There is an apparent  contradiction between Zen way of life and scientific studies of nature.  However, on the fundamental level they have in common search for  reality: through critical examination of facts, acceptance of  impermanence of things and phenomena, and non-reliance on scriptures.  Implementing and understanding common ground in both outlooks can lead  to finding the meaning of human existence, personal flourishing and  happiness.

Philiminality

Barbara Jikai Gabrys, “Zen and Science: The Search for Meaning”

Tai Chi is a popular method of self-cultivation and health enhancement that goes back to a 17th-century combination of martial arts and healing exercises (daoyin). The latter are first documented in the 3rd century BCE and today activated, under biomedical auspices, in the practice of qigong. To facilitate the smooth movements of Tai Chi, teachers emphasize certain key ideals, such as overall freedom from tension or relaxation, an upright  posture, natural breathing, a sense of centrality, weight separation,  mental focus, and an awareness of the body (and nature) as one unity. These concepts relate directly to certain core Daoist values, most  importantly, oneness or the holographic nature of the universe,  continuous change and constant motion, naturalness (spontaneity),  nonaction or pervasive fluidity,  as well as authenticity, integrity,  simplicity, and sufficiency. This presentation will outline the historical development of Tai Chi  and its major characteristics, then describe how its practice embodies  key aspects of Daoist philosophy, cosmology, and ethics.

Livia Kohn, “The Daoist Dimensions of Tai Chi”

Contradictions (and, arguably, the acceptance thereof) pervade Buddhist  Philosophy. What is the point of those contradictions? In this talk, I  shall argue that contradictions are an important soteriological  instrument (upāya) for the practitioner. The enigmatic catuṣkoṭi, a  statement to the effect that every proposition holds, does not hold,  both holds and does not holds, and neither holds nor does not hold, is  noteworthy in this context. In Western research, the catuṣkoṭi has been responsible for plenty furore. Recently, Graham Priest (2010, 2018) has put forward an interpretation of the catuṣkoṭi in non-classical logic. With resource to this technical apparatus, we can uncover the family resemblance of the Kōan practice of the Zen tradition with the catuṣkoṭi. The Kōan, as I shall argue, may be considered an abbreviated catuṣkoṭi. It is generally accepted that the Kōan is  a soteriological instrument on the journey towards enlightenment  (satori). Thus, given their resemblance, I argue by induction that the catuṣkoṭi is more than a purely logical instrument, applied to refute philosophical enemies – it, too, has soteriological importance.

Adrian Kreutz, "The Soteriology of Contradiction"

The purpose of many  computer products in the area of information and communications  technology is to capture the user’s attention, distract it from the  actual place where the user is situated, and export it to some virtual  space where advertisers practise their persuasion. The enterprise has  been enormously successful, though the effects on users aren’t always  benign (anxiety, depression, etc). Philosophically, the more insidious  effects are on how we think and who we think we are, encouraging  calculative thinking and a post-Cartesian self-image of ourselves as  disembodied minds only contingently situated in physical places. The  implications for education deserve careful consideration.

Graham Parkes, “Being-Here: There’s No App for That”

A growing number of philosophers are recognizing the value of  psychoanalysis in enriching our understanding of rational psychic  integration—a central task within the Platonic-Aristotelian ethical  tradition. Here, I join their ranks by proposing that ancient Greek  ethical concepts and Freudian psychoanalytic insights may be jointly  applied to conceptualize the psychiatric illness anorexia nervosa as an ethical disorder, and to suggest a means of treating it as such. Drawing  from the Stoic theory of the emotions, as well as Aristotelian virtue  ethics, I identify the anorexic’s characteristic fear of gaining weight  and pleasure at losing weight as symptoms of an excessively rigid  understanding of virtue and vice—one constitutive of a false conception  of eudaemonia. After describing strengths and weaknesses of  this particular characterization of the disorder, I argue that Freudian  psychodynamic theory enriches this psycho-ethical portrait by  illuminating how unconscious wishes mediate communication between the  rational and non-rational parts of the soul. These psychodynamic  relations yield a disordered understanding of eudaemonia that  is maintained, reinforced, and shielded from self-conscious criticism  through a kind of ‘ersatz reason’, or a logical structure masquerading  as reason.  I conclude by suggesting psychoanalytic talk-therapy  may function as a kind of Socratic dialogue that helps anorexics  perceive and give voice to their true unconscious fears and basic  desires—such as love, success, respect, and self-esteem. In so doing,  psychoanalysis may help anorexics achieve a central task Aristotle  attributes to ethical life: training the non-rational soul to ‘speak  with the same voice’ as the rational soul.

