705
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_78
Chapter 78
The Buddhist Obtuse and Its Ecological
Correlates
78.1 When Conscience Is More Than Conscience
“Conscience is more than conscience,” wrote politician/philosopher T. V. Smith in
his classic story of power and the relations between Democratic, Eastern, and
Communist versions of outer consciousness and inner conscience.
1
Smith also
introduced his autobiography, A Non-existent Man, by declaring upfront in its
Prelude, “…existence is not the highest form of being”.
2
We know that Ludwig
Wittgenstein struggled with these distinctions in his Philosophical Investigations
3
when he recognizes that the most common tool for human enquiry, language, is
insufficient to interpret the gap between real pain and its “expression.” That which
is contained in the private person has no way of reaching another. This is posited as
an understandable impediment to communion in any true ecological sense throughout the interspecies disciplines, but particularly so in the wide-ranging epistemological studies and epiphanies with which various schools of Buddhism have
grappled, commencing in documented earnest with Nagarjuna’s (c.150–c.250)
remarkable treatise, Root Stanzas (or Fundamental Verses) of the Middle Way
(Mulamadhyamakakarika). As with Wittgenstein’s personal quest from the time of
his first Tractatus (Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, 1921) to his final manuscripts 175, 176, and 177 (1951) to grasp and communicate his feelings regarding
the vast irreconcilable gulf separating thought and expression, Nagarjuna (despite
great uncertainty regarding his actual biographical details) was smitten with the
concept of emptiness (explaining that gulf). He came to be regarded by many as the
“Second Buddha” because of this obsession with the same existential nothingness
1 Beyond Conscience, by Thomas Verner Smith, Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company,
Inc., New York and London 1934, p. 359.
2 See A Non-Existent Man: An Autobiography, by T. V. Smith, University of Texas Press, 2012.
3 Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, Revised fourth edition
by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Shulte, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden MA, 2009, p.95.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_78
Chapter 78
The Buddhist Obtuse and Its Ecological
Correlates
78.1 When Conscience Is More Than Conscience
“Conscience is more than conscience,” wrote politician/philosopher T. V. Smith in
his classic story of power and the relations between Democratic, Eastern, and
Communist versions of outer consciousness and inner conscience.
1
Smith also
introduced his autobiography, A Non-existent Man, by declaring upfront in its
Prelude, “…existence is not the highest form of being”.
2
We know that Ludwig
Wittgenstein struggled with these distinctions in his Philosophical Investigations
3
when he recognizes that the most common tool for human enquiry, language, is
insufficient to interpret the gap between real pain and its “expression.” That which
is contained in the private person has no way of reaching another. This is posited as
an understandable impediment to communion in any true ecological sense throughout the interspecies disciplines, but particularly so in the wide-ranging epistemological studies and epiphanies with which various schools of Buddhism have
grappled, commencing in documented earnest with Nagarjuna’s (c.150–c.250)
remarkable treatise, Root Stanzas (or Fundamental Verses) of the Middle Way
(Mulamadhyamakakarika). As with Wittgenstein’s personal quest from the time of
his first Tractatus (Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, 1921) to his final manuscripts 175, 176, and 177 (1951) to grasp and communicate his feelings regarding
the vast irreconcilable gulf separating thought and expression, Nagarjuna (despite
great uncertainty regarding his actual biographical details) was smitten with the
concept of emptiness (explaining that gulf). He came to be regarded by many as the
“Second Buddha” because of this obsession with the same existential nothingness
1 Beyond Conscience, by Thomas Verner Smith, Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company,
Inc., New York and London 1934, p. 359.
2 See A Non-Existent Man: An Autobiography, by T. V. Smith, University of Texas Press, 2012.
3 Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, Revised fourth edition
by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Shulte, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden MA, 2009, p.95.