Is the Buddhist Doctrine of Non-Self Conceptually Coherent?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.v28i2.187Keywords:
anatta, non-self, cogito, self, personal identity, Descartes, LichtenbergAbstract
Virtually all schools of Buddhism do not accept a permanent, substantial self, and see everything as non-self (anatta). In the first part of this article I recall some arguments traditionally given in support of this perspective. Descartes’ cogito argument contradicts this, by suggesting that we know infallibly that the self, understood as a substantial enduring entity, does exist. The German aphorist Lichtenberg has suggested that all Descartes could claim to have established was the impersonal ‘There is thinking’ (Es denkt), which would support the perspective of non-self. Bernard Williams has argued that Lichtenberg’s impersonal version of the cogito is conceptually incoherent, which would entail that the Buddhist perspective of non-self is also incoherent. I propose to defend the coherence of the Buddhist perspective of non-self against Williams’s argument.References
Bodhi, Bhikkhu. 2000. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha. A Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya. Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications.
Bodhi, Bhikkhu, ed. 1993. Abhidhammattha Sangaha. A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma. Onalsaka, WA: BPS Pariyatti Editions.
Carruthers, P. 2005. Consciousness: Essays from a Higher-Order Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cassam, Q. 1997. Self and World. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Descartes, R. 1641/1993. Meditations on First Philosophy, translated by D. A. Cress. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Evans, G. 1982. The Varieties of Reference, edited by J. McDowell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gennaro, R., ed. 2004. Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
Gethin, R. 1998. The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, P. 1995. The Selfless Mind — Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism. London: Routledge.
Hume, D. 1739/1951. A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by I. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason, translated by N. Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan.
Kriegel, U. 2009. Subjective Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570355.001.0001
Kriegel, U., and K. Williford, eds. 2006. Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lichtenberg, G. C. 1971. Schriften und Briefe. Vol. 2. Munich: Carl Hanser.
Lycan, W. 1996. Consciousness and Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Matilal, B. K. 1986. Perception. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
McDowell, J. 1994. Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Parfit, D. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rosenthal, D. 1997. ‘A theory of consciousness’, in The Nature of Consciousness, edited by N. Block, O. Flanagan, and G. Güzeldere, 729–754. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Siderits, M. 2003. Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Strawson. P. F. 1966. The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. London: Methuen.
Williams, B. 1978. Descartes. The Project of Pure Inquiry. London: Penguin Books.
Yao, Z. 2005. The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition. New York: Routledge.
