The core idea of secular Buddhism is to grasp the spirit of early Buddhism and transpose it into the present. An application of this idea to the doctrine of rebirth leads to the following result: -/- The doctrine of rebirth cannot be revised in a strict sense, but there are some striking similarities between the ancient and modern (biological) view on the topic. Since the stream of genetic and epigenetic information has the power to create consciousness and (...) reflects experiences of past lives, it can be associated with the stream of consciousness (cittasantana) in the Mahayana model of rebirth. Parents not only determine the genetic constitution of their children, but they also transfer character traits by means of epigenetic heredity. If genetic inheritance is associated with karma, then genes become an element of synchronic and diachronic connectedness (pratitya-samutpada). Instead of an individual learning process across successive lives, there is a collective learning process across successive generations. -/- Given the biological model of rebirth, the belief in cosmic justice turns into a quest for mundane justice. There is a thought experiment for constructing such a concept, which complies well with the secular Buddhist spirit. John Rawls assumes that the legislative deliberation is taking place “behind a veil of ignorance”, so that the participants of the deliberation do not know their future genetic constitution and their future position within the society. If the participants imagine that their future self is contingent and impermanent – in accordance with the Buddhist doctrine of anatta and anitya – then the resulting principles of justice will be impartial. (shrink)

This article considers the contemporary effective altruism (EA) movement from a classical Indian Buddhist perspective. Following barebones introductions to EA and to Buddhism (sections one and two, respectively), section three argues that core EA efforts, such as those to improve global health, end factory farming, and safeguard the long-term future of humanity, are futile on the Buddhist worldview. For regardless of the short-term welfare improvements that effective altruists impart, Buddhism teaches that all unenlightened beings will simply be reborn (...) upon their deaths back into the round of rebirth (samsāra), which is held to be undesirable due to the preponderance of duhkha (unsatisfactoriness, dis-ease, suffering) over well-being that characterizes unenlightened existence. This is the samsāric futility problem. Although Buddhists and effective altruists disagree about what ultimately helps sentient beings, section four suggests that Buddhist-EA dialogue nonetheless generates mutually-instructive insights. Buddhists – including contemporaries, such as those involved in Socially Engaged Buddhism – might take from EA a greater focus on explicit prioritization research, which seeks knowledge of how to do the most good we can, given our finite resources. EA, for its part, has at least two lessons to learn. First, effective altruists have tended to assume that the competing accounts of welfare converge in their practical implications. The Buddhist conception of the pinnacle of welfare as a state free from duhkha and, correspondingly, the Buddhist account of the path that leads to this state weigh against this assumption. Second, contrasting Buddhist with effective altruist priorities shows that descriptive matters of cosmology, ontology, and metaphysics can have decisive practical implications. If EA wants to give a comprehensive answer to its guiding question – “how can we do the most good?” – it must argue for, rather than merely assume, the truth of secular naturalism. (shrink)

Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions: A Historical Perspective, by Bhikkhu Analayo. Wisdom Publications, 2021. 184pp. Hb. $24.95, ISBN-13: 9781614297192; Ebook $12.99, ISBN-10:1614297193.

The terms immanence and transcendence have played a significant role in philosophical thought since its inception. Implicit in the notions of immanence and transcendence, as typified within the history of ideas, is often a separation and division between the human and the godly. This division has served to generate ontologies of isolation and set up epistemologies that can be both binary and divided. The terms immanence and transcendence thus sit at the heart of contemporary onto-epistemic accounts of the world. As (...) such, in seeking to examine the nature of what is, this paper traces a line through the history of ideas in an attempt to clarify the connections and dissonances in the notions of immanence and transcendence. This is done for the purpose of demonstrating what philosophical and religious accounts may offer in attempting to create a sound account of the godly and thus the world in a secular age. (shrink)

In this study, the leadership attributes of the mah who adhered to Buddhist doctrine and adopted the abhidhamma as a core philosophy for the country’s governance during the early Sukhothai era is examined to determine the root causes of major problems afflicting modern Thai society. Many of these social problems are related to strives, disagreements, and disunity, and are a direct consequence of the absence of mindfulness and the dhamma of the leaders. The application of Buddhist doctrine as a solution (...) to these social problems in a secular world today is as relevant as it was during the ancient days. This is manifested in the form of the Sufficiency Economy, promulgated by none other than one of the greatest, if not the greatest practitioners of the dhamma , the present King Rama IX the Great (His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej). Leaders must continue to proactively promote Buddhism and adopt Buddhist doctrines in the administration of the country, and constantly be mindful to encourage the practice of the dhamma. In this study, specific examples of laws and regulations that hinder the practice of Buddhist doctrines, the shortfall of Buddhist infrastructure, and the lack of recognition accorded to the Buddhist monks are examined and the. (shrink)

