The heart of Buddhist philosophy

·期刊原文
The heart of Buddhist philosophy
by Nolan Pliny Jacobson
Reviewed by Lockett, D. Michael
Philosophy East and West
Vol.39 (1989.01 )
pp.217-219
Copyright by University of Hawaii Press

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p.217

The title of Nolan Pliny Jacobson's book, The Heart of Buddhist Philosophy, is misleading insofar as it contains little Buddhist philosophy per se. The book's main thesis is that process philosophy in general, and Buddhism in particular, provide us with the onceptual resources needed to free ourselves from our abstract, impersonal, alienated, thing-centered, conceptually oriented existence and return us to the concrete flow of experience that Jacobson terms the "momentary now." The Western preoccupation with thinking in terms of "substance," "essence," and "Being," he argues, blinds us to the richness of momentary occasions of experience. '"The real enemy to the forms of civilization," he writes, "are the forms themselves...." Civilization may be rescued from this formative foe by turning to the process philosophy of Buddhism, for "Buddhism is an effort to relate us to the essenceless, selfless, spontaneous stream of experience, to awaken us to what is always being disclosed in the momentary now" (p. 15). Jacobson spends most of the book-in chapters on reason, theology, science, and civilization-arguing that our individual and cultural well-being depend on our overcoming abstraction and apprehending the "momentary now."

Jacobson writes on a number of occasions that a good Buddhist critically examines

p.218

every belief and presupposition. Unfortunately his book does not follow this practice. While the reviewer is sympathetic to the claims that there has been an overvaluation of abstract thinking at the expense of concrete experience, Jacobson's assertions that abstraction is the cause of our individual and cultural alienation and that our integration lies in a return to the momentary now are both overstated and undersupported.

For example, the author claims that Buddhists make better scientists:

Japan's rise to leadership in modern science must be seen as a natural expression of its citizens' typically Buddhist freedom from thought and attachment and compulsive believing, both of which have been major features of Western civilization for at least two thousand years. (P. 120)

But if Buddhist modes of thought were really the dominant factors that contributed to Japan's scientific rise, why have other Asian Buddhist countries not fared so well? Why is it that the U.S., with all its "attachment and compulsive believing," is still the scientific capital of the world? And how seriously are we to take his claim that "there has been no point at which the traditions of Japan have been in conflict with contemporary scientific research" (p. 118)? Science, Jacobson argues, can save our culture from the ills of abstraction and return us to the flow of experience, but he never makes it clear why the scientific Weltanschauung does not fall prey to the same criticisms he levies on other forms of abstract thought, or how science or scientific theory returns one to the momentary now.

Jacobson's claim that the imposition of intellectual and institutional forms on the world necessarily impoverishes individual experience is also ambiguous. He fails to clarify the sense in which we are victims of "linguistic and particularly conceptual aggression" and fails to be sensitive to the ways in which concepts and forms can enrich experience. He says that "little children live this moment-to-moment, presentcentered sense of being in direct touch with reality," but he never stops to consider the tragedy that occurs if they never acquire the ability to employ abstract thought. He never explores the rich relationship between the elements of his rigid dichotomies of thought and experience, form and aesthetic expression. He never develops the concept of the aesthetic as a source of cultural value, nor of how a return to the flow of the momentary now would resolve our complex contemporary ills, These issues are important ones for Jacobson's thesis and yet they are neither raised nor resolved. The result is that the book reads like a series of sermons on the evils of abstraction. What is needed, however (rather than an evangelical damnation of linguistic and conceptual forms), is a concrete analysis showing how forms impoverish our experience of the world and what other alternative modes of expression are available to us.

A plausible case could be made for some of Jacobson's claims if we knew what is meant by the "momentary now." However, the reader is continually frustrated by the book's lack of philosophical clarity. We are given no clear theory or phenomenology of the momentary now. We are told that momentary nows are James's "living individualized feelings," that they are Nishida's "pure experience," that they are Whiteheadian "prehensions," and that they are Naagaarjuna's intuitive insight into pra-J~naaparamitaa. These are, prima facie, four distinct types of experience. Is Jacobson claiming they are the same experience? If so, what is it that they share in common? It is important that Jacobson clarify his concept of "momentary now," for certainly not just any type of noncognitive experience will cure us of the ills of abstraction.

p.219

There is one chapter in which Jacobson ostensibly deals directly with Buddhist philosophy, the chapter on Naagaarjuna. A great variety of interpretations have been projected onto the blank screen of Naagaarjuna's `Suunyata-absolute monism, radical pluralism, nihilism, relativism-and to this list Jacobson adds contemporary process philosophy. For example, he writes that Naagaarjuna shows that "the common bond that holds the world together is found in the self-creative feelings which are in every concrete actuality, finding corroboration in events that are closest to us in our par-ticipation in the common life" (p. 80). This is a rather free rendering of the Muulamaa-dhyamikakaarikaa .

There is of course no one Buddhist Philosophy: there are many Buddhist philosophies. Most share in an attempt to stimulate individual reflection on the human condition-especially on the relation between our suffering and our tendency to seek security and happiness by forming attachments to objects, beliefs, and habituations that are impermanent and nonsubstantial. In the hopes of diminishing our attachments to and obscuration of words, many Buddhist philosophies struggle with the problem of the reification of language. Naagaarjuna, for example, distinguishes between different levels of abstraction. He makes the distinction between the projected conceptual distortions of conventional truth (sa^mv.rti-satya) and the highest truth (paramaarthasatya), between substantialistic concepts which lead to suffering and language constructs (praj~naapti) with no ontological import, but which are skillful means (upaaya) for realizing the emptiness (`Suunyataa) of all things. Naagaarjnna realizes that if it were not for conceptual truth, paramaartha could not be taught (MK, 24:8-10) and that, ultimately, "emptiness too is empty" (MK, 13:7-8).

In The Heart of Buddhist Philosophy, the subtlety and sophistication of Naagaarjuna's insights are reduced to crude generalizations. Consequently, the language constructs (Praj~naapti) in Jacobson's book come across as conventional truths (sa^mv.rti-satya), do not function as pedagogical devices to overcome the reification of language (upaaya), and hence miss the heart of Buddhist philosophy.