Before getting into it, I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to the commentary thread for much of my content, although I hope I have offered enough novel content for there to be value in this analysis.
If you want to get straight to the bones of it, scroll down to "Overall assessment". If not, here goes.
Participants
The participants in this debate were, on the affirmative, GF's own David Quinn, self-proclaimed sage, and, on the negative, Robert Larkin, at that time a new critic to GF, now deceased; I'd like to add, "and, who knows, maybe even following proceedings from wherever he is now?", but, in acknowledgement of Robert's vehement disbelief in all things "woo", I won't.
Topic and structure
The topic of the debate was loosely but adequately defined as 'the nature of enlightenment and, as Robert puts it, whether David Quinn has "got it"'.
The structure was defined as consisting of (emphasis mine) "two constructive arguments, beginning with the Affirmative (David), and alternating. These arguments are not intended to respond to each other, but merely to put up arguments for each side's case. Then, there will be two rebuttals each, beginning with the Negative (Robert) and alternating. Rebuttals are intended to respond to the arguments brought up earlier; rebuttals may bring in new information, but may not make new arguments".
There was some confusion over this structure, with Robert clarifying in the commentary thread after his first debate post that constructives were in fact not, as emboldened above, meant to exclude responses, "else we would have four posts before there was any direct confrontation", and that "Guildenstern's description was thus slightly off".
A misunderstanding on David's part also led to him posting his first rebuttal when it was in fact Robert's turn to post, at which Robert gave up his own skipped post without complaint.
The only other structural irregularity was that David's final rebuttal was posted late (there was a 24 hour time limit in which to post a response).
Constructive points and arguments
I've condensed the substantive constructive points and arguments made by each party; here they are. These points exclude each party's rebuttals, which I describe and deal with later in assessing each of the points. Admittedly, it's something of a judgement call as to whether to classify some of these as constructive points or as rebuttals, particularly on Robert's side - I hope I've been reasonable about it.
David's constructive points and arguments
1. Enlightenment is the mind's experience of total lack of delusion about the nature of reality, including a disbelief in inherent existence, and a perception, going beyond emotion and religion, of formlessness, emptiness and the Void; a perception that everything including the self is a causally created illusion. Leaving behind samsara and entering nirvana "means ceasing to interfere with the world on any level and instead becoming one with the process of cause and effect. One no longer seeks happiness in any particular phenomenon, nor truth in any particular concept or appearance. One is completely free of the emotional desire for the world to be any particular way. The entire process of emotionally valuing one form over another is completely abandoned. One is free of all attachment to form (and, by extension, to formlessness). And because of this, one ceases to engage in life and death".
2. Only one who is enlightened understands what enlightenment is and can validate his own enlightenment (or that of another) and the wisdom in the scriptures, which is necessarily only hinted at; David is enlightened and has self-validated his enlightenment; Robert is unenlightened and thus is ignorant of the true nature and wisdom of enlightenment, and cannot correctly interpret the scriptures.
Robert's constructive points and arguments
1. David is in opposition to Nagarjuna, sometimes referred to as "the second buddha", in several ways:
1.1. David's positive description of enlightenment is in opposition to the eight negations of Nagarjuna.
1.2. David's insistence on words and concepts being true is in opposition to Nagarjuna; David in fact takes the exact position of Nagarjuna's opponents, the Logicians.
1.3. David's distinction between samsara and nirvana is in opposition to Nagarjuna's declaration that "[t]here is not the slightest distinction [...] between samsara and nirvana".
2. David's notion of enlightenment lacks compassion, including "loving-kindness for all beings" and ahimsa (noninjury), a key element in Buddhism's notion of enlightenment.
3. David is sexist as demonstrated by his Woman essay, and supports a sexist and racist author, Weininger, and thus cannot be enlightened, and thus, by his own reasoning, does not understand enlightenment.
4. David's behaviour in this debate is so poor as to disprove his enlightenment, and thus, by his own reasoning, he does not understand enlightenment.
5. David's mere claim to enlightenment must rationally be rejected, and, David, being therefore unenlightened, by his own reasoning does not understand enlightenment.
Assessing the constructive points and arguments
One at a time I'll assess the strength of each of these constructive points and arguments, and provide my opinion as to whether or not, after taking into account rebuttals and counter-rebuttals, they score.
