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Alan Watts?


illegitimatt

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Alan Watts is a philosopher, and many people have posted videos of his seminars, I used to listen to a lot of them and really felt like this guy understood reason, at least to some degree. I don't know much about his personal life. I was wondering what the breakdown of this guy is and I couldn't think of a better place to ask. So, if anyone knows about him and how well he holds up to upb, logic & reason, let's hear!

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I've listened to Alan Watts for a number of years, and kind of served as a "proto-molyneux" to me, his stance on modern society is nearly identical to Stefan's approach, but the the obvious difference lies in his sympathy with religion. Looking further, his real philosophy lies in Advaita or non-dualism. Although a systematic mental negation of reality-- it is patently non-violent, atheistic, and therefore within UPB, it's fine. This philosophy is not imposed violently on any individual, and it bears some research, traditional monotheistic religions have a lot of problems with this.

 

I wouldn't view Alan Watts as a philosopher in a pure sense, but an artist. Playing with thought concepts, and advocating a very creative non-violent way of life.

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  • 4 weeks later...

For clarification purpose , are you referring to this  Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British-born philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts

 

 

Or  Alan watt?  http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alan_Watt

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Earlier this year, I experienced some cognitive dissonance when heavily invested in both the perspectives of Watts and Molyneux. Perhaps I viewed them both as dogmatic bearers of universal truth, yet molyneux's lack of experience with Psychedelic drugs led me to some deep intense confusion in my search for a unified grand theory, which Watts seems to provide to some extent...  

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How serendipitous is this? I have an interest in pantheism and just came across his work yesterday and was intrigued. So I'll be looking into his "philosophy" more. Any recommendations on where to begin? 

Watch some of his podcasts then read "The Book: on the taboo against knowing who you really are"... 

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I'm listening to lots of You Tube stuff on him now. It's very interesting and dare I say enlightening to me. Are there any Stef podcasts addressing his thoughts on Alan Watts? I'm hearing a lot of history of eastern philosophy in Watts' work and since Stef's background is history of philosophy I was wondering if he studied any of this stuff and what he thought. Can anyone point to podcasts discussing this? 

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I'm listening to lots of You Tube stuff on him now. It's very interesting and dare I say enlightening to me. Are there any Stef podcasts addressing his thoughts on Alan Watts? I'm hearing a lot of history of eastern philosophy in Watts' work and since Stef's background is history of philosophy I was wondering if he studied any of this stuff and what he thought. Can anyone point to podcasts discussing this? 

Never heard Stef mention Watts. FDR 802 is podcast of Stef's thoughts on Buddhism.

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I've learned some of Krishnamurti's ideas via the Theosophical Society stuff which is far too religious and preachy for me. But I just looked him up on Wiki and am now intrigued to understand his work in more depth. It seems he broke with Theosophy due to the same issue I just stated. Any recommendations? 

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