Elisabeth Huh, "Unifying The Eating-Disordered Soul: Treating Anorexia Nervosa Through Ancient Greek Ethics and Psychoanalysis."

It is well-known that Stoic  ideas about ethical guidance and the therapy of emotion influenced the  formation of modern cognitive therapy. This paper outlines those links  and also explores how far the two practices are parallel in their aims  and methods with special reference to Epictetus’ ‘Discourses’  and ACT therapy. Bearing in mind the broader theme of the conference, on  the intellectual challenge of philosophy (and its significance for  practice), I ask how far the distinctive theoretical commitments of  Stoic ‘therapy’ render it different in its objectives and procedure from  modern cognitive psychotherapy.

Christopher Gill: “Stoic therapy of emotions and modern cognitive psychotherapy”

Zen kōans serve a didactic function within the institution of Buddhist  schools, with teachers using them to help their pupils reach  enlightenment. In this paper, I suggest that Platonic dialogues function  similarly to Zen kōans in their inducement of aporia. Thus, reading and understanding the role Zen kōans are intended to play within Buddhist schools illuminates the role of aporia in Western philosophy. Using Plato’s Seventh Letter as a guide for  reading Platonic dialogues, I analyze the form of Platonic dialogues  generally and highlight how the commentarial traditions engage  dialectically with the original texts. Second, I compare and contrast  the form and function of Zen kōans and Platonic dialogues, taking the  authority of the master and philosopher and their orientation towards  truth as the driving force in both. I focus on a kōan written,  ostensibly, by Qingyuan Weixin in the 13th century and Plato’s Republic. I then show how, when stripped of content, the engagement with Zen kōans can be understood in terms of the catuskoti. I suggest how this might also be the case for Platonic dialogues.

Maria Victoria Salazar: "Recalibrating the Demos: Unknowing through Zen Kōans and Platonic Dialogues"

Buddhist ethics shares with  Plato a rationalist orientation in the weak but crucial sense that a  correct view of reality is the final goal, and that seeking and  attaining this goal is transformative. This implies a further  similarity, namely that the focus of ethical concern is on  transformation of view, from which transformation of character (or  experience) follows. Choice, deliberation, action, reason happen too far  downstream, and too much simply as the result of transformation of view  and character, for them to be of much theoretical interest in their own  right. Buddhist ethics further shares with Plato a sublime indifference  to human beings becoming ‘good things of their kind’. Normativity is  not grounded in our nature, nor in a metaphysics of natural kinds. While  correctly understanding our human condition may be of vital practical  value in appreciating the manifestation of ultimate reality in the  everyday, or in motivating our concerted efforts to achieve this  understanding, it does not provide a goal to aim at. This is an  overlooked reason why 'virtue ethics’ also fits ill as a classification  of Buddhist ethics. It holds us, as does Plato’s ethics, to a much more  ambitious ethical ideal than virtue ethics can conceive, and this makes a  difference for how seeking that ideal transforms us.

Amber Carpenter, “Ideals and Ethical Formation, or Confessions of a Buddhist Platonist”

It is well-known that modern strands of psychotherapy—like  Beck’s cognitive-behavioural therapy or Ellis’ rational emotive  therapy—have been influenced by the Stoics and their take on the nature  of emotions. It is not the world which causes our emotional upheaval, the Stoics and therapists propose, but how we construe the world through our mediating beliefs.  What  is rarely appreciated, though, is the fact that a precursor of this  cognitivist theory of human emotion can already be found in Plato’s Philebus. Here Socrates offers a famous yet puzzling argument (between 36c3 and  41a4) according to which our anticipatory pleasures can be false (pseudês). Most recent literature has focused on the source of these pleasures’ alleged falsity: some scholars maintain that they  are false because they do not latch onto the world (e.g. D. Frede),  others think they are false because there is something evaluatively or  morally wrong with them (e.g. V. Harte). In this paper I want to  sidestep this long-standing debate and suggest that we can (and should)  excavate a cognitivist model of pleasure from this puzzling stretch of  text, as it were running in the background of the argument and making it  possible in the first place. On this model, I suggest, any human pathos centrally involves a doxa that  a state of affairs obtains and that this state of affairs is, somehow,  positively evaluatively charged for the person undergoing the affective  experience. Having this cognitivist model in view, we can examine how it  sheds light on the framing question of the Philebus—what makes someone’s life go best?—and explore its promising therapeutic potential.

