Introduction
Logical positivism, which aims at legitimizing philosophical phenomena discourses based on empirical evidence, heralded the science of philosophy. Before the era of verificationism, philosophy had gray areas such as whether scientific proof could elucidate facts about invisible things or scientific schools of thoughts could be justified (Uebel, 2013). One realm of humankind’s social life that is always mysterious is religion.
Different religious denominations exist due to the religious schisms that occurred during religious reformations period, with every sect professing its religion as supreme and only true. Though religion is about living a life that pleases a supreme deity, there are religious practices that are contrary to religious teachings, and thus phenomenal. In this view, this research paper aims at understanding the Tibetan monks’ practice of feeding the remains of one of their own to vultures, upon their demise, based on the Durkheim and Wittgensteinian’s approaches to social philosophy.
Tibetan Buddhists are amongst the most pious people due to their dedicated praying and meditations, besides being wise and kind. However, the act of living monks discarding the remains of their dead colleagues to vultures negates kindness in the eyes of many people. Most religions believe in burying the dead and consecrating their graves as a sign of respect and a proper send off to the after-life.
In addition, burying the dead makes them not to haunt the living since some religions believe in reincarnations and resurrections. Though this practice appears strange and perverse, there is a plausible explanation behind it. Perhaps the Buddhists’ point of view legitimizes their actions in an attempt to erase any negative perceptions.
The Durkheim’s Approach
As the bottom-line of Emile Durkheim’s doctrine on sociology was to understand society, there must be avoidance of reductionism and consideration of social phenomena as general things. According to Durkheim, social problems should be devoid of biological or philosophical explanations since they are not inherent in any individual and are unique with distinct determinants. Moreover, social problems continue long after a person has passed on and have forceful power among the living.
On religion, Emile Durkheim avers that religion was communal rather than individual, and religious phenomena emerge when there is a separation between the realm of profane and realm of sacred (Mauss, Hubert, & Hertz, 2016). In this light, one can thus explain a social phenomenon from a holistic point of view as opposed to focusing on the individuals executing the act. Sociologists should thus interrogate the phenomenon of the Tibetan monks who feed vultures the carcass of their colleagues as the external pressure acting on the group against the individual predilections of the monks.
The physical environment of Tibet has compelled the Tibetan monks to embrace scavenging by vultures as a means of disposing dead monks’ bodies against their will. The Buddhist monks believe in jhator, a sky burial (Pedersen, 2013). When a monk dies, his colleagues sever him into pieces and ferry him to the mountaintops for vultures to devour the corpse. As Tibet is located high in the Himalayas Mountains, there are no trees for building coffins or cremations.
Furthermore, the place is so rocky that digging graves is almost impossible. The Tibetans believe that the body is just a vessel housing the spirit, which is more important and ascends to heaven.
The physical environment is thus the monks’ explanation as to why they prefer the sky burial. The environment is an external force acting on the monks and compelling them to adopt a ritual that undermines their virtue of kindness and the sanctity souls that once lived. According to Hollis (1994), the environmental influence falls under the ontology of naturalistic. The environment is part of nature that has hidden elements that determine actors’ consciousness and actions, and further constitutes the realities of the social world. The environment is the determinant of human actions, and thus, in line with Hollis’ (1994) proclamation of Mill’s theory on the lack of liberalism, which holds that humans are incapable of making decisions without coercion from factors beyond their conscience.
The Wittgensteinian’s Approach
Ludwig Wittgenstein holds on two philosophies in which the first one concerns the logical association of proposition and the world for the establishment of the logic behind this connection solves the philosophical problem. The second one refutes the most of the assumptions of the first philosophy for it holds that the meaning of words lies within the context of the language game used. The concepts of his second philosophy, exemplified in his book, Philosophical Investigations, can explain the monks’ action.
Wittgenstein once informs a friend, Soren Kierkegaard, that Christianity is not a hypothesis about the attributes of paranormal entities, but it is the existing communication, whose requirement is moral rather than intellectual (Burley, 2015). Wittgenstein tried to assert that religion, just as philosophy, consists of theories seeking to explain the relationship between language and the world, and that description should replace explanations.
