عنوان

Conundrums of Buddhist Cosmology and Psychology

شماره

LA122863

زبان متن نوشتاري يا گفتاري و مانند آن

انگلیسی

عنوان اصلي

Conundrums of Buddhist Cosmology and Psychology

نام عام مواد

[Article]

نام نخستين پديدآور

Mikel Burley

محل نشرو پخش و غیره

Leiden

نام ناشر، پخش کننده و غيره

Brill

متن يادداشت

Despite the Buddha's renowned aversion to metaphysical-cum-cosmological speculation, ostensibly cosmological systems have proliferated in Buddhist traditions. Debates persist over how to interpret these systems, a central puzzle being the relation between apparently cosmological and psychological aspects. This article critically analyzes three main interpretive orientations, namely psychologization, literalism, and the one-reality view. After examining a tendency in the third of these to equivocate between talk of two co-referential vocabularies and talk of two corresponding orders, I discuss at length the debate between literalist and psychologizing approaches. The latter emphasize how accounts of "realms of existence" are most cogently read as figurative descriptions of mental states, whereas literalists argue that at least some of the accounts should be understood cosmologically, as descriptions of spatiotemporal regions. Notwithstanding weaknesses in some literalist arguments, the importance to Buddhist soteriology of a conception of rebirth beyond one's present life counts against psychologizing approaches that either ignore or downplay this importance. Returning to the one-reality view, I develop the idea that it is the existential state being described that constitutes the common factor between "cosmological" and "psychological" passages. Treating the texts in an overly literal-minded manner, I suggest, risks missing these descriptions' affective and conative significance. Despite the Buddha's renowned aversion to metaphysical-cum-cosmological speculation, ostensibly cosmological systems have proliferated in Buddhist traditions. Debates persist over how to interpret these systems, a central puzzle being the relation between apparently cosmological and psychological aspects. This article critically analyzes three main interpretive orientations, namely psychologization, literalism, and the one-reality view. After examining a tendency in the third of these to equivocate between talk of two co-referential vocabularies and talk of two corresponding orders, I discuss at length the debate between literalist and psychologizing approaches. The latter emphasize how accounts of "realms of existence" are most cogently read as figurative descriptions of mental states, whereas literalists argue that at least some of the accounts should be understood cosmologically, as descriptions of spatiotemporal regions. Notwithstanding weaknesses in some literalist arguments, the importance to Buddhist soteriology of a conception of rebirth beyond one's present life counts against psychologizing approaches that either ignore or downplay this importance. Returning to the one-reality view, I develop the idea that it is the existential state being described that constitutes the common factor between "cosmological" and "psychological" passages. Treating the texts in an overly literal-minded manner, I suggest, risks missing these descriptions' affective and conative significance.

تاريخ نشر

2017

توصيف ظاهري

343-370

عنوان

Numen

شماره جلد

64/4

شماره استاندارد بين المللي پياييندها

1568-5276

اصطلاح موضوعی

Buddhism

اصطلاح موضوعی

cosmology

اصطلاح موضوعی

literalism

اصطلاح موضوعی

psychology

اصطلاح موضوعی

realms of existence

اصطلاح موضوعی

rebirth

مستند نام اشخاص تاييد نشده

Mikel Burley

شماره بازیابی

10.1163/15685276-12341470

نام الکترونيکي

فرمت انتشار

p

نوع ماده

[Article]

کد کاربرگه

275578

سطح دسترسي

a

تكميل شده

Y