The paper by Monteiro, Musten and Compson (2014) is to be commended for providing a comprehensive discussion of the compatibility issues arising from the integration of mindfulness – a 2,500-year-old Buddhist practice – into research and applied psychological domains. Consistent with the observations of various others (e.g., Dunne, 2011; Kang & Whittingham, 2010), Monteiro and colleagues have not only highlighted that there are differences in how Buddhism and contemporary mindfulness interventional approaches interpret and contextualize mindfulness, but there are also (...) differing interpretations of mindfulness within Buddhism. These apparent differences within Buddhism are arguably more noticeable when making comparisons across Buddhist vehicles (i.e., Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), but to a lesser extent intra-vehicular differences can also be said to exist (i.e., differences between Buddhist traditions of the same vehicle). This commentary investigates the validity of some of these different Buddhist constructions of mindfulness, and then discusses how a better understanding of their scriptural and conceptual soundness (or lack thereof) may help to reconcile some of the actual and perceived incompatibility between Buddhist practice and contemporary secular mindfulness-based approaches. (shrink)

A text, written in 2005 and first published in 2008, exploring the prevalence of non-dualist philosophical and spiritual praxes, inserted from Buddhist and Hindu contexts into a Western postmodern one, in the post-9/11 era of intersecting existential crises: global terrorism/s, environmental urgency, and the geopolitical uncertainty ensuing from maladaptive responses to these security crises, among others. What ethical or philosophical role does the range of neo-nondualistic or neo-idealist metaphysics, East and West, broadly construed, have in engaging the social evolution that (...) might begin to do justice to the nature of such widespread crises? (shrink)

Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain aims to introduce secular-minded thinkers to Buddhist thought and motivate its acceptance by analytic philosophers. I argue that Flanagan provides a compelling caution against the hasty generalizations of recent “science of happiness” literature, which correlates happiness with Buddhism on the basis of certain neurological studies. I contend, however, that his positive account of Buddhist ethics is less persuasive. I question the level of engagement with Buddhist philosophical literature and challenge Flanagan's central claim, that (...) a Buddhist version of eudaimonia is a common core conception shared by all Buddhists. I argue that this view is not only a rational reconstruction in need of argumentation but is in tension with competing Buddhist metaphysical theories of self, including the one Flanagan himself endorses. (shrink)

A critical reply to the anti-mindfulness critics in the collection, who oppose the popular secularized adoption of mindfulness on various grounds (it is not Buddhism, it is Buddhism, it is a tool of neo-capitalist exploitation, etc.), I argue that mindfulness is a quality of consciousness, opposite mindlessness, that may be cultivated through practice, and is almost always beneficial to those who cultivate it.

The principal Buddhist suttas on mindfulness include the ānāpānasati sutta, satipatthāna sutta, mahasatipatthāna sutta, and kāyagatāsati sutta. Irrespective of whether they prefer to practise mindfulness from a Buddhist or secular perspective, most dedicated mindfulness practitioners are familiar with many of the core teachings outlined in these suttas(e.g., use of the breath as a mindfulness anchor, mindfulness of the body and its constituents, maintaining mindful awareness during daily activities, etc.). However, one key aspect of the abovementioned suttas that often seems (...) to be overlooked by mindfulness practitioners is the emphasis these teachings place on cultivating mindfulness of death and impermanence.Indeed, the satipatthāna sutta, mahasatiptthāna sutta, and kāyagatāsati sutta each contains the‘nine charnel ground contemplations’, and the 13th exercise of the ānāpānasati sutta is specifically concerned with cultivating an awareness of impermanence. (shrink)

This is a sweeping treatment of navigating the difficulties of engaging a religiously pluralistic culture and offers sage and compassionate advice from one of the leading Christian thinkers today. His special treatment of Buddhism is engaging and should be carefully considered by all. Whether believer, nonbeliever, or none, this book engages all readership with careful research and deserves a wide audience.

