The No-Self Theory: Hume, Buddhism, and Personal Identity Author(S): James Giles Reviewed Work(S): Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol
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Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza's Ethics
Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVI (2002) Eternity and Immortality in Spinoza’s Ethics STEVEN NADLER I Descartes famously prided himself on the felicitous consequences of his philoso- phy for religion. In particular, he believed that by so separating the mind from the corruptible body, his radical substance dualism offered the best possible defense of and explanation for the immortality of the soul. “Our natural knowledge tells us that the mind is distinct from the body, and that it is a substance...And this entitles us to conclude that the mind, insofar as it can be known by natural phi- losophy, is immortal.”1 Though he cannot with certainty rule out the possibility that God has miraculously endowed the soul with “such a nature that its duration will come to an end simultaneously with the end of the body,” nonetheless, because the soul (unlike the human body, which is merely a collection of material parts) is a substance in its own right, and is not subject to the kind of decomposition to which the body is subject, it is by its nature immortal. When the body dies, the soul—which was only temporarily united with it—is to enjoy a separate existence. By contrast, Spinoza’s views on the immortality of the soul—like his views on many issues—are, at least in the eyes of most readers, notoriously difficult to fathom. One prominent scholar, in what seems to be a cry of frustration after having wrestled with the relevant propositions in Part Five of Ethics,claims that this part of the work is an “unmitigated and seemingly unmotivated disaster.. -
Identity, Personal Continuity, and Psychological Connectedness Across Time and Over
1 Identity, Personal Continuity, and Psychological Connectedness across Time and over Transformation Oleg Urminskyi, University of Chicago University of Chicago, Booth School of Business Daniel Bartels, University of Chicago University of Chicago, Booth School of Business Forthcoming, Handbook of Research on Identity Theory in Marketing 2 ABSTRACT: How do people think about whether the person they’ll be in the future is substantially the same person they’ll be today or a substantially different, and how does this affect consumer decisions and behavior? In this chapter, we discuss several perspectives about which changes over time matter for these judgments and downstream behaviors, including the identity verification principle (Reed et al. 2012) — people’s willful change in the direction of an identity that they hope to fulfill. Our read of the literature on the self-concept suggests that what defines a person (to themselves) is multi-faceted and in almost constant flux, but that understanding how personal changes relate to one’s own perceptions of personal continuity, including understanding the distinction between changes that are consistent or inconsistent with people’s expectations for their own development, can help us to understand people’s subjective sense of self and the decisions and behaviors that follow from it. 3 A person’s sense of their own identity (i.e., the person’s self-concept) plays a central role in how the person thinks and acts. Research on identity, particularly in social psychology and consumer behavior, often views a person’s self-concept as a set of multiple (social) identities, sometimes characterized in terms of the category labels that the person believes apply to themselves, like “male” or “high school athlete” (Markus and Wurf 1987). -
Studies in Central & East Asian Religions Volume 9 1996
Studies in Central & East Asian Religions Volume 9 1996 CONTENTS Articles Xu WENKAN: The Tokharians and Buddhism……………………………………………... 1 Peter SCHWEIGER: Schwarze Magie im tibetischen Buddhismus…………………….… 18 Franz-Karl EHRHARD: Political and Ritual Aspects of the Search for Himalayan Sacred Lands………………………………………………………………………………. 37 Gabrielle GOLDFUβ: Binding Sūtras and Modernity: The Life and Times of the Chinese Layman Yang Wenhui (1837–1911)………………………………………………. 54 Review Article Hubert DECLEER: Tibetan “Musical Offerings” (Mchod-rol): The Indispensable Guide... 75 Forum Lucia DOLCE: Esoteric Patterns in Nichiren’s Thought…………………………………. 89 Boudewijn WALRAVEN: The Rediscovery of Uisang’s Ch’udonggi…………………… 95 Per K. SØRENSEN: The Classification and Depositing of Books and Scriptures Kept in the National Library of Bhutan……………………………………………………….. 98 Henrik H. SØRENSEN: Seminar on the Zhiyi’s Mohe zhiguan in Leiden……………… 104 Reviews Schuyler Jones: Tibetan Nomads: Environment, Pastoral Economy and Material Culture (Per K. Sørensen)…………………………………………………………………. 