dukkha) ā is (typically) the ultimate goal of (oneās/my/your) life. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and other schools of thought disagree about various details ā Buddhists prefer the term nirvÄį¹a instead of mokį¹£a, for example ā but all accept a version of the doctrine that right (non-) action leads to good karma, which leads to better rebirth, and ultimately to mokį¹£a. That ultimate goal is a selfish goal, however ā the ultimate aim of my right (non-) action (regardless...