Contemplative scholarship has recently reoriented attention towards the neuroscientific study of the soteriological ambition of Buddhist practice, 'awakening'. This article evaluates the project of seeking neural correlates for awakening. Key definitional and operational issues are identified demonstrating that: the nature of awakening is highly contested both within and across Buddhist traditions; the meaning of awakening is both context- and concept-dependent; and awakening may be non-conceptual and ineffable. It is demonstrated that operationalized secular conceptions of awakening, divorced from soteriological and (...) cultural factors, have little relationship to traditional Buddhist construct(s) of awakening. This article identifies methodological issues for secular conceptions of awakening concerning introspection and neuroimaging yet demonstrates also the value of recent advancements in empirical first-person phenomenology for attenuating introspective bias. Overall, it is contended that significant problems arise when decontextualizing awakening and placing it within a scientific naturalistic framework. Careful attention to the definitional, operational, and methodological neuroscientific obstacles identified herein is required in the responsible approach to the investigation of awakening states. (shrink)

A number of important religious views entail that the ontological and epistemic relations between religion and morality are tighter than most secular thinkers suppose. We will focus on three theistic metaethical accounts of moral phenomena and moral knowledge: natural law theories, divine command theories, and divine will theories. These three types of accounts are among the most dominant in the philosophical literature on theistic ethics in contemporary anglophone philosophy, perhaps owing to their connection to major Western religions such as (...) Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It is important to note, however, that they hardly exhaust the conceptual space. Intellectual traditions of other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, traditional Chinese religions, and African religions raise distinct philosophical questions about and offer a host of alternative views on the relationship between religion and morality (Jeffrey 2019). We close by offering a few such examples, though it is outside the scope of this chapter to provide a comprehensive survey of available views. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

What are some of the distinctive virtues of the confluence approach that sets it apart from other attempts to do philosophy across cultural boundaries? First, unlike comparing and contrasting, the confluence approach remains faithful to the dominant conception of philosophy as an intellectual enterprise centered on dialogue and argumentation, in which philosophers pursue unresolved problems by building on the achievements of their acknowledged forbears. Second, confluence philosophy implements a syncretic and creative approach to doing philosophy by drawing on non-Western philosophical (...) sources while using the tools and conceptual resources of analytic philosophy. Third and last, the confluence approach highlights possible tensions when the traditions of thought brought into dialogue are on a diverging path on certain matters. Contemporary philosophy, at least in the Anglophone world and its satellites, is an avowedly secular enterprise, deferring to the sciences for its account of what can be said to exist at the most fundamental level and for its understanding of the processes that realize cognition. Buddhism at its core is often understood as a soteriological project manly concerned with overcoming suffering, which sometimes is taken to entail an insight into the emptiness of all the constitutive elements of existence and/or experience. Confluence philosophy thus makes it possible to ask whether defending a theoretical framework which affirms this truth of emptiness means that one must engage in the very sort of activity, namely, rational self-assertion, that hinders enlightenment. (shrink)

Chapter 1 What Do Zen Masters Teach Us Today? The Case of Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan Jin Y. Park Introduction Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively unknown figure within English-language scholarship.1 However, among Korean Buddhists, his rigorous Zen practice has been well recognized. One-meal-per-day (K. ilchongsik 一種食), no-meal-in-the-afternoon (K. ohu pulsik 午後不食), and staying-sitting-in-meditation-without-lying-down (K. changjwa purwa 長坐不臥) are all well-known practices that frequently appear when describing Hyeam as a Zen master. What is less frequently asked (...) is what these rigorous Zen practices might mean to us commoners who live in a secular world or to monastics whose practice might not be as rigorous as Hyeam’s. Should Zen masters such as Hyeam who appear to exhibit superhuman capacity for religious practice be only an object of awe and admiration in our secular modern times? Even if so, what do the awe and admiration indicate? In this chapter, I try to bridge the gap between the rigorous practice typically seen in Korean Zen masters’ lives and its meaning for people living in modern times. What questions does a Zen master like Hyeam raise for us, and how should scholars address these issues? These are the inquiries with which I hope to engage. (shrink)

Effective altruism has become a worldwide phenomenon. The movement combines empathy and reason in the attempt to improve the world. Adherents don’t let moral gut instincts dictate their altruistic efforts, but use evidence and reflection to do the most good they can. Effective altruism originated, and primarily grew, in strongly secular environments—such as philosophy departments or Silicon Valley. So far, a religious perspective on this movement has been lacking. What can people of faith learn from effective altruism? What may (...) they criticise? What can effective altruism in turn take from religion? This volume offers a first examination of these questions, covering various Christian as well as Jewish and Buddhist perspectives. (shrink)