Assessing David's (1): his positive description of enlightenment
Across his first two posts, David describes enlightenment in positive terms as summarised above. Robert rebuts in part with some of what I've deemed above to be his own constructive points - and I'll assess those later - however, Robert also responds with one key rebuttal proper that I see as very relevant and that I want to analyse now: that David has not used any support other than his own authority and thus has made no case.
In my opinion, Robert didn't do nearly enough to press this key point home. With the benefit of hindsight and the thoughts of various commentators in the commentary thread, I would have liked to have seen Robert put something like this to David in his first post:
David would presumably have then chosen (2), and been forced to have produced scriptural or other relevant evidence that what he means by "enlightenment" is the same as whichever tradition(s) he specified. He would not have been able to have avoided his burden.David uses the word "enlightenment" meaningfully in discussion, and thus David associates that word with a meaning. The question is, which meaning does David associate it with? There are two possibilities:
1. a meaning unique to him (and those in his circle), or
2. a meaning identical with that of one or more of the spiritual traditions out of which that term arose.
In the case of (1), then the debate reduces to, "Has David 'got' the meaning of a term that he himself defines?" which no one would bother to debate him on, but which isolates him from the existing spiritual traditions of enlightenment and cements him as (co-)founder of a new tradition.
In the case of (2), then, for the debate to proceed, David needs to identify the tradition(s) with which he shares a common meaning of enlightenment. It is then incumbent on him to prove that the understanding of enlightenment that he presented in his first post is substantially identical with that of the tradition(s) he's identified.
I invite David to take his choice of (1) or (2), and, in the event that he chooses (2), to identify the relevant tradition(s) and to prove that his understanding of enlightenment is identical with theirs, recognising that if he chooses (1), then the debate is over before it's really begun.
Your choice, David: pick (1) or (2); if choosing (2), then specify your spiritual traditions, and please enjoy the irony that whatever "dubious, second-hand joke methods" you thought I was going to need to employ, you will now need yourself to employ (and justify) in proving that your understanding is the same as that/those tradition(s).
Robert did not chose this path, though, and so we find that David asserts without reference in his second post, "Enlightenment is, by definition, the absence of delusion". Here, Robert again missed an opportunity to pursue this line of attack, by asking David from where he got that definition - whether it conforms to that of an existing tradition or whether it is his own unique definition. Robert, however, did not choose to do this.
In David's third post, then, we have David continuing to deny the relevance of scripture: supposedly, Robert desires to "drag this debate back into the communal realm of the Buddhist scriptures [...] {i}nstead of addressing [David's] points directly with reasoned argument". Robert does not, David contends, know that Nagarjuna is enlightened but nevertheless respects him as a spiritual authority; this, David continues, is because of the fallacy of "validation by popular appeal". David thus continues to deny his burden, and Robert again fails to explicitly force it back upon him, for example by asserting that "reasoned argument" is based on terms with established definitions, and that David has failed to establish the basis of his own definition of enlightenment.
In David's third post, too, we have his first and only attempt to directly respond to this argument of Robert's (that David, in relying solely on his own authority, has failed to properly support himself): David was prompted to do this by the support that Robert received on it in the commentary thread. David cites the argument he sees being made: that regardless of whether Nagarjuna was enlightened, enlightenment is a Buddhist concept and thus a modern claim of enlightenment must be tested against the historical descriptions of enlightenment in the sutras. David offers the following two rebuttals:
1. that the Buddhist notion of enlightenment evolved out of the Hindu one, so that, to be consistent, on that basis those criticising David should reject Buddhism's notion of enlightenment too, and,
2. that "even if we all agree that the Buddhist sutras are valid texts written by enlightened sages", only the enlightened can correctly interpret them, whereas those criticising David "correctly claim they are unenlightened".
The first rebuttal is tacit admission that David's definition of enlightenment is indeed novel - that's what he means by comparing himself with the Buddha in evolving the concept of enlightenment out of Hinduism; likewise he has evolved his own notion of enlightenment out of Buddhism. David even goes on to explicitly admit this, saying that the Buddha committed the same "crimes" that David has: the Buddha "too redefined traditional concepts for his own purposes". Had Robert forced the choice on David that I suggested earlier, David would have been unable to have made this argument as he would (presumably) have had to have explicitly associated himself with the enlightenment of the Buddhist tradition, and not with a redefinition thereof.
