Category Archives: Buddhism

The Tangle

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“Snarled, knotted—these neurons got as tangled
As the hair on top. The living are snagged
In their own matted mess, they are this thatch.
Who, I ask you, can fix such a tangle?”

“A person. Ethical. Concentrating. 
Insightful. Methodical yet ardent.
Someone who has fully accepted this task.
This person can unravel the tangle.

“Desire, hatred, and ignorance fade
While you pay attention to untangling.
Name and form fade, and the gap is gone
Between wish and fact. Then: no more tangle.”

This is a loose rendition of Linked Discourses 1.23 from the Pali Canon (a dialogue between a troubled demigod and the Buddha). Buddaghosa presents an entire book, The Path to Purification (probably 5th century CE), as a commentary on the second verse of this poem. See also: “Tangled Beauty,” The Fetter, etc.

why be introspective?

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According to Thomas Chatterton Williams, some leading tech oligarchs are explicitly against introspection. The “venture capitalist Marc Andreessen says that he engages in ‘zero’ introspection—or at least ‘as little as possible.’” Similarly, the billionaire investor Peter Thiel “contends that looking inward can impede action.”

Both men think that introspection is a recent phenomenon, or at least a growing one. Thiel blames “hippies, who derailed American technological progress when they ‘took over the country’ in the late 1960s.” Andreessen says, “If you go back, 400 years ago, it never would have occurred to anybody to be introspective.”

They are definitely wrong about history. Exactly 400 years ago (in 1626), John Milton began his third elegy: “Silent I sat, dejected, and alone, / Making in thought the public woes my own” (citing Cowper’s translation of Milton’s Latin).

About 2,000 years before that, Socrates had said, “The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being” (Apology 37e), and his premise was echoed by all the Greek philosophical schools. Two millennia of Christian introspection resulted from this Greek heritage plus the Biblical injunction “For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). For example, St. Augustine wrote, “Do not go outside, come back into yourself. It is in the inner self that Truth dwells” (De vera religione, 39).

Meanwhile, verses like this were being attributed to the Buddha: “The mind is fast-moving and hard to subdue, / landing wherever it wishes; / it is good to train it— / a trained mind brings happiness” (Dhp 33–43). And, further east, “The Master [Confucius] said: ‘If you learn without thinking about what you have learned, you will be lost. If you think without learning, however, you will fall into danger'” (Analects 2.15).

Notwithstanding all this ancient advice, the tech bros may spend their entire lives taking pleasure from success and power without suffering the self-doubts and anxieties that result from introspection. Since I don’t happen to believe in a posthumous reckoning, I think their lives may conclude without any penalty for having been (as Williams says) “pathologically unreflective.” If a good life is one of pleasure, then their odds of attaining it are as high as anyone’s.

But is pleasure good? That is an ethical question, in the original sense of an ethos as a matter of character. Here is a very general account of what it means to be ethical:

  1. It is better to be good or right than bad or wrong
  2. This principle both applies inwardly and outwardly. That is, it is better to be good rather than bad to yourself and better to be good rather than bad to others.
  3. It is not obvious what being good entails. Neither the outcome (a good state) nor the appropriate means to reach this outcome is self-evident. For example, it is not obvious whether (or when, or to what extent) pleasure is good, either for oneself or for others.
  4. To know what is good requires wisdom or discernment, which is a matter of character.
  5. To improve one’s character requires knowing what it is.
  6. Therefore, introspection is crucial; the unexamined life is not worth living.

I presume that Andreeson, Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and other oligarchs (financial or political) would disagree with all of these points, and certainly with the final one.

So did Thrasymachus, as he is presented in Plato’s Republic. Thrasymachus has the arrogant, combative, proudly selfish air of a contemporary tech bro. Like them, he is successful, and he is developing a powerful technology (in his case, Sophistic rhetoric).

Socrates tries to prove to Thrasymachus that it is better to be just than unjust. Influenced by previous interpretations, I believe that Socrates essentially fails. Thrasymachus leaves, and Socrates’ disciples observe that he was unconvinced. Once he is gone, Socrates develops a detailed account of justice for them. This is a metaphor for the idea that ethical reasoning is persuasive for those who accept the first point listed above, but not for others. There are ethical reasons, but there are no reasons to be ethical.

