Authors:Karsten J. STRUHL Abstract: Anand Vaidya, Sean Smith, and Mark Siderits have presented thoughtful comments and provocative challenges to my article “What Kind of an Illusion is the Illusion of Self'” Their challenges raise significant questions about the nature of illusion, whether Buddhism is denying the self in all senses of the term, whether there could be a self that exists for some limited duration of time and has at least some measure of control, whether there is a phenomenal illusion of self, whether the neuropsychological assumptions embedded in Thomas Metzinger’s Phenomenal Self Model is consistent with Buddhist metaphysics, the usefulness of evolutionary psychology in explaining why we have the illusion of self, whether the I-sense is a result of natural selection or cultural selection, vipassanā meditation as a form of verification and its usefulness for extinguishing the I-sense. The discussion here is my response to these criticisms through which I further clarify and develop my arguments and, in some ways, amend my position PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:53:12 PST
Authors:Anand J. VAIDYA Abstract: Karsten Struhl has offered an intriguing account of what kind of illusion the self is. His account is based on Buddhist philosophy, neuropsychology, and neuroscience. This critical notice examines his arguments, and aims to question whether or not the self is the kind of illusion Struhl argues it to be. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:53:08 PST
Authors:Danesh K. SINGH Abstract: Nietzsche and Zhuang Zi both believe that the supposed value of certain emotions they deem harmful should be questioned and that reflection can be utilized to change the emotions. They intend to disabuse those of their respective times of conventional morality, with the aim of achieving a state in which negative moral emotions are eliminated and a more natural way of life is embraced. Specifically, Nietzsche examines guilt, a remnant of an ascetic morality endorsed by the religious elite; Zhuang Zi, similarly, considers grief, a moral emotion tied to traditional culture and endorsed by Confucian morality. Living naturally involves the absence of psychic conflict that accompanies negative emotions; it also involves a psychological ease within ourselves and with the world. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:52:54 PST
Authors:Jerome KLOTZ Abstract: When comparing diverse philosophical traditions, it becomes necessary to establish a common point of departure. This paper offers a comparative analysis of Advaita Vedānta Hinduism and esoteric Christianity, as represented by the two highly celebrated figures of Śaṅkara and Nicholas Cusanus, respectively. The common point of departure on which I base this comparison is the concept of “non-duality”—a concept that is fitting for at least two reasons. First, it is general enough to encompass both traditions, pervading the work of each figure, and thus allowing for a kind of “shared language.” Second, it is specific enough to identify a set of core and well-defined principles amenable to systematic study, chief among which are the notions of (1) the “Absolute” as an infinite unity that transcends all determinations (“no-thing”) and exceeds all oppositions (“not-other”), and (2) the world as an ontologically ambiguous “reflection” that simultaneously hides and manifests its meta-ontological Principle. In drawing these connections, I hope to show how the concept of non-duality provides the possibility for a mutual understanding among diverse traditions at the philosophical level. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:52:50 PST
Authors:Javier HIDALGO Abstract: In contrast to Buddhist Reductionists who deny the ultimate existence of the persons, Buddhist Personalists claim that persons are ultimately real in some important sense. Recently, some philosophers have offered philosophical reconstructions of Buddhist Personalism. In this paper, I critically evaluate one philosophical reconstruction of Buddhist Personalism according to which persons are irreducible to the parts that constitute them. Instead, persons are emergent entities and have novel properties that are distinct from the properties of their constituents. While this emergentist interpretation is an interesting and well-motivated reconstruction of the Personalist position, I ultimately reject it on substantive grounds. I distinguish between different kinds of emergentism in the contemporary philosophical literature and show that they fail to support Buddhist Personalism. I thus conclude that Buddhist Personalism is untenable if it’s committed to emergentism about persons. This paper also indirectly defends Buddhist Reductionism by showing that it has crucial advantages over Buddhist Personalism. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:52:47 PST
Authors:Wung Cheong CHIM Abstract: The 18th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley argued that we might know of the existence of other minds based upon our experience of having certain sense-data or “ideas” imprinted upon us. This served, for Berkeley, ultimately as a basis for us to know of a “grand” other mind orchestrating the order among said ideas imprinted upon us, that is, God. This leap to God, however, has been challenged over the past three decades. A very rudimentary form could still be retained though from Berkeley’s argument for God, whereby Berkeley argued that human minds were dependent upon other “more powerful” minds. I shall open with the contention that Berkeley did not actually show that there must exist one or many other minds orchestrating the order among imprinted ideas. This contention shall serve as the ground for speculating what form Berkeleyanism would take, if we posit many other minds instead of one God. I shall argue that this Berkeleyanism “reworked” on the premise of many other minds, could understand those ideas imprinted upon us as having been decided by a commune of finite other minds. I shall also argue that the experience of having ideas imprinted upon us is identical to an experience the Japanese thinker of the same century, Motoori Norinaga, expressed with the phrase semusubenaki (“There is nothing to be done”). This experience of there being “nothing-to-be-done” (Nasusubenaki) shall also be situated within the Berkeleyanism “reworked” around the premise of a commune of other minds imprinting ideas upon us to speculative ends. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:52:43 PST
Authors:Charles BLATTBERG Abstract: A paradox, it is claimed, is a radical form of contradiction, one that produces gaps in meaning. In order to approach this idea, two senses of “separation” are distinguished: separation by something and separation by nothing. The latter does not refer to nothing in an ordinary sense, however, since in that sense what’s intended is actually less than nothing. Numerous ordinary nothings in philosophy as well as in other fields are surveyed so as to clarify the contrast. Then follows the suggestion that philosophies which one would expect to have room for paradoxes actually tend either to exclude them altogether or to dull them. There is a clear alternative, however, one that fully recognizes paradoxes and yet also strives to overcome them. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:52:40 PST
Authors:Peter ABSPOEL Abstract: Even in the field of comparative or cross-cultural philosophy, distinctive contributions by African philosophers are often side-lined – that is, relegated to niche publications. Why is it so hard for African philosophers to draw their Western colleagues (other than specialists in African philosophy) into a real dialogue' An attempt is made to describe the field of tension; it is shown that some of the reflexes that manifest themselves in it reveal not just the attachment to specific perspectives or frames of reference, but also implicit ideas about the nature of the “philosophical game”. On the Western side, motives constitutive of practical or traditional life are either ignored or tacitly equated with attempts to realize goals that can be best understood from a reflexive point of view. In this way, the concrete conditions of any human activity, including intellectual activity, are lost from view. This critical lesson has been spelt out by a number of philosophers (Maurice Blondel being one of them), but is seldom taken to heart. As a result, it becomes difficult to penetrate beyond conceptual differences. It will also be maintained that while many African philosophers question intellectualist attitudes, they do not always do so in a way that invites discussion on the central, or basic, issues. PubDate: Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:52:36 PST
Authors:Graham PRIEST Abstract: The is a brief reply to the central objection against the construction of my The Fifth Corner of Four by Andi Kapsner in his “Cutting Corners: A Critical Note on Priest’s Five-Valued Catuṣkoṭi. This concerns the desirability of adding a fifth corner (ineffability) to the four of the catuṣkoṭi. PubDate: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:55:41 PDT
Authors:Andreas KAPSNER Abstract: Graham Priest has offered a rational reconstruction of Buddhist thought that involves, first, modeling the Catuṣkoṭi by a four valued logic, and then later adding a fifth value, read as “ineffability”. This note examines that fifth value and raises some concerns about it that seem grave enough to reject it. It then sketches an alternative to Priest’s account that has no need for the fifth value. PubDate: Mon, 27 Jul 2020 09:55:36 PDT
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