Robert could have chosen to end the debate here, because David has effectively chosen the first option: he has admitted to having his own unique meaning for enlightenment. There is no point in debating whether a man has "got" the meaning of a term that he has himself defined. David, though, seems to want to have his cake and eat it too, claiming to also be in full agreement with Nagarjuna - here, Robert could have pointed out David's equivocation, and argued that equivocation of this order is a sign of at least a confused mind, arguably a conclusively unenlightened one. David's only defence against this that I can see is to claim to have gone a step beyond Nagarjuna, so that his view of enlightenment wholly contains but extends that of Nagarjuna.
David's second rebuttal - that only the enlightened can correctly interpret the Buddhist sutras - is a repetition of his second constructive point, and I'll return to it when we get to that second point. For now let me just say that this position is flawed (it is self-contradictory - for details on why, see my commentary on David's second point below), and thus David's second rebuttal, as with his first, fails.
Where, then, are we left on Robert's rebuttal to David's first point: that David, in relying solely on his own authority in describing enlightenment, has failed to support himself? Unfortunately for David, we find that, whilst Robert could have done more to have driven the point home, this rebuttal, with some judgement reserved, succeeds resoundingly: David has failed to demonstrate that his understanding of enlightenment matches the usual (i.e. in the context of the traditions in which it arose) understanding of the term. The extent to which we must reserve judgement is the extent to which David defends his agreement with Nagarjuna in response to Robert's challenges to that claimed agreement - more on that when we get to it.
Assessing David's (2): that only the (self-validated) enlightened understand enlightenment
David goes to great lengths to defend his notion that the only means of establishing one's enlightenment is through self-validation, and that only the (self-validated) enlightened correctly understand enlightenment. Robert in response notes the circularity of David's position and asserts that "David Quinn's claims of enlightenment should be rejected. No rational person would accept any mere claim some individual is enlightened". Strong words, but I think that Robert over-reaches here. Certainly one should be skeptical of another's "self-validated" claim to enlightenment, but a rationally definitive outright rejection of such a claim would need to be based on more than the fact that it is a "mere" claim: after all, it's possible that the person's "mere claim" is true, and that he really is enlightened. Robert doesn't explain to us how we can discount this possibility by the mere fact that the person has uttered the claim. This, unfortunately, is effectively the extent of Robert's engagement with this second point of David's.
My feeling is that Robert again missed an opportunity to pin David down here. In the commentary thread, Victor Danilchenko and others did this admirably, and some of my analysis here is based on their comments. Robert seems to see the circularity in "I'm enlightened?" "So how do you know that for sure?" "Because I'm enlightened", but doesn't question, "And from where do you get your meaning for the word, 'enlightened'?", which could have forced David to break the circularity. This hearkens back to my suggestion that Robert force David into a choice between having a novel definition of enlightenment or having one in common with one of the existing traditions.
Had David acknowledged that what he means by enlightenment is the same as that of an existing (presumably Buddhist) tradition, then the Robert could have argued that the circular final answer, "Because I'm enlightened", ought to be replaced with, "Because I meet the criteria of enlightenment specified in the Buddhist tradition, notably in its scriptures". Robert could then have asserted that David has it the wrong way around in asserting that the scriptures can only be understood by one who is enlightened: instead (Robert could have asserted), unless one has one's own definition of enlightenment, one understands whether or not one is enlightened through, amongst other possibilities, understanding the description of enlightenment found in the scriptures and comparing that description to oneself.
Another way that Robert could have responded to David on this issue is to have pointed out, firstly, that David, in claiming to be 100% certain of his enlightenment, is implying that it's possible for him to distinguish conclusively between himself being non-deluded and correctly believing and claiming to be non-deluded, and himself being deluded and incorrectly believing and claiming to be non-deluded. From this it follows that, secondly, the deluded can identify that they are deluded, else the individual in question - i.e. David - couldn't be 100% confident in distinguishing between the two scenarios: if David couldn't as a deluded person identify that he was deluded, then he could not be 100% confident that he is not now in that position (delusionally believing and claiming to be non-deluded). From this it follows that, thirdly, the unenlightened (deluded) can recognise non-deluded thoughts, thus contradicting David's position that the unenlightened cannot understand the scriptures until they are enlightened. In other words, Robert missed an opportunity to point out that David's position is self-contradictory.
