Did the Buddha Exist?

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Peter Kirby
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Did the Buddha Exist?

Post by Peter Kirby »

Alexander Wynne takes on the skeptics in this article:

https://www.buddhistuniversity.net/cont ... xist_wynne

Those who've followed similar debates will notice a number of familiar tropes.

As in most of these discussions, the meta question -- what is historical evidence? -- looms large.
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Re: Did the Buddha Exist?

Post by Peter Kirby »

This is indeed the same thing that this blogger noticed:

https://dhivanthomasjones.wordpress.com ... al-buddha/
According to both Wynne and Levman, there is massive amounts of evidence for a historical personality of the Buddha behind the testimony of early Buddhism. Reading both Levman and Wynne, one cannot help thinking that Drewes must have known about all this evidence, at least in principle, and that somehow it does not convince him. Considering this, I’ve come to think that two very different versions of what counts as knowledge, evidence and proof, are involved here.

In Drewes’ article, what he means by knowledge is made clear by his concluding sentence:

If we wish to present early Buddhism in a manner that accords with the standards of scientific, empirical inquiry, it is necessary to acknowledge that the Buddha belongs to [a] group [of mythological personages such as Agamemnon or King Arthur]’ (my italics).[7]

By ‘scientific’ standards, Drewes evidently has in mind a positivistic ideal of historical knowledge: the kind of knowledge that is based on evidence directly available to our senses (hence ‘empirical’). The only kind of evidence that will count are positive facts, verified by reason, and not dependent on assumptions. It is rather obvious that, if one holds these standards for what counts as knowledge, one will certainly have to conclude that we know nothing about the historical Buddha. The evidence is just too weak. We would need the remains of his robe complete with his name-tag, or a cache of letters between him and Sāriputta, but unfortunately there was no writing in those days.

Wynne and Levman, however, cannot produce that kind of evidence. Instead, writes Wynne:

by adducing the relevant facts and making significant arguments, we will build up a general picture which proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Buddha did indeed exist and that we have a good record of his teaching.[8]

Wynne calls his method ‘inductive and empirical’, but actually it is neither. Instead, we should say that it is an abductive method, reasoning from the evidence to the best explanation. It has to be said, however, that abductive reasoning cannot prove that the Buddha existed. It can only argue that the existence of the Buddha is the best explanation for the evidence. Bryan Levman similarly presents the Buddha’s existence as the best explanation for what we know about him through his teaching. He concludes that he does not understand why Drewes does not even attempt to account for these teachings; he goes on:

nor do I understand what he means by “standards of scientific, empirical enquiry” to which he refers.[9]

I will conclude with two thoughts. One is that a bit of epistemology, the study of knowledge, can help us see how these scholars are talking across each others’ assumptions about what would count as knowledge about the Buddha’s historical existence. The second is that we should be careful about using the phrase ‘the historical Buddha’. It might be taken as implying that there is solid, factual, positivist, empirical evidence for the existence of the Buddha. But there isn’t. And if we mean that our best explanation for all the evidence we have is that the Buddha was a historical figure, we should also say, ‘though we can’t know for sure’.
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Re: Did the Buddha Exist?

Post by andrewcriddle »

Peter Kirby wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 6:15 am This is indeed the same thing that this blogger noticed:

https://dhivanthomasjones.wordpress.com ... al-buddha/
According to both Wynne and Levman, there is massive amounts of evidence for a historical personality of the Buddha behind the testimony of early Buddhism. Reading both Levman and Wynne, one cannot help thinking that Drewes must have known about all this evidence, at least in principle, and that somehow it does not convince him. Considering this, I’ve come to think that two very different versions of what counts as knowledge, evidence and proof, are involved here.

In Drewes’ article, what he means by knowledge is made clear by his concluding sentence:

If we wish to present early Buddhism in a manner that accords with the standards of scientific, empirical inquiry, it is necessary to acknowledge that the Buddha belongs to [a] group [of mythological personages such as Agamemnon or King Arthur]’ (my italics).[7]

By ‘scientific’ standards, Drewes evidently has in mind a positivistic ideal of historical knowledge: the kind of knowledge that is based on evidence directly available to our senses (hence ‘empirical’). The only kind of evidence that will count are positive facts, verified by reason, and not dependent on assumptions. It is rather obvious that, if one holds these standards for what counts as knowledge, one will certainly have to conclude that we know nothing about the historical Buddha. The evidence is just too weak. We would need the remains of his robe complete with his name-tag, or a cache of letters between him and Sāriputta, but unfortunately there was no writing in those days.

a/ The evidence for a historical Buddha is IMO much stronger than the evidence for a historical Agamemnon or King Arthur. (IMVHO Agamemnon is different from Arthur; Arthur is not mythological, if not historical he is probably a deliberate invention.)
b/ Very few facts from the Ancient World can be proved in the sense that say the Battle of Waterloo can be proved.
c/ IMHO we have to distinguish between the true but probably uninteresting statement that there is a non-absurd standard of scepticism which renders Ancient History as normally understood impossible and more interesting but probably false statements such as the claim that there is less evidence for a historical Buddha than say a historical Pythagoras.

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Re: Did the Buddha Exist?

Post by ABuddhist »

A useful and recent discussion about this topic can be read here: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/th ... myth/28410
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Re: Did the Buddha Exist?

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Re: Did the Buddha Exist?

Post by DCHindley »

ABuddhist wrote: Sat Feb 24, 2024 1:47 pm This topic is being discussed here https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/su ... ical/32288 and here https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/ja ... ha/32581/5 .
It was nice to read an informative thread by participants who seem very much like the ones you might see here, only dealing with a different subject matter.

Looks like Buddhism has its own "fundamentalists" (seeing different things as "fundamental"), purists (at least imagining that they are following the Buddha's own practices), "academics" (I'll include well informed amateurs with the actual scholars), modern practitioners or interested individuals asking questions of experts, and nasty folks who just want to disrupt (nihilism seems to make these feel better about themselves, or allows them do whatever they want "with authority").

Even I psychoanalyze the intent of others often enough, but (I hope) always in the context of the ancient text being discussed, not modern schools of interpretation of it. OK, I do sometimes express a disparaging attitude toward "disruptors" and "dogmatic" academics.

It was interesting to encounter the technical term "pericope" in use there. Here it means any string of text under examination (it originally was a Greek language technical term), not necessarily a sense unit like a single or compound sentence. Here we would refer to these as "verses" which relies on medieval scribes addition of punctuation to accommodate sense units. These sense units may have been implied in what was written, but were not expressed with punctuation until medieval times.

Just like being home ...

DCH :notworthy:
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