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  1. Is consciousness reflexively self‐aware? A Buddhist analysis.Bronwyn Finnigan - 2018 - Ratio 31 (4):389-401.
    This article examines contemporary Buddhist defences of the idea that consciousness is reflexively aware or self-aware. Call this the Self-Awareness Thesis. A version of this thesis was historically defended by Dignāga but rejected by Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika Buddhists. Prāsaṅgikas historically advanced four main arguments against this thesis. In this paper I consider whether some contemporary defence of the Self-Awareness Thesis can withstand these Prāsaṅgika objections. A problem is that contemporary defenders of the Self-Awareness Thesis have subtly different accounts with different assessment (...)
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  • Buddhism and Animal Ethics.Bronwyn Finnigan - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (7):1-12.
    This article provides a philosophical overview of some of the central Buddhist positions and argument regarding animal welfare. It introduces the Buddha's teaching of ahiṃsā or non-violence and rationally reconstructs five arguments from the context of early Indian Buddhism that aim to justify its extension to animals. These arguments appeal to the capacity and desire not to suffer, the virtue of compassion, as well as Buddhist views on the nature of self, karma, and reincarnation. This article also considers how versions (...)
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  • Self-Awareness (svasaṃvitti) and Related Doctrines of Buddhists Following Dignāga: Philosophical Characterizations of Some of the Main Issues.Dan Arnold - 2010 - Journal of Indian Philosophy 38 (3):323-378.
    Framed as a consideration of the other contributions to the present volume of the Journal of Indian Philosophy, this essay attempts to scout and characterize several of the interrelated doctrines and issues that come into play in thinking philosophically about the doctrine of svasaṃvitti, particularly as that was elaborated by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Among the issues thus considered are the question of how mānasapratyakṣa (which is akin to manovijñāna) might relate to svasaṃvitti; how those related doctrines might be brought to (...)
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  • Buddhist Idealism.Bronwyn Finnigan - 2017 - In K. Pearce & T. Goldschmidt (eds.), Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. pp. 178-199.
    This article surveys some of the most influential Buddhist arguments in defense of idealism. It begins by clarifying the central theses under dispute and rationally reconstructs arguments from four major Buddhist figures in defense of some or all of these theses. It engages arguments from Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā and Triṃśikā; Dignāga’s matching-failure argument in the Ālambanaparīkṣā; the sahopalambhaniyama inference developed by Dharmakīrti; and Xuanzang’s weird but clever logical argument that intrigued philosophers in China and Japan. It aims to clarify what is (...)
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  • Sensazioni o proprietà sensibili? Lo statuto ontologico dei qualia in fenomenologia.Andrea Pace Giannotta - 2015 - In Roberta Lanfredini (ed.), Architettura della conoscenza e ontologia. Milano: Mimesis. pp. 157-187.
    In this paper, I address the issue of the ontological status of qualitative properties. I discuss the prevalent approaches to the problem of qualia in philosophy of mind, in relation to the various attempts at naturalizing the mind and the various theories of perception. I compare these views with Husserl's phenomenology, highlighting the phenomenological distinction between phenomenal contents of mental states and sensory properties of the perceived objects. I present some open issues of this view, in order to show how (...)
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  • Buddhism, comparative neurophilosophy, and human flourishing.Christian Coseru - 2014 - Zygon 49 (1):208-219.
    Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain represents an ambitious foray into cross-cultural neurophilosophy, making a compelling, though not entirely unproblematic, case for naturalizing Buddhist philosophy. While the naturalist account of mental causation challenges certain Buddhist views about the mind, the Buddhist analysis of mind and mental phenomena is far more complex than the book suggests. Flanagan is right to criticize the Buddhist claim that there could be mental states that are not reducible to their neural correlates; however, when the mental states (...)
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  • Self-intimation.Galen Strawson - 2013 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (1):1-31.
    Aristotle, Dignāga, Descartes, Arnauld, Locke, Brentano, Sartre and many others are right about the nature of conscious awareness: all such awareness comports—somehow carries within itself—awareness of itself . This is a necessary condition of awareness being awareness at all: no ‘higher-order’ account of what makes conscious states conscious can be correct. But is very paradoxical: it seems to require that awareness be somehow already present, in such a way as to be available to itself as object of awareness, in order (...)
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  • Bhaṭṭa Rāmakaṇṭha’s Elaboration of Self-Awareness , and How it Differs from Dharmakīrti’s Exposition of the Concept.Alex Watson - 2010 - Journal of Indian Philosophy 38 (3):297-321.
    The article considers what happened to the Buddhist concept of self-awareness ( svasaṃvedana ) when it was appropriated by Śaiva Siddhānta. The first section observes how it was turned against Buddhism by being used to attack the momentariness of consciousenss and to establish its permanence. The second section examines how self-awareness differs from I-cognition ( ahampratyaya ). The third section examines the difference between the kind of self-awareness elaborated by Rāmakaṇṭha (‘reflexive awareness’) and a kind elaborated by Dharmakīrti (‘intentional self-awareness’). (...)