Mindfulness-based interventions are reported as being efficacious treatments for a variety of psychological and somatic conditions. However, concerns have arisen relating to how mindfulness is operationalized in mindfulness-based interventions and whether its ‘spiritual essence’ and full potential treatment efficacy have remained intact. This qualitative study used interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine participant experiences regarding the acceptability and effectiveness of a newly designed secularized intervention called meditation awareness training (MAT) that follows a more traditional Buddhist approach to meditation. Participants (with issues (...) of stress and low mood) reported experiencing improvements in psychological well-being due to receiving MAT. The wider implications are discussed. (shrink)

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 of these arguments have been applied to address a practical issue in Buddhist ethics; whether Buddhists should be vegetarian. (shrink)

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 (...) being argued and motivate these arguments in terms of their presuppositions. These presuppositions range from views about the nature of mind and metaphysics to epistemology and logic. By making this context explicit, this article introduces central ideas in Buddhist philosophy and suggests ways in which they were mobilized in support of an idealist conclusion. (shrink)

Critical review of Buddhist theories of free will published between 2000 and 2014.

I argue against pessimistic readings of the Buddhist tradition on which unawakened beings invariably have lives not worth living due to a preponderance of suffering (duḥkha) over well-being.

Derek Parfit’s early work on the metaphysics of persons has had a vast influence on Western philosophical debates about the nature of personal identity and moral theory. Within the study of Buddhism, it also has sparked a continuous comparative discourse, which seeks to explicate Buddhist philosophical principles in light of Parfit’s conceptual framework. Examining important Parfitian-inspired studies of Buddhist philosophy, this article points out various ways in which a Parfitian lens shaped, often implicitly, contemporary understandings of the anātman doctrine (...) and its relation to Buddhist ethics. I discuss in particular three dominant elements appropriated by Parfitian-inspired scholarship: Parfit’s theoretical categories; philosophical problems raised by his reductionist theory of persons; and Parfit’s argumentative style. I argue that the three elements used in this scholarship constitute different facets of one methodological approach to cross-cultural philosophy, which relies on Western terminology and conceptual schemes to establish a conversation with non-Western philosophy. I suggest that while this methodology is fruitful in many ways, philosophy as a cosmopolitan space may benefit significantly from approaching Buddhist philosophy using its own categories and terminology. (shrink)

Buddhist philosophers have developed a rich tradition of logic. Buddhist material on logic that forms the Buddhist tradition of logic, however, is hardly discussed or even known. This article presents some of that material in a manner that is accessible to contemporary logicians and philosophers of logic and sets agendas for global philosophy of logic.

In recent decades, several attempts have been made to characterize Buddhism as a systematically unified and consistent normative ethical theory. This has given rise to a growing interest in meta-ethical questions. Meta-ethics can be broadly or narrowly defined. Defined broadly, it is a domain of inquiry concerned with the nature and status of the fundamental or framing presuppositions of normative ethical theories, where this includes the cognitive and epistemic requirements of presupposed conceptions of ethical agency.1 Defined narrowly, it concerns (...) the justificatory status of fundamental moral claims or judgments, i.e., claims or judgments of the form ‘x is good, right, virtuous’ and ‘x is bad, wrong, vicious.’.. (shrink)

The chapter challenges hyperbolic claims about the centrality of appreciation of beauty to Buddhism. Within the texts, attitudes are more mixed, except for a form of 'inner beauty' - the beauty found in the expression of virtues or wisdom in forms of bodily comportment. Inner beauty is a stable presence throughout Buddhist history, practices, and art.

In recent decades, there has been growing interest among philosophers in what the various Buddhist traditions have said, can say, and should say, in response to the traditional problem of free will. This article investigates the relationship between Buddhist philosophy and the historical problem of free will. It begins by critically examining Rick Repetti's Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will (2019), in which he argues for a conception of “agentless agency” and defends a view he calls “Buddhist soft compatibilism.” It (...) then turns to a more wide‐ranging discussion of Buddhism and free will—one that foregrounds Buddhist ethics and takes seriously what the various Buddhist traditions have said about desert, punishment, and the reactive attitudes of resentment, indignation, and moral anger. The article aims to show that, not only is Buddhism best conceived as endorsing a kind of free will skepticism, Buddhist ethics can provide a helpful guide to living without basic desert moral responsibility and free will. (shrink)

A critical review of Charles Goodman's view about Buddhism and free will to the effect that Buddhism is hard determinist, basically because he thinks Buddhist causation is definitively deterministic, and he thinks determinism is definitively incompatible with free will, but especially because he thinks Buddhism is equally definitively clear on the non-existence of a self, from which he concludes there cannot be an autonomous self.

