The limitations of a scholarly approach to Buddhism - Gabriel's paper as an example

The Watercooler
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Friends,

I am opening this topic upon Gabriel’s request during a short exchange on the thread titled:

Early Buddhism, Slaves, Outcasts, and the Lowest Social Classes

Of which i asked Gabriel:

If you go against your own grain, how would a scholarly approach lead to wrong conclusions in this particular instance?

His answer was:

That’s an iinteresting question and I’d also like to discuss that. Just could you please create a new topic for it?

To make things clear from the outset: this thread is not meant to criticize how different individuals choose to approach the teachings, but in a community where the EBT are highly valued and emphasized, it could be useful to investigate the limitations of this approach if there are any.

To share some of my own reflections before reading the input of other members, i would like to differentiate between the ability of making true statements based on underlying assumptions, and between what we consider to be true. For example, a solipsist might be able to produce true statements utilizing the brain in a vat thought experiment, but does that necessarily make solipsism true?

In Gabiel’s thread, he emphasized the following criteria:

In order to categorize early Buddhism as having an anti-slavery attitude I would need to see suttas with a very simple message: “Slavery is bad, nobody should have to be a slave, slave-owners will suffer in the afterlife regardless of their behavior because to own slaves is in itself the representation of a cruel and abusive mindset”.

How different that is from a solipsist that emphasizes the lack of evidence that we are not a brain in a vat to justify his position? Would that emphasis be better explained as intellectual discipline or dogmatic blindness?

Thanks :hearts:

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I don’t understand your comparison with solipsism.
Anyhow, the context I find relevant is: There is a group of Buddhists who have an attitude of “Of course the Buddha was an anti-slavery activist. Because slavery is bad, and the Buddha was good. So he must have been against it.” Since you mention ‘dogmatic blindness’ that’s what I call dogmatic - if it’s based on assumption only and not on EBT Dhamma.

So then my approach is: Okay, let’s investigate it in a scholarly approach and see what the suttas actually have to say about the matter. My conclusion: There is no general, wide-spread, consistent attitude against slavery (or class-thinking for that matter) in the suttas. How is that dogmatic?

How else to investigate the attitude of EBT Buddhism towards slavery (or any other matter). By intuition? Or cherry-picking individual suttas?

I understand if someone says “MY understanding of Buddhism is based on these (x number of) suttas, because these suttas inspire me”. But in order to come to general conclusions about early Buddhism I don’t see alternatives to comparative scholarly research. But maybe you do?

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Nor do I. I Here’s the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of solipsism

Given that Buddhists agree that there isn’t a self, I’m puzzled to understand how the concept could help us here. @Bundokji could you help me here please?

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I don’t understand your comparison with solipsism.

Nor do I. I Here’s the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of solipsism

The comparison with solipsism is meant to draw parallels between our ability to construct an argument consisting of true statements, with the possibility of ending up drawing wrong conclusions based on the premises.

In solipsism, existence of anything outside of our own minds is unsure, and the brain in a vat thought experiment is often used to highlight that uncertainty beyond existence itself. The similarity with your approach, as i see it, is that anything outside (or not explicitly mentioned) of the EBT is presented as unsure and speculative.

Both also seem to rely on the idea of a “reliable whole”: in solipsism, ones own mind is one inseparable whole, and the EBT is another inseparable whole of which other ideas should be measured against and assessed. Presenting them as one unit (a whole) giving an impression of reliability, overlooks the fact that this reliability and significance depends on appealing to epistemological observations that lies outside of them. The EBT for instance, is believed to be true through its correspondence with observations in everyday life. The suttas themselves present different contexts/scenarios that mimics the experience of everyday life of which the validity of arguments are equally assessed based on logic, common sense, our ability to imagine it functioning in the real world, and the extent to which it contributes to our well-being.

The above is meant to raise questions about the validity and significance of your approach. It is safe to guess that most who believe that the Buddha was against slavery were not referring to a particular passage in an old collection of texts, but rather referring to the spirit of the teachings which emphasizes non-harming, generosity, letting go of ownership …etc among other things.

