New York Workshop for the Cosmos of Dōgen Presents
Dōgen in Dialogue with Analytic Philosophy
Dōgen (1200-1251) is a Japanese Zen master and one of the most original and intriguing philosophers in the entire history of Japan. In this workshop, some important themes of Dogen’s philosophy such as self, time, reality, causation, ineffability of the ultimate truth & etc., are reinterpreted, mainly but not exclusively, from the perspectives of analytic philosophy. Those analytic Dōgen studies purport to shed new lights to his thoughts as well as the contemporary philosophical debates on those topics. The workshop also features contemporary philosophical talks on Self, that are inspired by Dōgen’s insights. So, overall it aims to revive Dōgen as a fruitful dialogical partner for contemporary philosophy.
I Analytic Dōgen Studies
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University): Self as Anyone
This talk will explore Dōgen’s ideas on self as well as time, being and reality in terms of analytic philosophy such as trope, formulating it as Self as Anyone.
Naozumi MITANI (Shinshū University): On the Elusiveness of Dōgen’s Ontology
This talk tries to explicate Dōgen’s Ontology that can be found in those chapters of Sōbōgenzō as Gebjōkōan, Busshō and Inmo, as non-monistic process philosophy, consulting philosophical ideas of contemporary philosophers such as W. Sellers and T. Nagel.
Shinya MORIYAMA (Shinshū University): Dōgen on Time and Self: Reflections on Uji
This talk will summarize the main theses of Sōbōgenzō’s Uji chapter as (1) time doesn’t pass, (2) time presupposes self that is to be reduced to everything in the world, and (3) time succeeds with each other without any gap between them. Then it tries to explicate Dōgen’ ideas on time and self that are encapsulated as those enigmatic claims in the light to contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of time.
Naoya FUJIKAWA (Tokyo Metropolitan University): Eloquence of Silence? : A Note on Dōgen on Silence
This talks will try to analyze Dōgen’ ideas on silence as the best way to convey Dharma in terms of contemporary pragmatics such as Gricean framework, mentioning to interpretations by Priest and Casati (forthcoming), Priest’s Fifth Corner of Four, Garfied’s Engaging Buddhism.
Hsun Mei CHENG (Kyoto University/National Taiwan University): The Knowledge of Reality and Reality in Dōgen’s Philosophy
Dōgen’s idea on our knowledge of the ultimate reality will be explored in terms of contemporary philosophical vocabularies such as knowing-that vs. knowing-how (G. Ryle, J. Stanley and T. Williamson), tacit knowledge (M. Planyi) and non-conceptual knowledge (F. Hoffman). Then it will be claimed that Dōgen’s knowledge should be understood as a tacit and non-conceptual knowing-how.
Hayato SAIGŌ (Nagahama Institute of Bio-Science and Technology): Dōgen on Interdependence: Nārgārjuna and Category Theory
Recently Yorizumi (2011) proposed a Saussurian reading of Dōgen’s idea of interdependence, following Toshihiko Izutsu’s interpretation of Buddhistic philosophy, interpretation it as an arbitrary construct of our minds. This talk tries to propose an alternative interpretation on his idea of interdependence in the light of
category theory in contemporary mathematics, focusing on reflexive features of Dōgen’s interpretation.
II Philosophy of Self a là Dōgen
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University): Self as We: Toward a Revival of East Asian Holistic Self
This talks tries to argue for a new idea on holistic and somatic self; self as we, being inspired the speaker’s interpretation on Dōgen’s ideas on self; self as anyone.
Shigeru TAGUCHI (Hokkaido University): Self in Superposition: Husserl, Tanabe, and Dōgen
The aim of this talk is to compare Husserl’s concept of Ur-Ich with Tanabe Hajime’s concept of “species” in order to reconsider the basic state of “self” and its primordial relation to other selves. I claim that self is not a substance, but a kind of “mediation.”
Schedule
5 th Oct. 2018 Room 6300
Analytic Dōgen Studies I
10:00 – 11:30 Deguchi
Lunch
13:00 – 14:30 Mitani
14:40 – 16:10 Moriyama
16:20 – 17:50 Fujikawa
Dinner
6th Oct. 2018 Room 7113.XX
Analytic Dōgen Studies II
10:00 – 11:00 Hsun-Mei Cheng
11:00 – 12:00 Hayato Saigo
Lunch
II Philosophy of Self a là Dōgen
13:30 – 15:00 Deguchi
15:10 – 16:40 Taguchi
17:00 – 17:00 Lap Up Discussion
Dinner
Convergence to the truth is viewed with some ambivalence in philosophy of science. On the one hand, methods of inquiry that lead to the truth in the limit are prized as marks of scientific rationality. But an agent who, by using some method, expects to always converge to the truth seems to fail a minimum standard of epistemic modesty. This point was recently brought home by Gordon Belot in his critique of Bayesian epistemology. In this paper I will study convergence to the truth theorems within the framework of Edward Nelson’s radically elementary probability theory. This theory provides an enriched conceptual framework for investigating convergence and gives rise to an appropriately modest from of Bayesianism.
