[MD] W.J. Eastern influences

[MarshaV]

Greetings,   

Bob Doyle stated that W.J. was the first!  And he bemoaned that other philosophers borrowed from W.J. without giving him proper credit.  But that's just foolishness.  It has been documented that W.J. read and reread, in the often cited crisis period of his life, Buddhist and Vedic texts.  James's biography (p.126) clearly states he had read and reread Upanishad and Buddhist texts, texts that belonged to his father.  This would have been around 1870, while still in his twenties.  

 Here's a list of some of the books:

	Modern Buddhist - Alabaster 
	Religion des Buddha (Vol.1) - Koeppen
	Le Buddhisme - Taine
	Weltauffas der Buddhisten - Bastian
	Brahma Somej: Four Lectures - Sen 

	(William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism 
		by Robert D. Richardson)


I don't see where James gave proper credit to the Eastern ideas he extracted from the above reading material. The East, Buddhist's philosophy of mind in particular, has a great deal more to offer, and with a history of investigation and methods that goes back 2500 years.  I believe the reason so many American Buddhist scholars are a fan of William James is because they recognized and appreciate the similarities in ideas and would use W.J. as a doorway to introduce and legitimize Buddhism's more expansive and credible material.  Nothing wrong with that, but why settle?   The MoQ gives credit to Eastern ideas and is a wonderful bridge between the two.  I ask again:  How does William James improve the MoQ?  As far as I can see it does not.  It just points backwards and has nothing to say about Quality, static patterns, or the hierarchical, evolutionary structure that helps evaluate many conflicting patterns.  



Marsha 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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