Prince Ashitaka

Somebody told me (I think it was on this forum), that the Kalama Sutta said not to use reasoning to find truth. Here is what is said in that sutta:

""Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when undertaken & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' -- then you should enter & remain in them."

So what it is saying is to SEE FOR YOURSELF what the evidence is. A scientific theory will not pass if all it has is logic, because it needs evidence! But would it become a theory just by having the founder say: "Yes, all the evidence points to [insert theory here]"? NO, people would have to document the evidence and see if it works.

Let us look at people struggling with the theory of evolution. They are blindly accepting their parent's teachings. What they are doing probably seems logical in their minds. They look to others (Kent Hovind?) with trust and fall into a lie. But if they looked at the evidence FIRST-HAND (Don't just have people tell you this or that has evidence, look at it yourself), they would see the that creationism is a lie and evolution is true. When they have seen the evidence then they can KNOW that evolution is true, then they can make a good choice. That is the only way. Probabilities are misleading (I'm thinking about the Tornado through a junkyard creating a 747 here). So this simply says look at the evidence yourself so YOU will know the truth. That is all it says. Okay?

Prince Ashitaka

Let us go one by one over what he said not to do:

"don't go by reports,"

Indeed, there are reports of miracles, but they never seem to get evidence.

"by legends,"

This one is obvious.

"by traditions,"

Again obvious.

"by scripture,"

Using scriptures to prove yourself is circular reasoning. So obvious again.

"by logical conjecture,"

This one is one of the hardest for people to understand. Logic alone doesn't determine truth (remember, Buddha is talking about using these alone for the basis for which you decide truth). Reasoning WITH evidence does work, however.

"by inference,"

I've inferred a lot of wrong things in my days. Once I even ran through a screen door because I inferred it away. I actually ran into it twice in one day, the second time it came off.

"by analogies,"

I bet I could come up with analogies supporting anything. That is why analogies aren't a good source of truth, unless it matches evidence that support its truth.

"by agreement through pondering views,"

Let us look at why there are so many different philosophies running around and we will see why this one is true.

"by probability,"

If I used logic, the probability of evolution actually happening (This is without looking at the evidence) is close to zero. Therefore, evolution is false. j/k

"or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.'"

There are Christian Teacher's, Hindu Teacher's, Bahai Teacher's, etc. Why accept your teacher's view but not your next store neighbor's teacher's view? Learn for yourself, this is the ultimate teaching.

"When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when undertaken & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' -- then you should enter & remain in them"

Yes, to know for yourself is to look at the evidence. To know the things mentioned above you need to look at the evidence that good leads to good, and bad leads to bad. I can look at my own life as evidence. When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. Then I can look at other peoples lives for even more evidence, it is that easy. When you apply this to say, evolution, you have to know for yourself that evolution is true. But that is only possible by looking at evidence. Get my drift?

Steve K

I think this a great exposition of that section of the sutta, except the only point I would disagree on would be your interpretation of the positive part: "When you know for yourselves that these things..."

I don't think that the Buddha originally meant (if he indeed said those words) for the Kalamas to use empericism, I think he was refering to intuition. I also note that when he says "Don't go by x, y, z..." he says it in terms of "When you know for yourselves" - in other words, if someone tells you something, or you read something and you think, "That's not true" - you should put significant weight on that.

When Christians tell me reasons for believing that sound convincing but I think "That's not right... Something's wrong with that argument" - I can safely shelve it until I get access to research materials to check it out for myself.

Personally, I'm all in favor of empericism and the scientific method, but the Buddha was talking more about intuition, in my humble opinion.

Take it easy.

- Steve

Prince Ashitaka

I think we are both a little off, I bet Buddha didn't want being going on their feeling's or completely off the current evidence. But since we will never know, I guess I shall refrain from arguing with you, as it would be in vain (vise-versa).

boneyard bill

Posted by Steve K

What is your basis for that statement? I've studied a good deal of Buddhist phiosophy and I find no reason to believe that it wasn't a thorough-going empiricism.

The Buddha's injunction against inference was also a millenia-old anticipation of Kant's claim that logic produces no new knowledge. There certainly were Buddhist logicians. The most famous was Nagarjuna. But they never claimed that their logic was revealing anything that wasn't implicit in their statements to begin with.

muon

The Kalama Sutta does say "When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when undertaken & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness'--then you should enter & remain in them."

But note that one of the criterion is not that the view actually supported by evidence, or that it even be true. The bases for belief are all moral--"blameless", "praised by the wise", "leading to welfare & happiness". This is epistemic pragmatism, not at all empiricism. The Buddha seemed to care little about whether a belief was actually true or not--what mattered was whether it was useful. This attitude was one factor which led me after many years to abandon Theravada Buddhism.

Steve K

Sounds reasonable... But in a sense, aren't the pragmatic qualities listed actually a reasonable empirical method for determining the validity of behavior?

Assuming that we take good and bad to be social constructs and not eternal absolutes, how would one determine what is good to do and what is bad?

Take greed - the sutta covers this one. Is greed good or bad? The true-or-false empiricism that you wish to apply carries with it an implication that greed is actually "truly" good or "truly" bad.

But how do you test the truth of goodness of a behavior? In a social construct model, it depends on how people respond to your behavior: is it "blameless"? "praised by the wise"? "leading to welfare and happiness?"

As far as I see, the sutta is not discussing metaphysical realities, but moral values. How do you prove moral values empirically if not through social comparisions as above?

I have a vague feeling this post doesn't make any sense, but I'm going to post it anyways.

Take it easy.

- Steve

muon

Steve, I think that you're putting the Kalama Sutta in a different context here. As I understand it, this sutta is not discussing bases for morality. Rather, it is concerned with the bases for epistemic belief. We are admonished not to believe anything on the basis of hearsay, authority, etc., all of which is quite admirable. However, the basis for belief which is proposed instead is not that we should examine and weigh evidence. Rather, we are told to believe things based upon their moral consequences--in essense, we should choose beliefs which will make us better people. As I understand the Buddha's view, whether those beliefs happen to be true isn't particularly important.

Steve K

I think you are correct - sort of. I think we are told in the sutta to believe moral values based on their moral consequences. All of the examples used in the sutta, as far as I see, are moral ones. I don't see (maybe I am blind?) any metaphysical or scientific examples; which implies to me that the method of discerning that he speaks of only applies to moral values.

However, the greater context is that he is trying to show them that his system is correct; and it certainly includes metaphysical aspects. So you could be right.

Either way, I'll stick with empiricism for metaphysics and the world.

Take it easy.

- Steve