The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Sun 28th June at 7pm UK time on Zoom. There’ll be a short talk on the focus on error as our fourth criterion for the Middle Way, followed by questions and discussion in regionalised breakout groups. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on the focus on judgement, please see this post.

Here are some brief details, stimulus questions and suggested reading for this session. The video of the talk and initial questions will also be posted here after the meeting.

Focus on error

The focus on error refers to the ways that we can be more confident in judging errors than we can in finding completely correct positive values. At a later time when we’re more aware, we can judge that we made a mistake in the past by limiting or absolutising our judgement. Positive values, on the other hand, are very subject to confirmation bias, where we get attached to one sort of positive ideal and perhaps have difficulty recognising alternatives.

Most political, religious, or other ideologies rely on appealing to a positive value (e.g. Enlightenment, God, Justice, Freedom), which is then in danger of justifying inflexible beliefs. The Middle Way, however focuses on how we judge rather than what we judge, whatever the values we are applying. The values we favour may well be good ones to apply to a particular situation, but our judgements about how to apply them will be less adequate if we’re not also aware of the dangers of interpreting them in fixed ways.

Stimulus questions These can be used in the group discussions if you wish.

1. Can you identify specific errors in your past experience, in the sense of judgements you have made that you now recognise were based on over-narrow assumptions?
2. What sorts of positive ideals do you find most inspiring?
3. In what ways could the positive ideals that you find inspiring be interpreted narrowly and thus be less adequate? What other values might they come into conflict with, that you might need to recognise?

Suggested further reading/ listening

Migglism chapter 3 (4 in e-book), first section, ‘Avoiding metaphysics’

MWS Podcast 125: Arie Kruglanski on close-mindedness and the Middle Way (there is also a discussion in the comments between Kruglanski and me)

Middle Way Philosophy 1, 4.g. ‘Objectivity, adaptivity and evolution’

The Buddha’s Middle Way 7.e ‘Alternative Sources of the Middle Way: Scientific Falsificationism’