What i am proposing is that behind the veil of scholastic respectability a lot can go missing and wrong conclusions can be easily made. The criteria that you emphasized, which is an explicit refutation from the Buddha about the practice of slavery in order to make reliable conclusions about it might be technically true, but not interesting nor factual. Similarly, the fact that we cannot be certain about what is outside of our mind is technically true (solipsism), but it is neither interesting, nor useful and missing a lot of the values of what makes things true or why truth is to be sought after in the first place.

I hope the above answers Gillian’s question as well.

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Perhaps one caveat one needs to remain aware of is that we can hardly assess to which exact extent the early texts can accurately inform us about what was going on 2500 years ago (I am thinking about late editing, one striking example of a heavily edited sutta that is sometimes taken at face value being MN 117). In my opinion, everything should be taken with a grain of salt and we must keep in mind the extent of our ignorance. So scholarly research is fundamental but we have to be careful before reaching conclusions. Maybe this is part of what Bundokji means?

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To be fair, Gabriel did not make conclusions but raised a question based on a certain premise: To quote him:

In order to categorize early Buddhism as having an anti-slavery attitude I would need to see suttas with a very simple message: “Slavery is bad, nobody should have to be a slave, slave-owners will suffer in the afterlife regardless of their behavior because to own slaves is in itself the representation of a cruel and abusive mindset”.

Do we find this message somewhere? If not, why?

And having sympathy with your input, namely:

This is an interesting question, since if I were to deprive anyone from their freedom that would surely be unwholesome, yet keeping someone in a state of reduced freedom just for my own convenience may not be unwholesome. I find it difficult to reconcile these ideas.

If a degree of validity can be found in your response to highlight a limitation in his approach, what would that be?

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As you can see, we were talking about coming to conclusions indeed.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. What you identify as my “response” was in fact a comment on the question, highlighting an area in which an answer to Gabriel’s question could also help solving an apparent contradiction. It was never meant to highlight a limitation in Gabriel’s approach. I trust his judgement, we have been collaborating pretty well by the way a couple of years back actually.

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I used to get bothered about the idea that the Buddha said things that seemed at odds with my sensibilities (e.g., on gender equality). Now, I don’t care as much, I guess because I just don’t see so much of a need for the Buddha to validate my opinions on everything. The important thing for me is the Dhamma, not the individual Buddha. So if the EBTs indicate that the Buddha wasn’t interested in abolishing slavery, that doesn’t necessarily suggest a limitation of the EBTs in terms of communicating what the Buddha thought (not that I was there to know what the Buddha did in fact actually think!). It does suggest a limitation to the EBTs in regards to teaching us how modern society should actually function.

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I think you have a point there

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I don’t think the Buddha’s teachings are concerned that much with state craft or social issues. There are some teachings but not much. For the most part, for householders, they lean heavily upon how to live best within the society that one finds oneself rather than how to change said society. This is why I’m sceptical of when monks and nuns become involved in politics. To me I don’t read the Buddha as advising householders on their politics. Instead he focuses on Dhamma, which transcends worldly politics.

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I find scholarship a key activity. Sometimes I have direct exposure - as in reading @Gabriel’s paper - other times it is indirect, as when I listen to a dhamma talk in which what the speaker is saying is informed by their scholarship, or the scholarship they have read. But the scholarship informs discussions of the meaning of the texts.

I have multiple layers - historical, geographical, cultural, familial, personal - of conditioning between my undetstanding and the Pali texts. I don’t see any way to start to unravel that and get to the meaning of the text without the activity of scholarship.

Of course, scholarship has limitations. To pick a silly one, I doubt any serious scholar claims you can achieve nibbana by scholarship alone.

Some limitations can be addressed by more scholarship. E.g., Is that text a later addition? I’m still new to the EBT, so forgive an example from outside the EBT, but when I read Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible I know from the scholarship it was actually produced by 4 writers, and I know what periods they were writing in. I know any reading that doesn’t take that into account will be limited.

This isn’t really a limitation of scholarship so much as a question about whether all factors were accounted for in the scholarship. This is something that scholarship handles quite well, as scholars question and point out issues with each other’s work.

Some limitations are more illusory - a product of unclear objectives or trying to draw conclusions that are beyond the scope of the scholarship. These can be addressed by clear objectives on the part of the scholar and an understanding of those objectives on the part of the reader.

That seems like a pretty clear statement of objectives.

Now, if someone has a need to believe the Buddha must have been anti-slavery, obviously the paper is not going to fulfill that need. But that isn’t a limitation of scholarship - that’s a reader expectation that can’t be met.