A critical review of the first wave of publications on Buddhism and free will between the 1960s and 1980s.

A critical review of Mark Siderits's arguments in support of a compatibilist Buddhist theory of free will based on early Abhidharma reductionism and the two-truths distinction between conventional and ultimate truths or reality, which theory he terms 'paleo-compatibilism'. The Buddhist two-truths doctrine is basically analogous to Sellers' distinction between the manifest and scientific images, in which case the argument is that determinism is a claim about ultimate reality, whereas personhood and agency are about conventional reality, both discourse domains are semantically (...) insulated, and thus there cannot be any issue of the incompatibility. (shrink)

Is Buddhism’s attitude towards accepted forms of knowledge sceptical? Are Pyrrhonian scepticism and classical Buddhist scholasticism related in their respective applications and expressions of doubt? In what way and to what degree is Critical Buddhism an offshoot of modern scepticism? Questions such as these as well as related issues are explored in the present collection, which brings together examinations of systematic doubt in the traditions of Buddhism from a variety of perspectives. What results from the perceptive observations (...) and profound analytical insights of the seven essays is a rich and multi-faceted picture of two families of philosophical systems—scepticism and Buddhism—that seem both akin and at odds, both related and distant at the same time. (shrink)

Abhidharma Buddhist philosophy presents a version of what is now often called “panprotopsychism.” The most pressing group of problems for the Abhidharma panprotopsychism, like all other panpsychist views, is what Seager calls “the combination problem.” There are at least three versions of the problem: the subject-combination problem; the quality-combination problem; and the structure-combination problem. I begin with the Abhidharma Buddhist version of panprotopsychism and its account of conscious experience. The main focus of this paper is to show that Abhidharma panprotopsychist (...) account of conscious experience solves the quality-combination problem. In the last and closing Section, I look at other versions of the combination problem, primarily the subject-combination problem and the structural problem and provide a sketch of the Abhidharma Buddhist response to these. (shrink)

Buddhist philosophers have investigated the techniques and methodologies of debate and argumentation which are important aspects of Buddhist intellectual life. This was particularly the case in India, where Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy originated. But these investigations have also engaged philosophers in China, Japan, Korea and Tibet, and many other parts of the world that have been influenced by Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy. Several elements of the Buddhist tradition of philosophy are thought to be part of this investigation. -/- (...) There are interesting reasoning patterns discernible in the writings of Buddhist philosophers. For instance, the Mādhyamika philosopher Nāgārjuna presents arguments for the emptiness of all things in terms of catuṣkoṭi (four ‘corners’: roughly speaking, truth, false, both, neither). There are also the Indian vāda (debate) literature and Tibetan bsdus grwa (collected topics) that list techniques of debates. -/- The main interest here is the tradition of Buddhist philosophy, sometimes referred to as Pramāṇavāda, whose central figures are Dignāga (approx. 480–540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (6th– 7th CE). This philosophy is understood to be the Buddhist school of logic-epistemology. ‘Pramāṇavāda’ is not a doxographical term traditionally used to refer to a recognised school of Buddhist philosophy. It is a conventional term that is sometimes used in modern literature. Nevertheless, in what follows, we think of it as a tradition within Buddhist philosophy and ‘Buddhist logic’ refers to what is developed in this tradition. -/- Buddhist logicians have systematically analysed the kind of reasoning involved in acquiring knowledge. They hold that there are valid ways to reason that are productive of knowledge. In what follows, some of the main elements of their analyses will be described. Note, however, that, while exegetical studies of Buddhist texts are important, we must step back from them and consider what is involved in taking a Buddhist approach to logic in light of modern formal logic. This analysis will be done against the backdrop of the contemporary literature on logic and related subjects in contemporary philosophy to make sense of the logical studies by Buddhist logicians. (shrink)

Are Confucian and Buddhist ethical views closer to Kantian, Consequentialist, or Virtue Ethical ones? And how can such comparisons shed light on the unique aspects of Confucian and Buddhist views? This essay (i) provides a historically grounded framework for distinguishing western views, (ii) identifies a series of questions that we can ask in order to clarify the philosophic accounts of ethical motivation embedded in the Buddhist and Confucian traditions, and (iii) then critiques Lee Ming-huei’s claim that Confucianism is closer to (...) Kantianism than virtue ethics and Charles Goodman’s claim that Buddhism is closer to Consequentialism than virtue ethics. (shrink)

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.