Derek van Zoonen, "Plato's Therapy of Pleasure"

In the Theaetetus,  Plato ascribes a metaphysics to relativism according to which there are  no stable objects or properties. In effect, the world dissolves and  there is nothing we can refer to in speech. En route to this revisionist  picture, Plato toys with expressions that might be suitable to talk  about a world in flux: something is no more tall than not tall, no more  cold than not cold, etc. The Greek expression used in these  formulations, ou mallon,  becomes a stock element of Pyrrhonian skepticism. My paper makes a  novel proposal by arguing that the Stoics too find a place for this  idea. The idea that something can be “no more this than that,” I argue,  is philosophically richer than is commonly assumed. It is not just a  part of radically revisionist approaches. It is a compelling dimension  of the Stoic distinction between impressions and propositions. The Stoic  wise person suspends judgment when her impressions are neither true nor  false--arguably, this concerns rather many ordinary impressions. For  the Stoics, the epistemic norms that call for such suspension of  judgment are key to leading a good life.

Katja Vogt, “No More This Than That”

Buddhist philosophy starts  life, in the shape of the “Four Noble Truths” (Catvāri Āryasatyāni),  with an analysis of the somewhat unhappy human condition, its ground,  and what to do about it. Over the next two millennia, as Buddhism spreads through Asia, and especially into China, different schools of Buddhism develop and add to these fundamental insights in different ways. In this talk, I will discuss the Four Noble Truths, and then, to the extent that time permits, some of the later developments.

Graham Priest, “Buddhism, Philosophy, Therapy”

According to the psychosomatic model found in the Yogavāsiṣtha, it is through the cultivation of joy—understood as the blissful tranquility of the mind (ānanda) that results from emotional purification— that we can heal from  disease. In this paper I present Vasiṣṭha’s psychosomatic medical theory  and analyze it in light of the main philosophical problem that arises:  How much control do we have upon our own mental agitations and thus,  upon our own healing? I will show that Vāsiṣṭha’s typology of disease  offers a useful distinction for a phenomenology of illness that can  accommodate the subjective feeling of the experience of disease as  something that “affects us” while being, at the same time, an experience  that we can transcend, and in this way, “heal”.  However,  I will  question Vasiṣṭha’s use of the famous Vedānta analogy, the  snake-and-the-rope, to explain our experience of “incurable diseases”  and will reinterpret it from a feminist, intersectional perspective  inspired by Johanna Hedva’s manifesto: “Sick Woman Theory”. By applying  this perspective, the dialogical and intersubjective aspect of  Vasiṣṭha’s therapeutic advice to Rāma becomes much more evident,  avoiding individualistic and psychologizing interpretations on the  emotional management of our lives.

Ana Laura Funes, "Joy as Medicine? Yogavāsiṣṭha on the Affective Sources of Disease"

Some of India's earliest  philosophy in the Upanisads relied on an implicit theory of knowledge  that saw the mind as a malleable material that 'becomes' what it knows.  We look at how this theory, when it meets the beginnings of metaphysics,  sets the scene for speculative philosophy as a therapy of  self-expansion, self-deepening, and self-remaking. Here, rather than a  quietist or stoic purpose for philosophy - as Pierre Hadot has suggested  - we see philosophy as the mind's capacity to recreate itself in the  likeness of the cosmos.

Jessica Frazier, “You are What you Know: Becoming the Cosmos in Ancient India”

Philiminality Oxford is a student-run platform for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary philosophy. We discuss philosophical ideas, thinkers, and approaches which are frequently marginalized in both Anglo-American and “continental” academic circles. We engage with broader horizons of what it means to do philosophy by discussing intersectional perspectives on brands of thought from across the world. We also recognize the value of exploring how philosophical issues interrelate with other disciplines, such as politics, theology, sociology, classics, history, psychology and natural science.

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