David attempts to defend the circularity of his claim to know that he is enlightened because he is enlightened by arguing that "all knowledge, without exception, is founded upon circular reasoning", providing an example in which he supposedly reduces an explanation of the tea's heat into a tautological restatement of the tea being hot. I would have liked to have seen Robert attack this as both specious and an inappropriate analogy. It is specious because it pretends that the description that a system is "hot" is identical in explanatory power to a description that its constituent molecules are "more randomly energetic and active" due to an injection of energy, whereas these two descriptions are obviously not identical in explanatory power: the latter is a more specific and detailed description than the former. It stretches credulity that David seriously contends that the statement, "[The tea] is hot because it is hot" is identical in explanatory power to the statement, "[The tea] is hot because energy was injected into the system causing the constituent molecules of the tea to become more randomly energetic and active". This is not the "circularity" that David purports it to be, it is instead a relationship between two statements about the same concept at two different levels of abstraction.
In any case, David's tea analogy is inappropriate because the point is not one of explanation, it is one of epistemology. In relation to the actual issue, the hot tea example that David provides is analogous to pointing out that "I am enlightened" can, at a lower level of abstraction, be "circularly" replaced with, "My mind is free from delusion", whereas - as Robert could have pointed out - this is irrelevant to the actual point of providing objective criteria by which the claim in question can be known to be true. In this context, a more appropriate question in the analogy would have been asking not, "Why is the tea hot?", but instead, "How do we know that the tea is hot?" In this more apt version of the analogy, Robert might have suggested such answers as, "Multiple independent human observers with no history of hallucination report that it feels hot to the touch", or, "Multiple thermometers operating by different mechanisms and with no history of malfunction dipped into the tea report it as hot": criteria-based answers which are not circular. Robert could then have pointed out that in relation to the actual issue, David provides no similar criteria by which it can objectively be known (by himself or by others) that he is enlightened.
Where, ultimately, does all of this leave us on David's second point? Robert has done enough to throw doubt on it, but not enough to totally destroy it, nor to leverage it into pointing out contradictions in David's position. Ultimately, though, David fails in his second point to prove that he is enlightened, nor that he understands enlightenment.
Assessing Robert's (1.1): that David is in opposition to Nagarjuna's eight negations
Robert quotes Nargarjuna's eight negations, which in which Nagarjuna asserts that enlightenment "is:
1. Not Cessation.
2. Not Arising.
3. Not an Interruption.
4. Not a Perpetuation.
5. Not one thing.
6. Not many things.
7. Not going forth.
8. Not arriving."
Robert concludes that enlightenment is "quite simply ineffable". For one (as I) not very familiar with the Buddhist scriptures, this is a bit of a puzzle, and I would have liked Robert to have done more to have unlocked the puzzle for those like me. I would have liked for him to have built a more comprehensive and coherent description of enlightenment, thoroughly referenced, to contrast against David's own (unreferenced) comprehensive description of enlightenment, and to argue, based on those references, why his own description was more accurate than David's. As it is, I'm left wondering: if enlightenment is ineffable, then does it actually mean anything? What utility does or could the ineffable possibly have; in what way could it be known or attained? - and I'm aware of the standard admonition that enlightenment is not an attainment, but this only further emphasises its ineffability and re-asserts the question anew: could a term referring to that which is both ineffable and unattainable possibly even refer to anything at all?
Given this, and given that Robert stated outright at the beginning of the debate that he wasn't even sure whether enlightenment exists, then surely from his point of view a more relevant question to debate, or perhaps, better yet, to simply discuss, would have been whether, in fact, enlightenment means anything at all, and by which criteria one might judge whether one is enlightened. Much as we might criticise David for failing to provide satisfactory criteria by which to judge whether or not a being is enlightened, Robert has not succeeded at this task either: aside from "being compassionate", all that he has provided us with is negations. Apparently, what David is supposed to "get" is that there is nothing to "get" in the first place, which is quite a curious state of affairs.
