Philosophy

Having recently read through Robert Wright’s book ‘Why Buddhism is True,’ I was impressed by Buddhism’s intricate comprehension of human psychology. While the book doesn’t directly set Buddhism against Stoicism, my previous exposure to Stoic made me see how the two philosophies could complement each other. Stoicism, particularly its modern interpretations, claims that achieving eudaimonia - the good life - implies “living according to one’s nature.” Stoics define our nature as being “social and rational.” This, in my perspective, is more readily comprehensible than the similar but more intricate concept nirvana presented in Buddhism. ...

⚠️ This article is about suicide. If you have suicidal thoughts, please seek help immediately from services such as Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) of DKU US’s National Suicide Prevention chat or hotline UK’s Samaritan hotline Someone I know recently committed suicide. I was shocked, saddened, and confused. It is one thing to know that many people die of suicide each year around the world. It is another to be personally affected by it. So I read and thought a bit on this topic. Here are some resources which I found helpful for understanding suicide. ...

When I read the book Strangers Drowning, I was very much impressed by the work of Ittetsu Nemoto, a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, who dedicated his life to helping suicidal people. The book also briefly described his four-year extremely harsh ascetic training in an especially strict monastery. My interest was aroused. “Why does someone willingly go through such unimaginable hardship willingly?” This is why I picked up Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan’s Most Rigorous Zen Temple by Kaoru Nonomura. At the age of 30, Nonomura left everything behind and enrolled in Eiheiji, one of the most rigorous Zen monasteries in Japan to train as a monk. The book is his memory of his time at Eiheiji. ...

I’d like to thank Dr. Gregory Sadler for helpful comments on this post. Who is Peter Singer? Peter Singer at The College of New Jersey, Oct 2009. Bbsrock, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. I consider myself a follower of Stoicism philosophy. In recent years, I have read attentively ancient Roman Stoics as well as modern Stoic writers. Their inspiring words have helped me tremendously in dealing with everyday challenges. However, many of my questions about how to live a good do not have answers in either classic or modern Stoic literature. Take, for example, what would be an ideal political system? As modern Stoic writer Massimo Pigliucci pointed out, the ancient Stoics do not have a consensus. Moreover, the world we are living in today is vastly more complicated than in ancient Rome. To live a virtuous life in our time, we must go beyond Stoicism and educate ourselves about how this world works. ...

A summary of Chapter 11 Objectivity Virtue ethics rejects the sort moral objectivity which Kant aspires to. The naturalism describe in the last three chapters also rejects the type of objectivity based on empirical facts accessible from a neutral point of view. However, it also does not assume our standard list of virtues is correct without need of validation. This is the type of objectivity naturalism can offer. But the study of objectivity should also give an account of ethical disagreement. ...

A summary of Chapter 10 Naturalism for Rational Animals. What Difference Does Our Rationality Make? Unlike animals, it is primarily our actions from reason that we are ethically good or bad human beings. In ethical naturalism, rationality makes a big difference. And adding rationality does not need to add the fifth end to the four other describe in the previous chapter. What characteristics do human have? Comparing to animals, it is hard to summarize. We enjoy and suffer from so many different things. So it seems that naturalism cannot work for humans. ...

A summary of Chapter 08 The Virtues Benefit Their Possessor. Can we objectively justify which character traits are the virtues? We can only do this from some already acquired ethical framework, instead from some external neutral point of view. Doing so risk just rationalize what we already believe. But if we think critically, little by little we many radically change our entire ethical outlook. The philosopher’s task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea. We can improve our conceptual scheme, our philosophy, bit by bit, while continuing to depend on it for support; but we cannot detach ourselves from it and compare it objectively with an unconceptualized reality. ...

A summary of Chapter 09 Naturalism. This chapter is about the 2nd Plato’s requirements of virtue in the last chapter – The virtues make their possessor a good human being. Virtue ethics is a type of ethical naturalism, i.e., basing ethics on considerations of human nature, or on what is involved in being a good human. The objective of such an approach is that an account of human nature may be too broad for making moral judgement, or too strong to the extend that it is just a restatement of our ethics. Gary Watson asks ...

Note: I wrote this in May 2021. Things in the world seem to have taken another down turn. That’s why it is even more important that we focus on what is in our control. Photo by Miriam Espacio from Pexels My dear friend, Today, we had talked about COVID-19, wars, oppression and, of course, climate change. Naturally, you were saddened by our discussions. That makes me think if I can write something to cheer you up. Here are some ideas from Epictetus, an ancient-Roman philosopher – one of my favourite. Whenever I am upset, Epictetus has always been helpful. Hopefully he can also offer you some solace. ...

Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher, currently a professor at Princeton University. He has written 17 books by himself, several of which I read since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not an exaggeration to say that some of these books have changed my life for better. How Are We to Live? I am a mathematician, and a large part of my job is to write and publish research papers on mathematics. This was a child-dream of mine and I do like studying and solving mathematics problems. However, after publishing enough papers, I came to realize that despite the large effort I put into them, there are very few people who have read what I wrote. So, I had to ask myself, what is the point for all this, especially when the world is deeply in trouble? ...