Kindless Philosophy

 A Quiet and Flowing Life Like Water When someone asks me, "How do you live?" I reply, "I live like water." This doesn't mean that I do nothing amidst the situations and events given to me. It simply means I continue doing something without much thought or attachment. When Wonhyo described the state of Nirvana as "deep and tranquil like true suchness, far removed from the ten marks," I cannot fathom what that tranquility is or whether it is the same as the tranquility I feel. However, at least when I express my state in words, my mind is neither cluttered nor confused. This quiet and flowing life like water is not stagnant. When facing phenomena, I do not refuse the will and effort to interpret them subjectively. Nevertheless, I do not cling to them. The vitality of the fish, wind, and moss that I encounter as I flow like water is an unavoidable situation given to me. When Merleau-Ponty spoke of "being-toward-the-world," might he not have m...

Carl Jung may not have been particularly moved by the philosophers within the Western tradition during his study of philosophy. However, he expressed admiration for Schopenhauer, and the reason lies in the latter’s view that the world we live in is one filled with vast suffering. Schopenhauer explained desire and suffering by comparing them to the will of a poet. A poet's poem is created according to their own desire and will, and no one can ask, “Why did you use this expression?” or “Why do you interpret it that way?” expecting a fixed or standardized answer. It is more reasonable to simply acknowledge that the poet's will (or mind) made the creative choice, as it was in accordance with their inner state. In other words, the will forms the basis of creation, and this creative will is constantly tormented. Since there is no eternal satisfaction, it continually craves something more. This makes it dynamic and multifaceted, much like art.

 Folk science and the Manifest Image “What then do we see when we look at this bustling public world? Among the most complicated and interesting of the phenomena are the doings of our fellow human beings. If we try to predict and describe them using the same methods and concepts we have developed to describe landslides, germination, and magnetism, we can make a few important inroads, but the bulk of their observable macro- activity-their "behavior"-is hopelessly unpredictable from these perspectives. People are even less predictable than the weather, if we rely on the scientific techniques of meteorologists and even biologists. But there is another perspective, familiar to us since childhood and used effortlessly by us all every day, that seems wonderfully able to make sense of this complexity. It is often called folk psychology. It is the perspective that invokes the family of "mentalistic" concepts, such as belief, desire, knowledge, fear, pain, expectation, inten...

 Do Teachers Care About Truth? : Epistemological Issues for Education Problems with Truth “Teachers have many problems, but it might seem that worries about the nature of truth or knowledge are not among them. Curiosity may be innate, but it is not given to many of us to wonder whether  some of the answers we are given are more reliable than others, or to puzzle over what is involved in something being true. We may ask questions but on the whole we are avid swallowers of answers; the  habit of sorting out better from worse answers and of wondering what makes a good answer has not marked a large part of human history, even in literate societies. It is probably less common than  we like to imagine even in our own practice. Even so, teachers do sometimes have to face questions about truth and knowledge because in our societies the problematic nature of at least some sorts of belief is widely recognized. It is easy to come upon serious difficulties once we begin to refle...

  Physico-theological argument critique i) ∀x(Px → ∃y Sy) Px means ‘x is a complex and ordered natural phenomenon’, and Sy means ‘y is the designer (God) of this phenomenon.’ However, Kant criticizes as follows: ii) ∀x(Px → ∃y(Sy)) = “For every x, if x is a complex and ordered natural phenomenon, then y exists and y is the designer (God) of that phenomenon.” According to this critique, Complex and ordered nature does not necessarily require God’s design. so that, that argument is based on unproven assumptions. The complexity and order of nature does not necessarily require a designer. Cosmological argument critique i) ∀x(Ex → ∃y Ey) Ex means ‘x exists’, and Ey means ‘y is the cause of x’. ii) ∀x(Ex → ∃y(Ey ∧ Cyx)) = “For every x, if x exists, then y exists and y is the cause of x” Cyx is a logical connector. In i), the causal relationship is not clear, but in ii), specific information has been added. and then, that argument is based on unproven assumptions, which do not justify t...