106 [Ngag-dbang skal-ldan rgya-mtsho:] Shel dkar chos ’byung. History of the “White Crystal”. Religion and Politics of Southern La-stod. Translated by Pasang Wangdu and Hildegard Diemberger (Per K. Sørensen)………………………………………… 108 Blondeau, Anne-Marie and Steinkellner, Ernst (eds.): Reflections of the Mountains. Essays on the History and Social Meaning of the Cult in Tibet and the Himalayas (Per K. Sørensen)…………………………………………………………………………. 110 Wisdom of Buddha: The Saṃdhinirmocana Mahāyāna Sūtra (Essential Questions and Direct Answers for Realizing Enlightenment). Transl. by John Powers (Henrik H. Sørensen)………………………………………………. 112 Japanese Popular Deities in Prints and Paintings: A Catalogue of the Exhibition (Henrik H. Sørensen)…………………………………………………………………………. 113 Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Henrik H. -
Ludwig.Wittgenstein.-.Philosophical.Investigations.Pdf
PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS By LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN Translated by G. E. M. ANSCOMBE BASIL BLACKWELL TRANSLATOR'S NOTE Copyright © Basil Blackwell Ltd 1958 MY acknowledgments are due to the following, who either checked First published 1953 Second edition 1958 the translation or allowed me to consult them about German and Reprint of English text alone 1963 Austrian usage or read the translation through and helped me to Third edition of English and German text with index 1967 improve the English: Mr. R. Rhees, Professor G. H. von Wright, Reprint of English text with index 1968, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, Mr. P. Geach, Mr. G. Kreisel, Miss L. Labowsky, Mr. D. Paul, Miss I. 1981, 1986 Murdoch. Basil Blackwell Ltd 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be NOTE TO SECOND EDITION reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or THE text has been revised for the new edition. A large number of otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. small changes have been made in the English text. The following passages have been significantly altered: Except in the United States of America, this book is sold to the In Part I: §§ 108, 109, 116, 189, 193, 251, 284, 352, 360, 393,418, condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re- 426, 442, 456, 493, 520, 556, 582, 591, 644, 690, 692. -
Mining for Gold
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Leibniz: Personal Identity and Sameness of Substance
ROCZNIKI FILOZOFICZNE Tom LXV, numer 2 – 2017 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18290/rf.2017.65.2-5 PRZEMYSŁAW GUT * LEIBNIZ: PERSONAL IDENTITY AND SAMENESS OF SUBSTANCE Leibniz’s view on personal identity has been the object of numerous dis- cussions and various interpretations.1 Among others, the controversies re- volve around the following questions: (1) What is the relation of Leibniz’s conception to the Cartesian view on personal identity? Is it a completely new idea or some modification of Descartes’? (2) To what extent did Locke’s ideas lay the basis for Leibniz’s conception of personal identity, especially Locke’s distinction between being the same substance, organism, and per- son? (3) What role did psychological continuity play in Leibniz’s conception of personal identity? Did he indeed claim that a person’s identity cannot solely arise out of sameness of substance? (4) Is Leibniz’s solution to the problem of personal identity compatible with his deepest metaphysical com- mitments? Can it be seen as a conclusive solution to the problem? (5) Is Leibniz’s effort to offer an account of personal identity by combining the 2 substance-oriented view with the psychological view a coherent solution? Dr hab. PRZEMYSŁAW GUT, Prof. KUL – Katedra Historii Filozofii Nowożytnej i Współ- czesnej, Wydział Filozofii, Katolicki Uniwersytetu Lubelski Jana Pawła II; adres do korespon- dencji: Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin; e-mail: [email protected] 1 The abbreviations I use are: Erdmann = Gottfried Wilhelm LEIBNIZ, Opera philosophica om- nia, ed. Johann Eduard Erdmann (Berlin: Scientia Verlag Aalen, 1840); GP = Die philosophischen Schriften von G.W. -
Greece, the Mother of All Religious Art
