Practical Wisdom A Theravada Buddhist Critique of Minimal Amount of Consciousness Thought

Abstract

Hubert Dreyfus introduced the concept of “absorbed coping,” or “skillful coping,” to explain practical wisdom. He divides human performance based on knowledge and experience into five stages, where “Expertise” is the most advanced among them. Experts are believed to be able to immediately and intuitively respond to situations. Given that this capacity does not involve reasoning or reason-giving, analytic philosophy has not been able to fully account for the concept of expertise. For Dreyfus, skills are stored and cannot be considered as representations in the mind. This notion has sparked a series of critical debates from McDowell. Dreyfus argues that attention has no role to play in absorbed coping since by definition it succeeds only in those circumstances where we are not paying attention to the activity it solicits. Recently, James M. Dow introduced a new framework which contrasts with Dreyfus’. He gives the example of a Yogi whose activity, Dow claims, does not get interrupted by the self-awareness of expertise. The Yogi requires “attention” in order to perform, and yet he also recognizes where there is a room for improvement. This paper aims to strengthen Dow's view by introducing Buddhist phenomenology and the notion of Vipassana into the framework. In addition, it also suggests the possibility of acquiring skillful-attention through the basic practice of Vipassana. to cultivate “skillful-attention.” Ultimately, detailed reports of skilled bodily actions in terms of the “what” and “how” of higher-skilled Vipassana practitioners can be used against Dreyfus’ claim that experts lack reason-giving.