David initially doesn't respond directly to this rebuttal of Robert's; he does respond to it indirectly though in his second post by commenting that Robert hasn't developed "constructive arguments in favour of [his] point of view. [...] At the very least, [Robert] should have given reasons why we should take Nagarjuna's views seriously". It's curious that Robert doesn't respond to this with, "We should take Nagarjuna's views seriously because Nagarjuna is a key figure in the tradition that defines the term enlightenment!" Robert has already, though, made mention that Nagarjuna is sometimes referred to as "the second buddha", so certainly from his perspective he could be seen as having given a reason already.
David returns to the issue of ineffability in his third post, where he seems to get a little mixed up, lumping together as one two separate points that Robert made, and apparently interpreting Robert as quoting the IEP article on Nagarjuna's view on sunyata as support for the ineffability of enlightenment, whereas Robert actually quoted it as support for his position that according to Nagarjuna, concepts have utility but are not taken to be the truth. In David's defence, it could well be that Robert intended to closely link these two points. David in his (possible) misinterpretation at least addresses Robert's claim that enlightenment is canonically ineffable by saying essentially that sunyata is a tangible concept and not at all ineffable. He fails, though, to explain why then Nagarjuna might have presented the eight negations - if not to demonstrate the ineffability of enlightenment, then what?
Where, in the final assessment, does this leave David with respect to (dis)agreement with Nagarjuna's eight negations, and has Robert's point scored? It's a mixed bag. It does appear that David, in presenting enlightenment in positive terms, is in disagreement with Nagarjuna's "ineffability", but without the context of a comprehensive description of enlightenment from Robert, we're left wondering exactly what David is supposed to be in opposition to. In any case, Robert's point does score here to some extent, because, whatever context they properly belong in, David fails to present a plausible alternative as to what Nagarjuna might have meant by those eight negations, and also fails to rebut what justification for Nagarjuna's authority Robert does provide: that Nagarjuna is sometimes referred to as "the second buddha".
Assessing Robert's (1.2): that David's insistence on words and concepts being true is in opposition to Nagarjuna
Robert takes up this point in his very first post, asserting that in posts that he (Robert) links to, David and co. insist on "mere words being true and which is contrary to Buddhism". David doesn't respond to this in his subsequent post, and Robert follows up in his second post by quoting a scholarly source to support his contention that it is Nagarjuna's position that concepts "have utility but they are not taken to be the truth" and that whereas on the one hand it seems to be David's position that concepts can be true (in opposition to Nagarjuna), on the other hand David claims to be in agreement with Nagarjuna.
David responds to this briefly in his third post in a section on which I commented above seemed to be based on a partial misinterpretation of Robert. David says simply that sunyata "refers to the nature of Reality" that Nagarjuna described "in great detail - using words no less". It's odd that David would point this out and then continue to claim to be in agreement with Nagarjuna, because it seems like what he is actually doing is more like pointing out a contradiction in Nagarjuna's position than agreeing with him.
Robert continues to press his point in his third and final post, quoting extensively, from the same scholarly source, on the debate between Nagarjuna and the Logicians, and charging David with taking the position not of Nagarjuna but in fact of the Logicians. This charge is in my opinion very accurate; this sentence in particular from Robert's source, describing the argument made by the Logicians, is remarkably similar to the argument that QRS make for the existence of absolute truth: "a philosophy which refuses to admit universal essences must be flatly self-contradictory, since a universal denial must itself be essentially true of all things".
David, having committed himself both to a theory of absolute truth and to full agreement with Nagarjuna, the former of which he fails to defend in this context, takes up the latter in his fourth and final post, responding in particular to Robert's assertion that "Nagarjuna, rejecting the self-evident, insists that all things and concepts are empty, including his own". David essentially distinguishes between "empty" and "false", agreeing that concepts are the former but asserting that this does not entail the latter, and asking: if it did entail the latter, then what would we be to make of the concepts that Robert has used in the debate to establish the truth of his own view?
It's a pity that Robert didn't get a chance to respond to this, because whilst on the one hand I agree that David takes the position of the Logicians rather than that of Nagarjuna, on the other hand, from what Robert quoted of Nagarjuna it's not clear to me exactly what Nagarjuna actually does mean, and David exploits this lack of clarity well. It's not clear (to me, at least) how Nagarjuna has evaded the essential point of the Logicians: on what basis can he even argue for his claim without implicitly accepting certain facts and concepts - those which comprise his argument - as other than "empty", lest his entire argument reduce to "emptiness", in which case why even make it rather than maintain his integrity in silence? Perhaps the issue resolves to a subtlety in Nagarjuna's contextual meaning for the word "emptiness".