GREECE, THE MOTHER OF ALL RELIGIOUS ART BY THE EDITOR. the of eternal principles we may IF revelation means discovery justly declare that the Greek nation has been the medium for the revelation of art to mankind as well as the founder of science. The Greek style of literature, Greek methods of artistic represen- tation. Greek modes of thought have become standards and are therefore in this sense called "classical." We stand on the shoul- ders of the ancient Greeks, and whatever we accomplish is but a continuing- of their work, a building higher upon the foundations they have laid. This is true of sculpture, of poetry and of the basic principle of the science of thought, of logic, and also of mathematics. Euclid, more than Leviticus or Deuteronomy, is a book inspired by God.^ Whatever the non-Euclideans- may have to criticize in the outlines of Euclid's plane geometry, we must say that the author of this brief work is, in a definite and well-defined sense, the prophet of the laws that prevail in the most useful of all space- conceptions. By Euclid we understand not so much the author of the book that goes under his name, but the gist of the book itself, the thought of it, the conception of geometry and the principles which are embodied in it. In our recognition of Euclid's geometry we include his predecessors, whosoever they may have been. The man who for the first time in the history of mankind conceived the idea of points, lines, planes as immaterial quantities, as thought-constructions or whatever you may call the presentation of pure figures and their interdependence, was really a divinely inspired mind. -
Overturning the Paradigm of Identity with Gilles Deleuze's Differential
A Thesis entitled Difference Over Identity: Overturning the Paradigm of Identity With Gilles Deleuze’s Differential Ontology by Matthew G. Eckel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy Dr. Ammon Allred, Committee Chair Dr. Benjamin Grazzini, Committee Member Dr. Benjamin Pryor, Committee Member Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2014 An Abstract of Difference Over Identity: Overturning the Paradigm of Identity With Gilles Deleuze’s Differential Ontology by Matthew G. Eckel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy The University of Toledo May 2014 Taking Gilles Deleuze to be a philosopher who is most concerned with articulating a ‘philosophy of difference’, Deleuze’s thought represents a fundamental shift in the history of philosophy, a shift which asserts ontological difference as independent of any prior ontological identity, even going as far as suggesting that identity is only possible when grounded by difference. Deleuze reconstructs a ‘minor’ history of philosophy, mobilizing thinkers from Spinoza and Nietzsche to Duns Scotus and Bergson, in his attempt to assert that philosophy has always been, underneath its canonical manifestations, a project concerned with ontology, and that ontological difference deserves the kind of philosophical attention, and privilege, which ontological identity has been given since Aristotle. -
'Self-Blame' and Refuge in Tibetan Buddhist Lojong, Nietzsche, and the Desert Fathers
Drive all Blames into One: Rhetorics of 'Self-Blame' and Refuge in Tibetan Buddhist Lojong, Nietzsche, and the Desert Fathers Author: Glenn Robert Willis Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:104051 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2014 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Theology DRIVE ALL BLAMES INTO ONE: RHETORICS OF ‘SELF-BLAME’ AND REFUGE IN TIBETAN BUDDHIST LOJONG, NIETZSCHE, AND THE DESERT FATHERS a dissertation by GLENN ROBERT WILLIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy DECEMBER 2014 © copyright by GLENN ROBERT WILLIS 2014 Abstract Drive All Blames into One: Rhetorics of ‘Self-Blame’ and Refuge in Tibetan Buddhist Lojong, Nietzsche, and the Desert Fathers Glenn Robert Willis Professor John Makransky, Dissertation Director The purpose of this work is to differentiate the autonomous ‘self-compassion’ of therapeutic modernist Buddhism from pre-therapeutic Mahāyāna Buddhist practices of refuge, so that refuge itself is not obscured as a fundamental Buddhist orientation that empowers the possibility of compassion for self and other in the first place. The work begins by situating issues of shame and self-aversion sociologically, in order to understand how and why self-aversion became a significant topic of concern during the final quarter of the twentieth century. This discussion allows for a further investigation of shame as it has been addressed first by psychologists, for whom shame is often understood as a form of isolating self-aversion, and then by philosophers such as Bernard Williams and Emmanuel Levinas, for whom shame attunes the person to the moral expectations of a community, and therefore to ethical commands that arise from beyond the individual self. -
THE NO-SELF THEORY: HUME, BUDDHISM, and Jamesgiles PERSONAL IDENTITY
