The Story of Yamantaka: Death by Infinite Reduplication

After driving down to New Jersey the day before -- to present a paper on St. Anselm's moral theory at the 6th Felician Ethics conference and then to say a few words, again about Anselm, at the 40th anniversary of St. Anselm's parish -- we made a slight detour to Staten Island, where we visited the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art, a small, but very interesting collection not only of Tibetan, but also Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian Buddhist statuary, mandalas, tapestries, and artifacts.  Jacques Marchais was actually an actress (given a boy's name since her mother had wanted a son), working in the early 20th century, devoted to study of the world's religious traditions, but particularly attracted to Buddhism, and to Tibetan Buddhism specifically.

The museum -- originally a center established by Marchais in the 1940s -- is set out on grounds replicating the topography of a Tibetan monastery, ascending high up a hill, with as many stairways as plots of level ground.  As you'll see in some of the pictures below, rains had driven petals from the flowering trees like wet, soft confetti all across the slate stone grounds and outdoor furniture of the museum complex.  We were able to walk some of the grounds -- not down so far as the meditation cells -- but the main attraction for us was the collection.  And, for me, who years back had been afforded the chance to introduce prison students semester after semester in World Religions to a few of the distinctive practices and beliefs, and even to selected portions of the intricate, startling, expressive artwork of Tibetan Buddhism  -- the culmination of several weeks devoted to Buddhism -- the most gratifying parts of the entire collection was being afforded to examine, from  multiple angles, several different statues of one of the great protective beings of Tibetan Buddhism, Yamantaka, the protector who faced down, and literally scared to death, Death himself.

Stoicism and Personal Relationships (part 2 of 2)

Two weeks back, I wrote a post discussing a seemingly harsh passage from Epictetus' little handbook, The Enchiridion:  If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.  I brought up a few other passages from Epictetus' Discourses, which paint a fuller and significantly more even picture of a Stoic perspective on personal relationships, one which acknowledges natural affection as, well. . . . natural.

The central goal, the ideal that Epictetus returns to over and over again, is a state in which the core of one's person, one's "moral purpose" (prohairesis) has been brought into harmony with nature -- nature understood as what a human being ought to be, becomes when fully developed.  So, for all the emphasis on self-control, on relentless discipline, reflection, practice, and self-scrutiny -- aimed at gradually pruning desires, affections, emotions, even opinions away until all of one's affective commitments remain within the confines of what one has control over, thereby freeing the Stoic -- there remains some scope for familial affection, for building and enjoying personal relationships.  This even seems to form part of a genuinely full Stoic life.  It becomes even more apparent when we are not simply looking at what rationality is, in the concrete that domesticity always sets it, but at another absolutely key element of Stoic moral theory:  fulfillment of one's role or roles.

Happy Birthday, Rene Descartes

Today would be the 416th birthday of the great French philosopher, one of the veritable fathers of modern thought, Rene Descartes, author of the Meditations, Discourse On Method, and one of my personal favorites, The Passions of the Soul. As with his contemporary Thomas Hobbes, whose birthday I marked in a blog post nearly a year ago, I -- and I think many other philosophers -- have a complex, ambiguous attitude towards and appreciation of Descartes' works, assumptions, and impact upon the world -- an ambivalence bearing upon his philosophy as a systematic whole.  I lead undergraduates through the luminous passageways of his Meditations, through the spiraling hyperbole of deepening metaphysical doubt, and out the other side, back up the rabbit hole, through dreams, deceiving demons, idealism, natures and proofs, and like many other of my profession, I think for me that is an initiation, a rite of passage.  Personally, I make it a practice to reread the Meditations on my own each year, just as I do with several other works central to the history -- and even well-informed practice -- of western philosophy.

Thinking about what I might write about tonight, I recalled a piece I'd written, but never worked up for publication,exploring the cusp between the First and the Second Meditations.  It's a bit overlong for an entry here, so I've truncated or collapsed portions of it -- and I've left passages I originally cited from French or Latin in the original, supplemented by English translations -- but it could perhaps be of some interest, even to those already well-familiar with Descartes' writings.  It focuses on the extended analogy found at the end of the first Meditation, which hasn't been pain much attention.  I suspect most read it as a mere rhetorical embellishment, a facile comparison, simply reiterating what has been said before and providing a useful ending point for the first Meditation. But, for me, perhaps for others, it is a striking symbol of the very Cartesian project at its core.