Even before Thrasymachus exits the dialogue, Cephalus has departed. He is a character who has lived a conventionally respectable life–he has basically tried to do good but without asking what goodness is. I think his departure is a metaphor for the idea that it can be better to be good than to think too much about it, contrary to Socrates’ premise that the good life is an examined one.

It is possible to live beneficially without giving ethics too much thought, although success is then a matter of chance. It is also possible to live ethically–displaying some introspection and self-improvement.

An ethical life can serve as an example, but it will not inspire everyone. Those who are not drawn to ethics cannot be proven wrong and may not pay any price for their refusal. To the extent that their behavior threatens others, they must (like everyone else) face the restraints and penalties of the law. But they may not cause great harm or break major rules, and they have a right to organize their inner lives as they wish. Although their lives are worse for being unreflective, they will never know it.

See also: Cephalus; varieties of skepticism; introspect to reenchant the inner life, etc.

How do we know whether fish are happy? How do we know whether we are? (Zen, Aristotelian, and Taoist discussions)

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When you watch fish swimming around in very cold water, they look fine. Human beings have a protein, TRPM8, that reacts to cold and affects our nervous system, causing discomfort or even pain when the temperature goes down. But fish do not have any TRPM8 (Yong p. 138). Thus we can infer that fish do not sense cold in the way we do.

This does not mean that we know what cold is really like, while fish do not. Nor does it mean that our pain is nothing real, as if we can make it go away by disbelieving it. Nor does it mean that we know what it feels like to be a fish. But we can perceive a difference between species.

Long before anyone knew about proteins, the behavioral difference between us and fish was obvious enough that it served as an example for several thinkers who asked whether experiences like pleasure and suffering are subjective. More deeply, they asked what happiness is.

Japanese Zen Buddhism uses the term kyogai. Often translated as “consciousness,” it literally means “boundary” or “bounded place,” deriving originally from the Sanskrit word visayah, in the sense of a pasture that has a boundary. The Buddhist Abbot Mumon Yamada (1900-1988) taught:

This thing called kyogai is an individual thing. …. Only another fish can understand the kyogai of a fish. In this cold weather, perhaps you are feeling sorry for the fish, poor thing, for it has to live in the freezing water. But don’t make the mistake of thinking it would be better off if you put it in warm water; that would kill it. You are a human and there is no way you can understand the kyogai of a fish.

I think the upshot here is humility: if things seem and feel very different to creatures that have different senses, we cannot really know how things are. We should be compassionate, but that is harder than it may at first appear because it requires knowing what another feels. It would not be compassionate to move carp to a warmer pond. Our humility must temper even our compassion.

Aristotle wants to distinguish wisdom, which is knowledge of objective truths, from practical wisdom or phronesis, which allows us to act well. For example, “straight” (using the term from geometry) always means the same thing. The line that takes the shortest distance between two points is straight, regardless of whether any creature sees it as such–or sees it at all. In fact, a line would be straight even if there were no sentient creatures. Hence geometry is a part of wisdom.

However, says Aristotle, different things are healthy and good for people and for fish, and human phronesis involves doing the healthy thing for us, not for them. The “lower animals” also have practical wisdom because they also know what to do. If we try to convince ourselves that our phronesis is wisdom because we are higher than fish, we are foolish because there are things far more divine than we are (NE 1143a).

The upshot, for Aristotle, is that each creature has its own nature, and the proper definition of happiness is acting according to that nature. This means that a fish is happy if it swims around in the cold, not because that behavior feels good to it, but because happiness is accordance with nature. One distinguishing feature of human beings is that we can also know wisdom, or glimpses of it, by studying things higher than ourselves. Thus, for Aristotle, observing the behavior of fish does not really encourage humility. It directs us to identify our proper nature and its place in the cosmos as a whole.

Now here is a passage from Zhuangzi:

Zhuangzi and Huìzi wandered along the bridge over the Hao river. Zhuangzi said, ‘The minnows swim about so freely and easily. This is the happiness of fish’.

Huìzi said, ‘You’re not a fish. How do you know the happiness of fish?