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  • Enacting the self: Buddhist and enactivist approaches to the emergence of the self.Matthew MacKenzie - 2010 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9 (1):75-99.
    In this paper, I take up the problem of the self through bringing together the insights, while correcting some of the shortcomings, of Indo–Tibetan Buddhist and enactivist accounts of the self. I begin with an examination of the Buddhist theory of non-self ( anātman ) and the rigorously reductionist interpretation of this doctrine developed by the Abhidharma school of Buddhism. After discussing some of the fundamental problems for Buddhist reductionism, I turn to the enactive approach to philosophy of mind and (...)
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  • Consciousness, self-consciousness, and meditation.Wolfgang Fasching - 2008 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 7 (4):463-483.
    Many spiritual traditions employ certain mental techniques (meditation) which consist in inhibiting mental activity whilst nonetheless remaining fully conscious, which is supposed to lead to a realisation of one’s own true nature prior to habitual self-substantialisation. In this paper I propose that this practice can be understood as a special means of becoming aware of consciousness itself as such. To explain this claim I conduct some phenomenologically oriented considerations about the nature of consciousness qua presence and the problem of self-presence (...)
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  • Consciousness and Self-awareness.Chien-Hsing Ho - 2007 - Asian Philosophy 17 (3):213–230.
    In this paper I propose to inquire into the theory of self-awareness propounded by the two Buddhist epistemologists, Dignaga and Dharmakirti. I first give an outline of the Buddhist notion of consciousness, then deal with the notion of objectual appearance, and finally dwell on the theory itself together with certain arguments in its favor. It is shown that the Buddhists subscribed themselves to the following self-awareness thesis: that our waking consciousness is always pre-reflectively and nonconceptually aware of itself. Adopting an (...)
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  • Can There Be Something it is Like to Be No One?Christian Coseru - 2024 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 31 (5):62-103.
    This paper defends the persistence of the subjective or selfintimating dimension of experience in non-ordinary and pathological states of consciousness such as non-dual awareness, full absorption, drug-induced ego dissolution, and the minimal conscious state. In considering whether non-ordinary and pathological conscious states display any subjective features, we confront a dilemma. Either they do, in which case there needs to be some way of accounting for these features in phenomenal terms, or they do not, in which case there is nothing it (...)
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  • How to Know That You’re Not a Zombie.Brentyn J. Ramm - 2024 - Erkenntnis:1-22.
    I am aware of the tree and its leaves, but am I aware of my awareness of these things? When I try to introspect my awareness, I just find myself attending to objects and their properties. This observation is known as the ‘transparency of experience’. On the other hand, I seem to directly know that I am aware. Given the first observation, it is not clear how I know that I am aware. Fred Dretske thought that the problem was so (...)
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  • Is Lucid Dreamless Sleep Really Lucid?Adriana Alcaraz-Sánchez - 2024 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 15 (1):1-27.
    Recently, the construct ‘lucid dreamless sleep’ has been proposed to explain the state of ‘clear light’ described by Tibetan Buddhist traditions, a special state of consciousness during deep sleep in which we’re told to be able to recognise the nature or essence of our mind (Padmasambhava & Gyatrul 2008; Ponlop 2006; Wangyal 1998). To explain the sort of awareness experienced during this state, some authors have appealed to the sort of lucidity acquired during lucid dreaming and suggested a link between (...)
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  • Is lucid dreamless sleep really lucid?Adriana Alcaraz - forthcoming - Review of Philosophy and Psychology.
    Recently, the construct ‘lucid dreamless sleep’ has been proposed to explain the state of ‘clear light’ described by Tibetan Buddhist traditions, a special state of consciousness during deep sleep in which we’re told to be able to recognise the nature or essence of our mind (Padmasambhava & Gyatrul, 2008; Ponlop, 2006; Wangyal, 1998). To explain the sort of awareness experienced during this state, some authors have appealed to the sort of lucidity acquired during lucid dreaming and suggested a link between (...)
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  • Pure awareness experience.Brentyn J. Ramm - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (3):394-416.
    I am aware of the red and orange autumn leaves. Am I aware of my awareness of the leaves? Not so according to many philosophers. By contrast, many meditative traditions report an experience of awareness itself. I argue that such a pure awareness experience must have a non-sensory phenomenal character. I use Douglas Harding’s first-person experiments for assisting in recognising pure awareness. In particular, I investigate the gap where one cannot see one’s head. This is not a mere gap because (...)
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  • Nibbanic (or Pure) Consciousness and Beyond.David Woodruff Smith - 2011 - Philosophia 39 (3):475-491.
    Pike’s phenomenology of mystical experiences articulates sharply where theological content may enter the structure of Christian mystics’ experiences (as characterized in their own words). Here we look to Buddhist (and other) accounts of pure or nibbanic consciousness attained in experiences of deep meditation. A contemporary modal model of inner awareness is considered whereby a form of pure consciousness underlies and embraces further content in various forms of consciousness, including mystical experiences in different traditions and experiences of full union (with God).
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