THE NO-SELF THEORY: HUME, BUDDHISM, AND JamesGiles PERSONAL IDENTITY The problem of personal identity is often said to be one of accounting for Lecturerin Philosophy what it is that gives persons their identity over time. However, once the and Psychologyat Folkeuniversitetet problem has been construed in these terms, it is plain that too much has Aalborg,Denmark already been assumed. For what has been assumed is just that persons do have an identity. To the philosophers who approach the problem with this supposition already accepted, the possibility that there may be no such thing as personal identity is scarcely conceived. As a result, the more fundamental question-whether or not personal identity exists in the first place-remains unasked. Consequently, the no-self theory, that is, the rejection of the notion of personal identity altogether, is never fully considered. One of the reasons for the ignoring of the no-self theory seems to be the failure of many philosophers to distinguish between reductionism and the no-self view. The reasons for this error are perhaps understandable. For there is a sense in which the two theories are in agreement. Both theories, for example, reject the notion of a substantive self which somehow exists beyond the bounds of experience. The differ- ence, however, is that while the reductionist accounts then go on to resurrect the self and, consequently, its identity, in terms of putative psychological relations or various theories of the body, the no-self theory lets the self lie where it has fallen. This is because the no-self theory is not a theory about the self at all. -
Theories of Personal Identity
Dean Zimmerman Materialism, Dualism, and “Simple” Theories of Personal Identity “Complex” and “Simple” Theories of Personal Identity Derek Parfit introduced “the Complex View” and “the Simple View” as names for contrasting theories about the nature of personal identity. He detects a “reductionist tradition”, typified by Hume and Locke, and continuing in such twentieth‐century philosophers as Grice, Ayer, Quinton, Mackie, John Perry, David Lewis, and Parfit himself. According to the Reductionists, “the fact of personal identity over time just consists in the holding of certain other facts. It consists in various kinds of psychological continuity, of memory, character, intention, and the like, which in turn rest upon bodily continuity.” The Complex View comprises “[t]he central claims of the reductionist tradition” (Parfit 1982, p. 227). The Complex View about the nature of personal identity is a forerunner to what he later calls “Reductionism”. A Reductionist is anyone who believes (1) that the fact of a person’s identity over time just consists in the holding of certain more particular facts, and (2) that these facts can be described without either presupposing the identity of this person, or explicitly claiming that the experiences in this person’s life are had by this person, or even explicitly claiming that this person exists. (Parfit 1984, p. 210) Take the fact that someone remembers that she, herself, witnessed a certain event at an earlier time. When described in those terms, it “presupposes” or “explicitly claims” that the same person is involved in both the episode of witnessing and of remembering. Purging the psychological facts of all those that 1 immediately imply the cross‐temporal identity of a person will leave plenty of grist for the mills of psychological theories of persistence conditions. -
436 Béla Szabados Ludwig Wittgenstein on Race, Gender, And
Philosophy in Review XXXII (2012), no. 5 Béla Szabados Ludwig Wittgenstein on Race, Gender, and Cultural Identity: Philosophy as a Personal Endeavour. Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press 2010. 300 pages $129.95 (cloth ISBN 978–0–7734–3817–0) As should be clear enough from the title, this is ‘essentially’ a book about Wittgenstein—about the man and his philosophy and what Bela Szabados convincingly argues to have been the intimately close relationship between the two. For Szabados, one of the most significant differences between the ‘earlier’ and the ‘later’ Wittgenstein lies in what he calls (and endorses as) “his turn away from Tractatus-style essentialism” (125) in favour of a ‘family resemblance’ account of meanings, yet he himself, as Laurence Goldstein pointed out in his perceptive review of this book (Notre Dame’s electronic journal of Philosophical Reviews for 2010.08.07), is prepared to “claim that since philosophy is essentially a personal endeavour in truth and in Wittgenstein there is no facet of Wittgenstein’s personality which can be said in advance to be irrelevant to an understanding of his philosophy.” (2) This sentence provides, incidentally, a not too untypical example of those which justify Goldstein’s grumble that “this is a book that deserved better editing”, and deserved it not least because Szabados writes overall in an engagingly direct and personal style. I have to confess that, unlike both Goldstein and Szabados himself, I am no sort of Wittgenstein specialist as such. That said, I found myself fascinated by Szabados’ detailed discussions of the evolution of Wittgenstein’s views on women, music (and more especially on Mahler), and his own Jewish roots, based, as his discussions are, on an extensive and careful use of Wittgenstein’s personal notebooks, his correspondence and other material never intended for publication, but now publicly available.