Zhuangzi said, ‘You’re not me. How do you know I don’t know the happiness of fish?’

Huìzi said, ‘I’m not you, so indeed I don’t know about you. You’re indeed not a fish, so that completes the case for your not knowing the happiness of fish’.

Zhuangzi said, ‘Let’s go back to where we started. When you said, “How do you know the happiness of fish”, you asked me about it already knowing that I knew it. I knew it over the Hao river’. (17/87–91)

I have virtually no knowledge of Taoism or its context, so it is risky for me to venture an interpretation. But I think the idea here is that neither of the men in the story can know the other, let alone the fish, and therefore all knowledge (including of one’s self) is illusory. However, Zhuangzi was right in the first place. “This” was the happiness of fish. He could not know its content or how happiness would feel to a fish, only that because fish were being fish, they were happy.

Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Penguin Random House, 2022); Yamada as cited in Victor Sogen Hori, “Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum,” in The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism (2000); Zhuangzi. The Complete Writings, translated by Chris Fraser (Oxford World’s Classics, p. 200). I translated Aristotle from the 1894 Clarendon edition on https://scaife.perseus.org/, but I have paraphrased here because the literal text is thorny. See also: some basics; Verdant mountains usually walk

how Hannah Arendt moved away from pure thinking

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Mystics have often advised that by turning our minds inward, we may find freedom. For instance, Marcus Aurelius restates a Greco-Roman commonplace when he writes, “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. …. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul” (2:8 and 4:3).

Roughly similar ideas can be found in classical Indian and Christian sources:

“In dependence on the ear and sounds … In dependence on the mind and mental phenomena, mind-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as condition, feeling comes to be; with feeling as condition, craving. But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving comes cessation of clinging … cessation of existence … cessation of birth; with the cessation of birth, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair cease. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering. This, bhikkhus, is the passing away of the world.” (Buddha, in the Pali Canon, SN 12.44)

— “But, Sir, where is the silence and where the place in which the word is spoken?”
— “As I said just now, it is in the purest part of the soul, in the noblest, in her ground, aye in the very essence of the soul. There is the central silence, into which no creature may enter, nor any image, nor has the soul there either activity or understanding, therefore she is not aware of any image either of herself or any creature. Whatever the soul effects she effects with her powers.” (Meister Eckhart, Sermon 1)

The same general idea appealed to the young Hannah Arendt. Her turn away from it explains much about her mature thought.

At age 65, Arendt recalled her early encounters with Martin Heidegger. “The rumor about Heidegger put it quite simply: Thinking has come to life again. … There exists a teacher; one can perhaps learn to think.” She remembered that in Heidegger’s seminars, she and her fellow students experienced “thinking as pure activity—and this means impelled neither by the thirst for knowledge nor by the drive for cognition.” They found that thinking can “become a passion” that orders the rest of one’s life.

One of the ways that Heidegger and his students would “think” was by analyzing a mental phenomenon in great detail. Heidegger resists saying that he “observes” his own mental states, such as his anxiety or boredom. That would be psychological research. Instead, “Our fundamental task now consists in awakening a fundamental attunement in our philosophizing.” He and his students would let their moods and other mental states reveal themselves, and they saw this as a path to truth and freedom.

Certainly, Heidegger’s method was not identical to the meditative exercises of Marcus Aurelius, Buddha, or Meister Eckhardt, but it resembled them in a very general way. And it drew Arendt to Heidegger.

In the winter of 1925-6, Arendt ended her romantic relationships with him and wrote a poem about her feelings: “Klage” (or “Lament”), which I have translated here. It is a teenager’s breakup lyric. It is also a very carefully constructed poem, rhymed and rhythmic, which means that it cannot be a literal report of its author’s mental state. Although she begins, “Oh, the days they pass by uselessly,” some of her hours must have been spent rhyming “Nieder” with “Lieder” and “wie Spiel” with “Qualenspiel”–and, I presume, enjoying the results.

Meanwhile, the poem is deeply Heideggerian, focusing on how time becomes evident when we are distressed and ending with a claim of authenticity: “Time, it slides over me, and then it slides away,” yet “Never will it make me give away / The bliss of lovely truth.”