David, just prior to this, takes up the final line of Robert's quotation from Nagarjuna, "And free from conceptual construction", asserting that "Nagarjuna wasn't referring to the inane, postmodernist view that concepts and words are useless" or he wouldn't have written any words and at all. This seems to me to be a strawman: Robert explicitly noted that Nagarjuna believes concepts and words to be useful, just that they are not taken to be the truth.
David continues: "The enlightened person is [...] someone who no longer projects unnecessary concepts onto things"; "he no longer grapples with things in a metaphysical way", although, "[this] doesn't mean refraining from thinking altogether, or refraining from utilizing concepts for practical purposes".
This does seem to accord with Robert's interpretation of Nagarjuna, however David has completely failed to counter Robert's strong point that in advocating a theory of absolute truth, David, despite his objections to the contrary, is in opposition, with the Logicians, to Nagarjuna. It's my opinion, then, that Robert's point here scores well, albeit that it would have been a more decisive point in his favour if he could have explained more clearly exactly how (or even whether) he believes Nagarjuna's argument to succeed.
Assessing Robert's (1.3): that David's distinction between samsara and nirvana is in opposition to Nagarjuna
Robert presents in his third post both scholarly interpretation and direct quotes to prove that Nagarjuna denies any distinction between samsara and nirvana. Unfortunately, it's not clear, at least to me, from what Robert presents, the basis on which Nagarjuna does this. The article Robert quotes from mentions Nagarjuna's recognition of the necessity in scholarly Buddhism of a "non-substantialist stance", of not "reifying" the distinction between samsara and nirvana, and of this being "based on" sunyata (emptiness), which comes across to me as quite abstract and indecipherable; what I want to know is what Nagarjuna means in practice: for example, is he suggesting that these words in fact have the same meaning, or that even though they have different meanings we ought to treat them as synonyms, or that we simply ought to stop using them, or ... (I'm genuinely baffled)? And why these two words in particular - surely if his argument is based on the emptiness of all words then there is no distinction between any two words (not that that would make any more sense to me)?
Nagarjuna's position (as quoted) is then from my perspective very confusing, and Robert doesn't add much clarification, saying simply that the final two lines of a quote from Nagarjuna ("No Dharma was taught by the Buddha / At any time, in any place, to any person") mean that "[n]ot even the Buddha could preach more than conventional truth". I'm not sure what this has to do with denying the distinction between two words with apparently different meanings though.
David responds to this in his subsequent (fourth and final) post. He re-asserts his complete agreement with Nagarjuna, presenting his own interpretation of what Nagarjuna means. He claims in essence that Nagarjuna does in fact implicitly recognise the distinction between nirvana and samsara (in, for example, his reference to "the victorious one"), and that what Nagarjuna really means by denying the distinction is that from the perspective of the enlightened one, "nirvana is nothing other [than] Nature itself", and that enlightenment entails "simply realizing what is already there".
As with David's earlier response on Nagarjuna not taking words and concepts to be true - that Nagarjuna used, "no less", words, to describe reality - it seems to me that David's response here is more the pointing out of a contradiction or hypocrisy in Nagarjuna's position than legitimate agreement with Nagarjuna.
Does Robert's point score, then? It's a tough call. On the one hand, it's not clear exactly what Nagarjuna means, and Robert doesn't shed much light on it himself. On the other hand, it appears that, whatever Nagarjuna means, David disagrees with him, because whilst Nagarjuna seems to be maintaining one thing explicitly (that samsara and nirvana are not distinct) and the opposite implicitly (that nirvana is a victorious achievement), David maintains explicitly what Nagarjuna maintains implicitly (that nirvana is a victorious achievement), whilst rejecting explicitly that which Nagarjuna maintains explicitly (that samsara and nirvana are not distinct). It's a weak point to Robert here.
