[joshyeager]

Rather than saying "You are close to understanding, but keep going", it would be more helpful to explain why you think that disciplined empathy is no longer empathy.

I agree with the previous poster, but I'm curious to learn what you mean.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Being vague as all get out is really on brand for advice from the Dao De Ching.

[SpodGaju]

The vagueness of the Dao De Ching is not in the book, it is in reader.

It is not myself that creates the Dao, but I can thank you for creating the Dao!

When a superior person hears of the Tao, She diligently puts it into practice. When an average person hears of the Tao, he believes half of it, and doubts the other half. When a foolish person hears of the Tao, he laughs out loud at the very idea. If he didn’t laugh, it wouldn’t be the Tao.

[SketchySeaBeast]

While I can appreciate a well crafted burn as much as the next guy, that was really taking the long way around.

[SpodGaju]

Not a burn, it was effortless empathy. :)

[1tao]

Self is realized through selflessness :)

[wolverine876]

If you notice, much philosophy - generally defined, including religion - is vague. Much great art is vague. It may turn out that, unlike technical manuals, there is no value in spelling out everything. Either the reader engages or not and if they do, they don't need it spelled out - they create it in their own neural pathways, in their own mind, which is far more valuable than reading it. And if they don't, it doesn't matter anyway. It's not a new idea:

From the Christian Gospels (Mark 4)

Jesus tells the parable of the sower, ending, ""He who has ears, let him hear." And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that 'they may indeed see but not perceive, / and may indeed hear but not understand, / lest they should turn and be forgiven.'" And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.""

From the Quran:

As for the unbelievers, alike it is to them / whether thou hast warned them or hast not warned them, / they do not believe. / God has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, / and on their eyes is a covering, / and there awaits them a mighty chastisement.

Regarding allegory in Medieval philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-literary/

The controversial and difficult question is why these medieval thinkers chose the allegorical form, and whether the text can be understood without its allegorical form. Avicenna tells us that what he purports to do by allegory is to convey one message to the "many" in sensible imagery they can understand, while conveying a different message to the philosophically minded few .... Neoplatonic and Christian writers ... [cited] the importance of not 'casting one's pearls before swine' ...

[SketchySeaBeast]

I'd argue that you're conflating philosophy and religion, and that unlike what you're suggesting by that conflation, much of philosophy isn't vague - it's careful and well thought out. Here's a random passage from Decarte's Meditations:

I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than theological argument. For although it is quite enough for us faithful ones to accept by means of faith the fact that the human soul does not perish with the body, and that God exists, it certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade infidels of any religion, indeed, we may almost say, of any moral virtue, unless, to begin with, we prove these two facts by means of the natural reason.

What about this is vague? He's clearly laying out his goals and how he intends to do it. If you want to say that religion, as a particulary subset of philosophical thought, is often vague, then sure, but a lot of philosophy is very intentional and focused. It's setting out a goal and working towards achieving said goal, not trying to write in a manner that will appeal to everyone.

[wolverine876]

You are claiming that the writing in modern Western philosopy is known for clarity? Also, those aren't Decartes' words, which were in Latin (or French?).

[SpodGaju]

Thank you!

We have domesticated wolves so much that we call them dogs now. So we could actually call dogs "disciplined wolves", yes?

Like a "wolf" behaves differently than a "discipline wolf", "empathy" will express differently than "disciplined empathy". It is inauthentic.

You cannot change something and say it is the same thing.

Did that help?

If you are interesting, Chuang Tzu, a Daoist sage, had a lot to say about this.

http://nothingistic.org/library/chuangtzu/chuang23.html

[cgriswald]

A wolf behaves differently than another wolf. Yet they are both wolves. Even the same wolf expresses differently in different contexts or in arbitrarily similar contexts at different times. Yet he never stops being a wolf. Even a wolf in a cage is a wolf.

To say otherwise is to say there is no such thing as wolf or that there is a single platonic wolf and all other wolves are inauthentic. Either of these may be true, but I doubt there is much practical advice in this idea for learning to deal with a lack of boundaries created by empathetic confusion.

[SpodGaju]

> To say otherwise is to say there is no such thing as wolf

I am not saying otherwise. There is no such thing as a wolf.

Yet there is.

Our language is a tool we use to categorize an infinite reality. Like you said, there are an infinite amount of wolves, but we reduce them using language. There is nothing wrong with this until we start thinking our language is the reality.

So where is the border between wolf and dog? If A wolf is nice too a human do we suddenly call it a dog? Does not the very distinction of a wolf and a dog rely, not on the species, but on the human? Does a dog think still think it is a wolf? Is a dog just a wolf that tricks us so it can get free food and shelter?

We do the same thing with empathy. By defining it with language we reduce it and confine it which it cannot be reduced or confined. Like everything else, empathy is infinite and unlimited in its expression.