Having read the mature work of the political theorist Hannah Arendt, you would assume that she would not want to retreat into introspection, especially meditation on the highly abstract and general topics that interested Heidegger. You would assume that she would decry an inward turn as irresponsibly apolitical. She would advocate engagement with fellow citizens as the basis of a good (and free) life.

One way that she brought herself to this conclusion was by way of her encounter with Rahel Varnhagen (1771-1831). Soon after Arendt left Heidegger, she began to write a book about this Prussian-Jewish salon hostess of the Romantic period.

In Arendt’s account, Varnhagen (born Levin) turned to private introspection to find freedom. Varnhagen presumed that “self-thinking brings liberation from objects and their reality, creates a sphere of pure ideas and a world which is accessible to any rational being without benefit of knowledge or experience” (p. 54). Arendt explains: “If thinking rebounds back upon itself and finds its solitary object within the soul—if, that is, it becomes introspection—it distinctly produces … a semblance of unlimited power by the very act of isolation from the world; by ceasing to be interested in the world it also sets up a bastion in front of the one ‘interesting’ object: the inner self” (p. 55).

This practice of reflecting on one’s inner life (and writing some 6,000 letters about it) was particularly appealing to someone in Varnhagen’s circumstances. She experienced prejudice as a Jew yet lacked commitment to Judaism or to other aspects of her heritage, or even much knowledge of them. She never received a formal education, so she couldn’t investigate history, society, or nature in an advanced way. Since she was poor, female, and–in her own view–physically unattractive, she had limited social prospects. She was drawn to investigating herself as if she were purely an instance of the human condition:

She saw herself as blocked not by individual and therefore removable obstacles, but by everything, by the world. Out of her hopeless struggle with indefiniteness arose her “inclination to generalize.” Reason grasped conceptually what could not be specifically defined, thereby saving her …. By abstraction reason diverted attention from the concrete; it transformed the yearning to be happy into a “passion for truth”; it taught “pleasures” which had no connection with the personal self (p. 59)

But there were reasons that she was so frustrated, and they were not inevitable features of human existence. These reasons included sexism and antisemitism. They explained some of what Varnhagen found when she looked within: her own bitter memories.

While you introspect, Arendt says, everything can feel calm and free. “The one unpleasant feature is that memory itself perpetuates the present, which otherwise would only touch the soul fleetingly. As a consequence of memory, therefore, one subsequently discovers that outer events, have a degree of reality that is highly disturbing” (p. 55).

Arendt uses “world” in a Heideggerian sense, which I think she will retain throughout her life. The “world” is the web of relationships into which we are born as human beings:

Relationships and conventions, in their general aspects, are as irrevocable as nature. A person probably can defy a single fact by denying it, but not that totality of facts which we call the world. In the world one can live if one has a station, a place on which one stands, a position to which one belongs. … In the end the world always has the last word because one can introspect only into one’s own self, but not out of it again (p. 58)

Arendt argues that Varnhagen gradually realized that she had a specific place in a specific world. Supposedly, her dying words were: “What a history! —A fugitive from Egypt and Palestine, here I am and find help, love, fostering in you people. … The thing which all my life seemed to me the greatest shame, which was the misery and misfortune of my life—having been born a Jewess—this I should on no account now wish to have missed” (p. 49). She had understood, in short, that had never been free in her inner life or in her conversations and correspondence with friends and lovers. But she had been a particular person in a specific place and time, and this had given her life meaning.

For Arendt, then, a good life must involve addressing the kinds of social injustices that made Varnhagen suffer–not simply to remedy or mitigate these injustices, but because an active and ethical engagement with the “world” is a better form of freedom than the one that is promised by introspection.

Sources: I quote Marcus Aurelius from Gregory Hays’ translation, and Heidegger from The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude 1,1,16a., translated by McNeill and Walker. I quote Arendt’s own English version of her Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess from The Portable Hannah Arendt, edited by William Peter Baehr (Penguin 2000).

See also: Hannah Arendt and philosophy as a way of life; introspect to reenchant the inner life; The Art of Solitude; Hannah Arendt seminar; Hannah Arendt and thinking from the perspective of an agent; etc.

