Early Buddhism and Incommensurability

Filial Piety in Early Buddhism

Buddhist scholars like Kenneth Ch’en thought that filial piety was a special feature of Chinese Buddhism. Later, John Strong employed “popular Buddhist stories” to show that filial piety was also important in Indian Buddhism, but he asserted that it was “a Buddhist compromise with the Brāhmanical ethics of filiality operating at the popular level.” On the other hand, Gregory Schopen, who mainly...

Incommensurability (and Incomparability)

Seven INCOMMENSURABILITY AND DEMARCATION

as this does nothing to support the thesis that the members of the two tribes share any important moral beliefs and would not help the absolutist in arguing against relativism. The claim of the absolutist about the Crow and the . . thing is not at all clear. If the relativist contention is expressed as “what is right and what is wrong varies fiom culture to culture,” then whether we are to asse...

Incommensurability and affinity

This article takes what has always been a methodological and ethical question for anthropologists (how should we relate to others?) and turns it into an ethnographic one (how do those we study think ethically across borders?). We show that, paradoxically, anthropologists’ commitment to their own forms of ethics across borders have frequently effaced alternative conceptions among the people we s...

Incommensurability and Scientific Realism