The monks have their reasons for disposing of the corpse via sky burials, which does not augur well with a majority of the populace. However, from the Wittgensteinian point of view, questioning this disposal method that the monks have enshrined in their religion negates religion. This view applies because questioning is an intellectual process that ultimately leads to the generation of theories that aimed at understanding this phenomenon, which Wittgenstein shunned.
Chopping up a human body in the eyes of many people is barbaric but in their defense, the monks perceive the body to be just a vessel that houses the spirit. Hacking a corpse into pieces is thus a way of hastening the release of the spirit into the spirit world (Bauer, 2014). Prior to chopping the dead bodies, the monks chant prayers and meditate, as a way of communicating to ‘Buddha’ to accept the incoming spirit and legitimize the disposal.
The meaning of the monks’ actions is thus enshrined in the description of the entire funeral process rather than just looking at the disposal part alone. The Wittgensteinian approach justifies the monks’ burial practices through fideism, which states that faith is independent of reason.
The Wittgensteinian approach is in harmony with Hollis’ (1994) Marxist epistemology that states that social being determines man’s conscience as opposed to man’s being a determiner his consciousness. Fideism obviates reason and zombifies the monks’ actions in the name of acting within the confines of the Buddhist religious norms. Since hacking of dead bodies is entrenched in their burial rituals and practices, and their progenitors practiced it for generations, the monks’ consciences are clear. Sky burial can, therefore, act as a rule governing Buddhism burial ritual, and thus, according to the Wittgensteinian approach, it has a meaning in the ‘game’ that is the burial ritual.
Assessment
Both the Durkheimian and Wittgensteinian approaches hold that the act of sky burial is a group’s undertaking and do not focus on the individuals. The two approaches uphold ‘individualism’ of human actions. Moreover, both approaches are unanimous that external pressures, either natural or supernatural, govern human actions. These external pressures are beyond humanity’s conscience, and are the contributing factors to humankind’s inability to practice ‘liberalism’.
The two approaches also support Mill’s theory on ontology, ‘being’, which holds that social being determines human conscience, which ultimately results in actions determining the structure.
In contrast, the two approaches differ in epistemology and application. Durkheimian approach does not attempt to explain the monks’ actions, and therefore, similar to Marxist epistemology. Comparatively, the Durkheimian approach tries to account for the rationale behind their action in the same way as Mill’s epistemology. Essentially, the former attempts to establish a methodology that allows the determination of the results or actions.
The approach embraces scientific reasoning to justify the action by looking at the circumstances underlying the action. This approach is commensurate to Bacon’s first theory of establishing the truth, rationalism, which Hollis (1994) elucidates very well in his book (1994). Though many people consider rationalism obsolete for empiricism, rationalism is the best way of establishing the truth about the causal order, according to Hollis (1994).
Conclusion
Even though social philosophies have been continually evolving, social philosophers cannot explain social phenomena based on a single philosophical standpoint. Social phenomena are complex, and key in deciphering and understanding their underpinnings is adopting an approach that captures the phenomena holistically. This approach draws inspiration from the inherent nature of interacting individuals making up the society. As a result of social dynamism, both the Durkheimian and Wittgensteinian social philosophies hold water and are indispensable in explaining social behavior.
References
Bauer, K. (2014). Vultures of Tibet. American Anthropologist, 116(2), 425-428.
Burley, M. (2015). Thomas Caroll: Wittgenstein within the philosophy of religion. International Journal for Philosophy and Religion, 77(2), 179-182.
Hollis, M. (1994).The philosophy of social science. United Kingdom, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Mauss, M., Hubert, H., & Hertz, R. (2016). Saints, heroes, myths and rites: Classical Durkheimian studies of religion and society. New York, NY: Routledge.
Pedersen, D. (2013). Forensic medicine seen through the eyes of a social anthropologist. Scandinavian Journal of Forensic Medicine, 19(1), 13-15.
Uebel, T. (2013). ‘Logical positivism’- ‘logical empiricism’: What is in a name? Perspectives on Science, 21(1), 58-99.