The Way of Skepticism

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Here is a pitch for a book that I have finished drafting, with the title The Way of Skepticism:

In 2025, I was invited to give philosophy lectures in Kyiv, Ukraine (on the day of the third-worst bombardment in the war so far) and then at two Palestinian universities in the occupied West Bank. In both settings, I spoke as a philosopher and essentially made the following argument:

There are no answers to questions that have sometimes been thought to provide a basis for overall happiness, such as “What is the purpose of human life?”

You might expect that someone who teaches or writes about philosophy will offer ideas that you should believe. Famous philosophers and religious traditions have recommended various beliefs as the foundations of a happy life.

But beliefs are easily overrated, especially when we use them to assess a person’s authority or character. A strong attachment to beliefs can distort judgment, inhibit listening, and substitute for action. Disagreement about beliefs produces unnecessary distress and hostility. On the other hand, suspending the search for such truths can bring valuable relief if we renounce the pursuit in a wise way.

We can experience good things, such as pleasure and justice. These experiences are real enough, but there is no reason to presume that they fit neatly together, so that (for example) being fair to others will surely bring inner peace.

Paying close attention to particular people and animals, both oneself and others, reinforces skepticism about general matters, such as the purpose or the nature of life, by reminding us how different everything must seem to creatures who have different bodies and who experience different circumstances.

A focus on individual people and animals also encourages compassion for them. Genuine compassion spurs action on their behalf. And a life infused with compassion and beneficial action is better than one without those things, although it does not guarantee happiness.

There is an important difference between fact and error. Valuable information can be discovered, stored, shared, and revised collectively and can guide action. The problem is not knowledge (a social good) but individuals’ adherence to beliefs.

Skepticism does not imply that reality is only what can be empirically observed. Human understanding is limited, and reality exceeds what our minds can grasp. Skepticism can coexist with religious faith. It is not a theory of reality but a practical way for finite, fallible beings to navigate a world of suffering.

Skepticism about beliefs does not imply moral relativism. We make good and bad decisions. Ethical responsibility arises most powerfully in face-to-face encounters with other people. Being present with others creates moral demands. Decisions to act or to be present should arise from invitations and relationships. We should be committed to people (and animals), not to beliefs.

My lectures had mixed success, for reasons that I discuss in the manuscript. In neither setting would it have been appropriate for me to share a much longer argument. In the book, I offer more detail.

First, I ground the general points summarized above in a rich intellectual tradition. This tradition begins with the ancient Skeptical School (represented by Pyrrho of Ellis and Sextus Empiricus). Their arguments were intriguingly similar to portions of the classical Buddhist Pali Canon, which I also interpret and discuss.

Renaissance authors rediscovered Sextus’ work, and Michel de Montaigne developed a version of Greek Skepticism while drawing on other sources and adding his own insights. Montaigne did not know anything about Buddhism, but his commitment to compassion made his form of Skepticism resemble the Pali Canon as much as it resembled Sextus. Montaigne’s Essays suggested Skeptical themes to Shakespeare, which echo in John Keats and several modern authors for whom either Montaigne or Shakespeare have been touchstones.

I believe that my position benefits from close readings of Montaigne and some of his predecessors and influences, because these thinkers are complex and persuasive.

Second, the ancient Skeptics did not simply offer arguments in favor of Skepticism. (In fact, as they acknowledged, an argument against belief would risk self-contradiction). More usefully, they practiced and taught methods or meditative exercises that could reduce our level of belief in beneficial ways. Sextus offers several lists of these “modes” (the standard translation of his word for such methods), reaching a maximum of 10 in one text. Montaigne practices some of Sextus’ modes and discusses other ways that he has pursued equanimity.