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The contradiction presented in your comment/response could be a result of his approach. He asked for a categorical statement in the suttas that explicitly denounces slavery as the only valid criteria to determine an anti-slavery attitude in Buddhism.

I am happy to be corrected if i am wrong, but there are degrees of depriving individuals of their freedom that are difficult to equate morally. For example, many forms of modern employment includes a degree of bondage, but fall short of calling them slavery. From that perspective, what is presented in your comment is not necessarily a contradiction, but a false dilemma as a result of expecting a categorical answer to the issue in hand when there is none.

As such, why expecting a categorical statement is not an act of generalization?

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I’m sympathetic to this perspective. However, rather than judging monastics getting involved in politics outright, I’d say that monastics (and lay followers, for that matter) should distinguish their own views from the path laid down by the Buddha for Awakening. Like, people should recognize that there are good practitioners with completely different political views as their own, and try to be as welcoming/inclusive as possible (which, sadly, I often don’t see).

I think this is very well said.

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Or rather, the scholar’s expectations of a categorical answer in the suttas.

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I’m sympathetic to this perspective. However, rather than judging monastics getting involved in politics outright, I’d say that monastics (and lay followers, for that matter) should distinguish their own views from the path laid down by the Buddha for Awakening. Like, people should recognize that there are good practitioners with completely different political views as their own, and try to be as welcoming/inclusive as possible (which, sadly, I often don’t see).

Yes, i think there is a tendency for householders who are still involved in the world of politics to assume that their political outlook is the only one supported by the Dhamma. That, to me, is clinging to views. I think in reality, the world being messy as it is with different beings having different feelings, perceptions and kamma-vipaka, there will be different political views at odds with each other but still informed by the Dhamma (although some ideologies are totally opposed to the Dhamma). Personally, I am trying to become less political as i try to focus only on the Dhamma. Life seems more peaceful that way.

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I might have missed it. But I don’t remember a categorical statement being a criteria for reaching a conclusion. My understanding was the scholarship looked at all references to see if there was a preponderance of evidence supporting an anti-slavery view. Now, a categorical statement is great evidence. But it is not the only form of evidence that could lead to the conclusion that the Buddha took an anti-slavery view.

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I would like to add some methodical comments about the scholarly approach…

For one, I try to (and sometimes certainly forget) to differentiate between the Buddha and the EBT. We can investigate relatively well what the texts say - which means that we can investigate what an edited corpus of texts of different lineages of transmissions say. Just as in @JimInBC’s example, we can approach the context of the Isaiah transmission, but that doesn’t automatically mean that we know what the historical Isaiah said.

The second point goes to @Bundokji’s argument of scholarly ‘solipsism’, or maybe rather ‘scholarly deliberate ignorance of sources outside the EBT’. This to me is clearly a fundamental misrepresentation of the scholarly approach. For example, I actually try to reference as many non-Buddhist sources as possible, especially Vedic and sources slightly later than the Buddha, i.e. the lawbooks of the Dharma Sutras and the Arthasastra. Scholars like Analayo, Choong, and Bingenheimer compare with Chinese and Tibetan texts. In a way even the Vinaya can serve as an ‘outside’ to the suttas. Schopen, Falk, and others consider epigraphic sources. Bronkorst, Sarao and others try to consider larger historical, social, and migration influences on our understanding of the texts. Scholars like Gethin and Allon consider the influences of oral transmission to the content transmitted. And so on.

So, as I see it, the scholarly approach is not simply focusing on the texts, quite the opposite. What ‘we’ try to limit is the influence of intuition and guesswork. I wouldn’t want to enforce the conclusions of scholars onto faith-based followers. But I find a position for exmaple like “The Buddha surely wanted to abolish slavery, even if none of the texts say it” hard to maintain if the underlying assumptions are not clearly laid out.

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Personally, I have benefited from the various schorlary discussions on offer in this forum. Especially by the Venerables. To me scholarship is useful to a point. But as sun tzu observed, tactics without strategy is just noise before defeat. At the end of the day what we are left with is a wide prospect of highly likelies and highly unlikelies by various scholars. It is also part of probability that highly unlikely things can happen and could have happened. I would rather focus on what is verifiable by my self in my own experience.