Assessing Robert's (2): that David's notion of enlightenment lacks compassion
Robert provides several quotes from Buddhist websites, including references to "Loving-kindness for all beings", and "Ahimsa ('noninjury'). The moral principle of avoiding harm to other forms of life, including animals and sometimes even the apparently inanimate world", summing up that "in David's conception of enlightenment there is no compassion and no love and certainly no understanding that as The Buddha observed 'the world is burning' and that one has a responsibility to the world".
This is a point well taken; the following quote presented by Robert is particularly apt to David's position: "It is in some ways easy to be a Buddhist with one's head and not one's heart. Buddhism today and at the time of the Buddha had great intellectual appeal. It is a religion that encourages investigation in a systematic, almost scientific way. But Buddhism is also about the heart and without that it might be perceived as a cold religion".
David doesn't really respond to this point except indirectly, in his second post, by asserting that the enlightened person's compassion is for the natural attraction people have for unconsciousness, which is not their fault but "dictated by the causal strings of Nature"; enlightened compassion, David asserts, is active in trying to "free people from the wheel of samsara and propel them into nirvana".
Curiously, Robert doesn't respond to this. If he had responded, he might have pointed out that this is a very narrow understanding of compassion, and that it is very much tacked on to David's original description of enlightenment rather than being core to it as it is in the quotes on Buddhism that Robert presented.
So, has Robert's second point scored? In my opinion it has, even though it could have been stronger had Robert responded to David's presentation of purportedly enlightened compassion.
Assessing Robert's (3): that David supports sexism and racism, which is unenlightened
It is in his second post that Robert first brings up David's views on women and David's support for Weininger, commenting at length on David's "Woman" essay, quoting an excerpt from Weininger's book, Sex and Character, and summing up with: "As David Quinn supports racist and sexist materials I urge you to reject his ideas out of hand" - the implication being that sexism and racism are incompatible not just with enlightenment but also with a correct understanding of enlightenment.
The success of this point turns on whether or not Robert has established two things: firstly, that David is sexist and racist, or at least that he supports, either explicitly or tacitly, sexist and racist materials, and, secondly, that such personal prejudices and/or support for material prejudiced in that way are incompatible with enlightenment and/or a correct understanding of enlightenment.
Arguably, Robert succeeds in establishing the former, however he totally neglects to establish the latter. As it's not even clear what Robert understands enlightenment to be in positive terms other than "ineffable" and "compassionate", he really needed to devote significant attention to explaining why David's brand of sexism and tacit support for racism are unenlightened. Instead, he simply assumes this to be understood. Possibly, for a significant percentage of the debate's audience, this would have been a correct assumption, but, for another percentage of the audience - notably those in David's camp - the reverse would have been the case, and in my opinion an effective debater should be aiming to present arguments and evidence strong enough to convince even the most extreme of his opponents, which Robert has failed to do here. He hasn't even cited a scholarly interpretation of a Buddhist injunction or implication against sexism or racism, let alone quote any direct scripture.
In scoring this point, I'm going to hold Robert to the highest standard of debating, which in my opinion he has not met. Given the likely assumptions of a popular audience, though, he probably does score this point.
Assessing Robert's (4): that David's poor debating behaviour disproves his enlightenment
Robert first raises, in his opening post, in a section titled "Hoisting Him on His Own Petard", the standard of David's behaviour in the debate and its bearing upon David's claim to enlightenment, writing: "David has attempted to place himself beyond criticism by using tortured logic; he has built a small army of men of straw; he has given arguments on the nature of enlightenment which, in terms of Buddhism, lack compassion and responsibility, and he has presented himself as his own authority for his writing", and concluding this post with, "I ask you to consider if what you witnessed from David is likely the behavior of an enlightened man, or alternatively, if that is enlightenment would you want it?"
Robert returns to this point in his third and final post, asking us to consider David's so-called enlightened behaviour, in which David:
- "fell apart" when accusing Robert of being emotional, and in writing of Robert's "insane, frothing-at-the-mouth charges",
- became "very distracted by Robert" in writing an "analysis of the reasons" for Robert's "supposed hysterical smear campaign",
- strayed from the topic and wrote "several [...] paragraphs of ridiculous assertions",
- "is vain, announcing you cannot possibly understand him; [in which] he stubbornly clings to failed concepts like 'self-validation'; [in which] he claims to understand things he obviously does not, like Nagarjuna; [in which] he brings with him a troop of zombie disciples who mindlessly repeat his delusions; [in which] he makes pretentious claims that he knows Reality like the back of his hand; [in which] he falls apart before your eyes, and [in which] he can neither think nor debate worth spit".