In modern European authors and in some Mahayana Buddhist texts, I have found mental exercises that are fundamentally consistent with ancient Skepticism but more appropriate for our period. The bulk of my manuscript presents ten such modern Skeptical “modes”:

  1. Don’t strive to be original but think vividly. This method involves acknowledging that our best beliefs are often clichés (which is a specifically modern complaint). Seeing a belief as a cliché reduces our attachment to it without making us negate it.
  2. Adjust your relationship with the past and the future. This method involves identifying problematic mental states, such as dread and nostalgia, that depend on beliefs about time that we can challenge.
  3. Learn from shifting moods. Sextus and Montaigne try to shake our commitment to beliefs by showing that they depend on the mood that we happen to be in. Science offers methods that are supposed to combat all form of subjective bias, including moods; however, science cannot reveal what is good or right. Drawing on Heidegger, I argue that we can derive specific insights from each mood (because it is one way for us to be in the world), while also loosening our commitment to the beliefs associated with any given mood.
  4. Appreciate being oneself. Montaigne is a great student of his own experience, a phenomenologist before that word was coined. He gains happiness from this exploration. (“There is no description so hard, nor so profitable, as the description of a man’s own self.”) The goal of Do-It-Yourself phenomenology is not to discover general truths that will make us happy or better once we believe in them. Instead, DIY phenomenology can reveal complexities, mysteries, and depths that we can appreciate. By seeing ourselves as much more than suffering machines, we can increase how much we can enjoy being ourselves.
  5. Consider the boundaries of experience. Sextus and Montaigne emphasize that the world that we consider objective is actually contingent on whatever senses, values, and reasoning powers we happen to have. A different creature must inhabit a different world. The Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769), William Blake, and the young Ludwig Wittgenstein derived consolation from realizing that the world infinitely exceeds our capacity to know it; and we can learn from them.
  6. Don’t try to be perfect but appreciate the turn toward it. Let’s define a “sublime” experience as something far better than our usual life. From a classical Skeptical perspective, sublime experiences are neither true (revealing that the world is really better than it seems) nor false (as if we merely imposed our wishes on reality). Sublime experiences are simply experiences among others, but they are much more enjoyable. Therefore, we should seek them out.
  7. Recognize others in sublime experiences:Many modern views of the sublime are highly individualistic. They assume that anything of spiritual value must be timeless and can be appreciated by a lone individual who is in the right frame of mind. But we always learn what to value from other people, both living and dead. A sublime experience depends on the particular people who have influenced its creator and its audiences. This is a Skeptical point, suggesting that we would find different things beautiful and moving if we had different backgrounds. But it also gives us an opportunity to be grateful to the people who have shaped our values, and this gratitude can deepen our sublime experiences.
  8. Do things for their own sake. Many authors and even whole traditions offer the same valid advice: focus on doing the right thing, not on whether it has the intended outcomes. Derive satisfaction from the act, not its goal. I justify this advice in a Skeptical way and turn it into a “mode.” First try to identify morally good actions and then view them as intrinsically valuable ways of being, not as means to any end.
  9. Be compassionate (not sympathetic). Montaigne is a great proponent and exemplar of compassion. Properly understood, compassion is not a mirroring of someone else’s emotions, so that if they are angry, we must also feel anger. It is a specific emotion that can be positive (or at least calm) and must result in action. I draw on Buddhist texts and Emmanuel Levinas to present a view of compassion that is compatible with Skepticism.
  10. Decide what to do in conversation. Perhaps the most serious criticism of Skepticism is that it may discourage action. If we have no beliefs, then why should we do anything? Yet many people suffer, and we should help them. As Sextus and Montaigne emphasize, we have limited intellectual capacities and unreliable motives. Besides, as individuals, we cannot accomplish much. To put it bluntly, we are both stupid and weak. But we do have other people around us. By listening, talking, and working with others and reflecting on the results, we can make ourselves at least a bit wiser and stronger. Even when a group errs, we are at least in solidarity with the other members.

We live in a period of polarization and conflict, including several cruel wars. These challenges have political causes and require political solutions. Becoming a Skeptic is not a solution to such problems, but it is a way for an individual to navigate our current world with a dose of sanity and responsibility.

This book is also an argument for practicing the humanities–the disciplines that interpret human culture–to improve one’s inner life and one’s relationships with other human beings and animals. Reading for pleasure is in decline. The academic humanities are under political attack for being (allegedly) leftwing and economically unprofitable. And reading and writing risk being replaced by artificial intelligence. This book argues that engagement with texts can improve the inner life, but it also justifies other modes, including ones that require no texts.

(Revised for clarity on 1/7.) See also: three takes on the good life: Aristotle, Buddha, Montaigne; consider the octopus; does skepticism promote a tranquil mind?; notes from the West Bank; etc.