A collection of essays, mostly original, on the actual and possible positions on free will available to Buddhist philosophers, by Christopher Gowans, Rick Repetti, Jay Garfield, Owen Flanagan, Charles Goodman, Galen Strawson, Susan Blackmore, Martin T. Adam, Christian Coseru, Marie Friquegnon, Mark Siderits, Ben Abelson, B. Alan Wallace, Peter Harvey, Emily McRae, and Karin Meyers, and a Foreword by Daniel Cozort.

Buddhists endorse the concept of human actions and their consequences as they uphold the doctrine of karma. However, they deny the existence of a ‘permanent self’. Few questions arise in this regard. If a permanent self does not exist then who guides a person to decide the course of an action? How does a person choose to perform an action of the many alternatives in a situation? Who takes responsibility for the consequences of an action? This paper attempts to answer (...) these questions by reinterpreting the Buddhist’s ‘no-self’ theory from epistemological and logical perspectives. This paper argues that Buddhists while rejecting the existence of a ‘permanent self’ affirm the existence of impermanent psychophysical entities (five skandhas). The mereological sum of these psychophysical entities is known as a ‘person’ who performs actions. A person becomes morally responsible for the consequences of an action justifying the Buddhist doctrine of karma. (shrink)

Unknown to most Western psychologists, ancient Indian scriptures contain very rich, empirically derived psychological theories that are, however, intertwined with religious and philosophical content. This article represents our attempt to extract the psychological theory of cognition and consciousness from a prominent ancient Indian thought system: Samkhya-Yoga. We derive rather broad hypotheses from this approach that may complement and extend Western mainstream theorizing. These hypotheses address an ancient personality theory, the effects of practicing the applied part of Samkhya-Yoga on normal and (...) extraordinary cognition, as well as different ways of perceiving reality. We summarize empirical evidence collected in diverse fields of research that allows for making judgments about the hypotheses, and suggest more specific hypotheses to be examined in future research. We conclude that the existing evidence for the hypotheses is substantial but that there are still considerable gaps in theory and research to be filled. Theories of cognition contained in the ancient Indian systems have the potential to modify and complement existing Western mainstream accounts of cognition. In particular, they might serve as a basis for arriving at more comprehensive theories for several research areas that, so far, lack strong theoretical grounding, such as meditation research or research on aspects of consciousness. (shrink)

The problem of evil is regularly regarded as posing a serious threat to theistic belief. However, contemporary philosophers of religion have overlooked the ways in which this problem has been, or could be, handled by theists committed to the metaphysics of idealism. In seeking to redress this lacuna, I turn to the systems of the British idealists, popular in the late nineteenth century though now out of favour, and in particular the work of F.H. Bradley, while also drawing parallels with (...) the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism. The central argument of this paper is that these idealist traditions have greater resources to adequately deal with the problem of evil than comparatively mainstream theist views. While standard forms of theism struggle to make sense of the facts of evil, or are even resoundly defeated by them, the conception of divinity suggested or developed by the British idealists offers possibilities for innovative and fruitful ways of thinking about the relationship between God and evil. (shrink)