Stoicism and Personal Relationships (part 1 of 2)

Practically every time I've taught Stoic philosophy -- whether in an Ancient Philosophy class, or more often in an Ethics or an Introduction to Philosophy class -- among other texts, I've assigned my students Epictetus' Enchiridion, literally, the "Handbook" -- a selection of passages compiled from the much longer set of his Discourses, those hopefully being more or less representative sample of Epictetus' oral teachings, recorded by one of his pupils and friends.  Invariably, perhaps because it is early on in the text, so it catches the eye of a reader not yet wearied, section three catches their attention, or at least the end line of it.

With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things. If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies. 

Six Dimensions to Anger in Aristotle

A week ago, I gave a talk at Marist College (slides, handouts, and video), opening the cover, rifling through the pages, almost reading a few passages -- so to speak -- from a not-yet-existent book I'm in process of writing.  It still lacks a title or an introduction.  The organization of chapters, even their ordering, shifts occasionally, attaining new configurations as the research, reflection and writing continue.   But, the subject matter remains a constant -- Anger, and Aristotle's understanding of it.  I've long been fascinated by this topic -- anger in general, but also in Aristotle's works, where that emotion, or set of affective responses, or virtue and vices, or . . .  you see how complex it already shows itself to be just when trying to categorize it . . . where anger plays an important role but never gets a full systematic treatment.

Back when I was regularly contributing a set of posts on anger here -- straying rather eclectically through pieces on Epictetus, John Cassian, Anselm of Canterbury, and Martin Luther King -- I devoted two to Aristotle (one and two) in which I praised his complex, attentive, nuanced approach to anger.  Without being very explicit about this, Aristotle clearly distinguished between anger as understood from different vantage points.  At the time I wrote those posts, my view was that there were three main dimensions to the Aristotelian treatment of anger.  Now, after much reconsideration -- and this is what my talk was about -- I actually now think that there are six distinct dimensions of analysis contained in Aristotle's texts -- main books concerning anger comprising a surprisingly large list: Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the De Anima, with yet others contributing interesting reflections upon the topic as well.

Self-Promotion: How Much is Too Much (part 3 of 3)

Back last year, I wrote two pieces (part 1 and part 2) tackling a question raised by a Chronicle of Higher Education piece, The art and science of academic self-promotion, examining the key questions posed by it:  How much self-promotion is too much?  Can a line be drawn, and if so, how?  Is it a matter of hard and fast rules?  Or can it be more adequately understood -- as I think it can -- in terms of virtues and vices of character?

I'd framed it in terms of several of Aristotle's promising discussions in the Nicomachean Ethics, where he explores the virtue of truthfulness, and its correlated vices, boastfulness and self-deprecation, and also discusses shame and shamelessness.  These are natural places in his works to look for insights about the relative and respective values, limits, and modalities of self-promotion, aren't they?  The sort of truthfulness Aristotle describes as virtuous is precisely honesty about oneself, one's qualities, one's accomplishments, honesty in a public or at least not entirely private setting.  Shame, when it is felt -- or would be felt -- rightly, also marks the character of a person who has some limits, who will not just do or say anything, subordinate any other value or good to satisfy desires or advance interests.  Is this all that Aristotle has to offer?  Everything he has said or has to say?

Twitter and Facebook Addictive? New Boundaries for Temperance

Those who have come across posts from my Facebook author page, my Twitter feed, or my other blog Virtue Ethics Digest, know that I have a penchant for pointing out instances where results of research publicized by putatively cutting-edge brain scientists, psychologists, or other cognitive and social scientists do little more than reintroduce -- often without adequate reference or reflection -- topics and truths developed long ago within traditions of moral philosophy, particularly those traditions we term "Virtue Ethics."

Perhaps I seem overly gleeful at the prospect of showing -  or rather showing up -the supposedly more scientific approaches to the complex phenomena of moral life that their objects of research possess a history antedating their perennial efforts to yet once again pronounce the definitive word on the matters. It's hard not to when researchers routinely say things straightfacedly like "Little is known about how people experience and regulate desires in daily life"  -- as if human beings haven't been experiencing, reflecting upon, discussing, proposing and testing models, and occasionally even experiencing some success with these matters for millennia -- and in some cases even writing some things down about them, a few ideas considered useful, insightful, or at least entertaining enough that we read them still today under the rubric of "classic literature," even moral philosophy.