The seminar is concerned with applying formal methods to fundamental issues, with an emphasis on probabilistic reasoning, decision theory and games. In this context “logic” is broadly interpreted as covering applications that involve formal representations. The topics of interest have been researched within a very broad spectrum of different disciplines, including philosophy (logic and epistemology), statistics, economics, and computer science. The seminar is intended to bring together scholars from different fields of research so as to illuminate problems of common interest from different perspectives. Throughout each academic year, meetings are regularly presented by the members of the seminar and distinguished guest speakers.
details tba
02/08/2019 Faculty House, Columbia University
4:00 PM
03/22/2019 Faculty House, Columbia University
4:00 PM
04/19/2018 Faculty House, Columbia University
4:00 PM
A number of puzzles concerning how truth-ascriptions are grounded have recently been discovered by several theorists, following Fine (2010). Most previous commentators on these puzzles have taken them to shed light on the theory of ground. In this paper, I argue that they also shed light on the theory of truth. In particular, I argue that the notion of ground can be deployed to clearly articulate one strand of deflationary thinking about truth, according to which truth is “metaphysically lightweight.” I will propose a ground-theoretic explication of the (entirely bearable) lightness of truth, and then show how this broadly deflationary view yields a novel solution to the puzzles concerning how truth is grounded. So, if the proposal I sketch is on target, the theory of truth and the theory of ground interact fruitfully: we can apply the notion of ground to offer a clear explication of the deflationist claim that truth is “metaphysically lightweight” that both captures the motivations for that claim and solves the puzzles.
In public discourse, but also in political theory, the opinion prevails, that democracy is incompatible with aspirations of truth. Some assume, in the Hobbesian tradition, that civic peace requires that truth assertions be restricted to science and religion (normative positivism), whereas the political sphere is constituted by interests, bargaining and collective decisions based on interests, bargaining and rules of aggregation, be they implicit or explicit. In this perspective Collective Choice as preference aggregation is paradigmatic for the understanding of democracy. Postmodernist and neo-pragmatist thought dismisses truth, because it threatens solidarity and belonging. Libertarian political thought relies on market mechanisms reducing citizens to consumers and producers of material and immaterial goods like security and welfare. Accounts of deliberative democracy focus on reasoning in the public sphere but dismiss a realistic understanding of truth, because it is thought to threaten collective and individual self-determination.
In my talk I will argue that a realistic understanding of empirical and normative truth is compatible, even necessary, for an adequate understanding of democracy, that truth assertions do not threaten civic peace, that postmodernist relativity undermines democratic practice, that libertarian market-orientation is incompatible with the status of citizens in democracy and that even deliberative, but anti-realist, accounts of democracy do not allow for an adequate understanding of democracy. My argument is based on a Davidsonian, or pragmatist, understanding of truth, therefore one might say: it critizises normative positivism, postmodernism, libertarianism, and critical theory using pragmatist insights.
Julian Nida-Rümelin presently holds a chair for philosophy and political theory at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, was president of the German Philosophical Association (DGphil) and state-minister for culture and media in the first government of Gerhard Schröder. The topics of his books include Democracy as Cooperation (1999); Democracy and Truth (2006), translated in Chinese and Italian, Philosophy and the form of Life (2009), Realism (2018) and A Theory of Practical Reason (2020, forthcoming, de Gruyter and PUP).
Generous support provided by the New York Institute of Philosophy.
With responses from Mark Siderits (Illinois State University)
ABSTRACT: Buddhist philosophers often draw a distinction between two different kinds of truth: conventional truth (saṃvṭi-satya) and ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya). Abhidharma Buddhists philosophers typically understand this distinction in terms of an ontological distinction between two different kinds of entities: ultimately real entities (paramārtha-sat) and conventionally real entities (saṃvṛti-sat). Similar to contemporary philosophical discussions about ordinary objects, Buddhist philosophers debate the ontological status of conventional entities and the semantics of discourse concerning them. Mark Siderits (2015, 2021, 2022) has influentially argued for an eliminitivist position he calls “Buddhist reductionism” that interprets the Abhidharma position as one that denies conventional entities exist but that retains discourse involving apparent reference to them. However, in a recent article Kris McDaniel (2019), a prominent defender of ontological pluralism, challenges that view by proposing that the Abhidharma Buddhist distinction between conventional truth and ultimate truth be “defined up” from a more basic distinction between two different ways an entity can exist: conventionally or ultimately. In this paper I argue that Saṃghabhadra’s account of conventional reality and truth does lends itself well to McDaniel’s proposal but I will also argue that the account of conventional and ultimate truth that results differs in important ways from the models he offers. I will end by offering a modification of McDaniel’s account of conventional truth that is derived from Saṃghabhadra’s pluralist ontology. That view will, unlike the views suggested by both Siderits and McDaniel, allow for there to be ultimate truths about what is conventionally true.
Dinner will be kindly offered by the Columbia University Seminars.
RSVP is required for dinner. Please email Lucilla with eating requirements at lm3335@columbia.edu.
The Saul Kripke Center is pleased to announce that James Walsh (Assistant Professor, Philosophy, NYU) will deliver a talk on Friday, May 10th, 2024, from 4:15 to 6:15 pm at the CUNY Graduate Center (Room 9207). The talk is free and open to all.
Title: Modal definability and Kripke’s theory of truth
Abstract: In Outline of a Theory of Truth, Kripke introduces some of the central concepts of the logical study of truth and paradox. He informally defines some of these–such as groundedness and paradoxicality–using modal locutions. We introduce a modal language for regimenting Kripke’s informal definitions and characterize the modally definable sets. Though groundedness and paradoxicality are expressible in the modal language, we prove that intrinsicality–which Kripke emphasizes but does not define modally–is not.