Buddhist Illogic. The 2nd Century CE Indian philosopher Nagarjuna founded the Madhyamika (Middle Way) school of Mahayana Buddhism, which strongly influenced Chinese, Korean and Japanese (Ch’an or Zen) Buddhism, as well as Tibetan Buddhism. Nagarjuna is regarded by many Buddhist writers to this day as a very important philosopher, who they claim definitively proved the futility of ordinary human cognitive means. His writings include a series of arguments purporting to show the illogic of logic, the absurdity of (...) reason. He considers this the way to verbalize and justify the Buddhist doctrine of “emptiness” (Shunyata). These arguments attack some of the basic tenets and techniques of reasoning, such as the laws of thought (identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle), conceptualization and predication, our common assumptions of self, entities and essences, as well as our beliefs in motion and causation. The present essay demonstrates the many sophistries involved in Nagarjuna’s arguments. He uses double standards, applying or ignoring the laws of thought and other norms as convenient to his goals; he manipulates his readers, by giving seemingly logical form (like the dilemma) to his discourse, while in fact engaged in non-sequiturs or appealing to doubtful premises; he plays with words, relying on unclear terminology, misleading equivocations and unfair fixations of meaning; and he ‘steals concepts’, using them to deny the very percepts on which they are based. Although a critique of the Madhyamika philosophical interpretation and defense of “emptiness”, Buddhist Illogic is not intended to dissuade readers from Buddhism. On the contrary, its aim to enhance personal awareness of actual cognitive processes, and so improve meditation. It is also an excellent primer on phenomenological epistemology. (shrink)

An exploration of the relationship between secular humanism and politics, from a liberal perspective.

In this essay, I maintain that although atheism, minimally construed, consists simply of the belief that there is no God or gods, atheists must embrace a secular worldview of one kind or another. Since they cannot be without a worldview, atheists must develop an alternative to the religious, especially the theistic, worldviews which they, by implication, reject. Further, I argue that there are, at the very least, two options available to atheists and that these should not be conflated or (...) treated as one and the same. The two options that I explore and distinguish are scientism and secular humanism. I also maintain that the things that might count as good grounds for or against secular or religious worldviews are shaped significantly by whether atheists embrace scientism or secular humanism. (shrink)

We spend our lives protecting an elusive self - but does the self actually exist? Drawing on literature from Western philosophy, neuroscience and Buddhism (interpreted), the author argues that there is no self. The self - as unified owner and thinker of thoughts - is an illusion created by two tiers. A tier of naturally unified consciousness (notably absent in standard bundle-theory accounts) merges with a tier of desire-driven thoughts and emotions to yield the impression of a self. So (...) while the self, if real, would think up the thoughts, the thoughts, in reality, think up the self. (shrink)

The liar paradox is still an open philosophical problem. Most contemporary answers to the paradox target the logical principles underlying the reasoning from the liar sentence to the paradoxical conclusion that the liar sentence is both true and false. In contrast to these answers, Buddhist epistemology offers resources to devise a distinctively epistemological approach to the liar paradox. In this paper, I mobilise these resources and argue that the liar sentence is what Buddhist epistemologists call a contradiction with one’s own (...) words. I situate my argument in the works of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti and show how Buddhist epistemology answers the paradox. (shrink)

Rudyard Kipling, the famous english author of « The Jungle Book », born in India, wrote one day these words: « Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet ». In my paper I show that Kipling was not completely right. I try to show the common ground between buddhist philosophy and quantum physics. There is a surprising parallelism between the philosophical concept of reality articulated by Nagarjuna and the physical concept of reality implied (...) by quantum physics. For neither is there a fundamental core to reality, rather reality consists of systems of interacting objects. Such concepts of reality cannot be reconciled with the substantial, subjective, holistic or instrumentalistic concepts of reality which underlie modern modes of thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I use a comparative analysis of mysticism in Zen and the Abrahamic faiths to formulate a phenomenological account of mysticism “as such.” I argue that, while Zen Buddhism is distinct from other forms of mystical experience in important ways, it can still be fit into a general phenomenological category of mystical experience. First, I explicate the phenomenological accounts of mysticism provided by Anthony Steinbock and Angela Bello. Second, I offer an account of Zen mysticism which both (...) coheres with and problematizes these accounts, arguing that Zen demonstrates the inadequacy of these accounts as descriptions of mysticism as a universal religious category. Lastly, I use this investigation to propose that Zen mysticism does generally cohere with the mystical experiences of other religions, but only if we devise a new formula for speaking phenomenologically about mystical experience as such which captures this phenomenon in all of its manifestations. (shrink)