As with the previous point, Robert's argument here suffers from its basis in a claim that is essentially unsupported: that the behaviour Robert cites actually is unenlightened. Again, I'm holding Robert to a high debating standard here, against which he fails to properly support his argument, but, again, his claim is very likely to be shared by a popular audience, who, in my opinion, are likely to agree that David's behaviour was not particularly enlightened.
Assessing Robert's (5): that David's lack of enlightenment disqualifies David, by David's own reasoning, from understanding enlightenment
Robert makes this argument only briefly, in his second post, writing: "No one in their right mind would accept on David Quinn's authority that David Quinn is enlightened. It is a rational necessity to reject his claim of enlightenment and with his claim rejected David has no foundation upon which to argue about enlightenment - he has himself implicitly argued you are not worthy to understand his material, if you are not enlightened".
As I argued earlier, in my opinion Robert over-reaches in his assertion that it is "a rational necessity" to reject David's claim to enlightenment. A conclusive and definitive rational rejection of David's claim (as opposed simply to strong scepticism towards it) would require the elimination of the possibility that it is true, a requirement that Robert has failed here to meet, and so, in my opinion, Robert's fifth point fails.
Overall assessment
Taking David's positive side before turning to Robert's negative side, my assessment is that David fails to mount a supported case. He presents a view of enlightenment which he does not even attempt (other than in responding to Robert's subsequent claim that David is in disagreement with Nagarjuna) to establish corresponds to the view of enlightenment of any pre-existing tradition: how, then, could he imagine he has established that he has "got it"? Got what? Got his own unique understanding, perhaps, but if so, then he ought not to have accepted the debate's proposition, whose phrasing - whether or not he has "got it" - presumes his agreement with some concept (most likely that of an Eastern tradition) other than one he has invented himself. His second point amounts to a mere circular assertion of his own enlightenment and his own understanding of enlightenment, and, as Robert points out (and here I'm watering down to an acceptable level an assertion of Robert's that I found to be too strong), can't be counted as evidence or rational argument in support of the affirmative proposition of the debate: here again David makes no reference to any tradition against which his "getting" of enlightenment can be tested. In taking on the affirmative side, David took on the burden of proving the affirmative proposition, which, in my assessment, he failed to do.
Turning, then, to Robert's points, I find that he scores one strong and two weak points on David's disagreement with Nagarjuna, and a moderate point on the lack of compassion in David's view of enlightenment, but that, holding him to the highest debating standard, his points on the incompatibility with understanding enlightenment of David's views on women and support for Weininger, and the incompatibility of David's debating behaviour with that of an enlightened man, are insufficiently supported, and that his argument that, rationally, we must reject David's claim to enlightenment out of hand, over-reaches and doesn't score. Robert then scores - at varying strengths - four points to David's zero.
Comments
The debate held a lot of drama and entertainment value, but in terms of substance it was lacking. A reader going into it hoping to get substantial insight into "the nature of enlightenment" would have come away disappointed. David's description consisted almost entirely of unsupported assertions, and the opposing picture of enlightenment painted by Robert was very thin on the ground: the only two positive descriptions of enlightenment with which he provided us were "compassionate" and "ineffable"; his presentation of Nagarjuna's eight negations lacked much commentary, and he didn't do much to explain the various positions of Nagarjuna's against which he contrasted David's positions - all of this left me scratching my head about exactly what Robert's view of enlightenment was, and whether, according to Robert, enlightenment even holds any real meaning at all. The commentary thread was more useful on this question, especially Thomas Knierim's post in which he outlined the various positive attributes of enlightenment maintained by various Buddhist traditions, and briefly raised the possibility of alternative - e.g. psychoanalytic - interpretations of enlightenment.
Given the debate topic, it was Robert's task to contrast David's description of enlightenment against the standard Eastern understanding of enlightenment. It would have been interesting, though, to have seen Robert also critique David's view of enlightenment in isolation or on its own terms, pointing out where it is or is not a useful and/or wholesome one. Arguably, that was a task for another debate with a suitably worded topic (perhaps a follow-up debate, although with Robert's passing, that opportunity has now been lost).