The Buddha taught that there is no self. He also accepted a version of the doctrine of karmic rebirth, according to which good and bad actions accrue merit and demerit respectively and where this determines the nature of the agent’s next life and explains some of the beneficial or harmful occurrences in that life. But how is karmic rebirth possible if there are no selves? If there are no selves, it would seem there are no agents that could be held (...) morally responsible for ‘their’ actions. If actions are those happenings in the world performed by agents, it would seem there are no actions. And if there are no agents and no actions, then morality and the notion of karmic retribution would seem to lose application. Historical opponents argued that the Buddha's teaching of no self was tantamount to moral nihilism. The Buddha, and later Buddhist philosophers, firmly reject this charge. The relevant philosophical issues span a vast intellectual terrain and inspired centuries of philosophical reflection and debate. This article will contextualise and survey some of the historical and contemporary debates relevant to moral psychology and Buddhist ethics. They include whether the Buddha's teaching of no-self is consistent with the possibility of moral responsibility; the role of retributivism in Buddhist thought; the possibility of a Buddhist account of free will; the scope and viability of recent attempts to naturalise karma to character virtues and vices, and whether and how right action is to be understood within a Buddhist framework. (shrink)

*Winner of the American Philosophical Association's 2020 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought* This essay offers a novel account of the secularity of Latin American liberation philosophy. It challenges the accepted notion that liberation philosophy applies the methods and approaches of Latin American liberation theology to the philosophical arena, thus putting liberation theology on secular grounds. While this formulation is true insofar as liberation philosophy is not bound by the hermeneutics of any particular religious tradition, this formulation could be (...) misconstrued given that liberation philosophy does not premise such secularization in an undialectical understanding of secularity as secularism that disavows religion. Rather, liberation philosophy’s secularity is dialectical in that it requires constant engagement with re-ligion, not in the hermeneutics of any specific tradition but with “the traditional question of the Absolute.” Due to this often-misunderstood element of liberation philosophy, it has frequently been “ghettoized and relegated to the ‘safe’ area of theological studies,” as Eduardo Mendieta argues. However, I contend that liberation philosophy’s secular grounds offer an original contribution to philosophy as a decolonial and postsecularist liberation philosophy, one that conceives of secularism as an aspect of coloniality to be overcome, an obstacle rather than a benefit for Latin American philosophers seeking to gain a better understanding of our historical conditions. (shrink)

Contemporary engaged Buddhist scholars typically claim either that Buddhism always endorsed social activism, or that its non-endorsement of such activism represented an unwitting lack of progress. This article examines several classical South Asian Buddhist texts that explicitly reject social and political activism. These texts argue for this rejection on the grounds that the most important sources of suffering are not something that activism can fix, and that political involvement interferes with the tranquility required for liberation. The article then examines (...) the history of engaged Buddhism in order to identify why this rejection of activism has not yet been taken sufficiently seriously. (shrink)

Buddhist philosophy asserts that human suffering is caused by ignorance regarding the true nature of reality. According to this, perceptions and thoughts are largely fabrications of our own minds, based on conditioned tendencies which often involve problematic fears, aversions, compulsions, etc. In Buddhist psychology, these tendencies reside in a portion of mind known as Store consciousness. Here, I suggest a correspondence between this Buddhist Store consciousness and the neuroscientific idea of stored synaptic weights. These weights are strong synaptic connections built (...) in through experience. Buddhist philosophy claims that humans can find relief from suffering through a process in which the Store consciousness is transformed. Here, I argue that this Buddhist 'transformation at the base' corresponds to a loosening of the learned synaptic connections. I will argue that Buddhist meditation practices create conditions in the brain which are optimal for diminishing the strength of our conditioned perceptual and behavioural tendencies. (shrink)

In his book review of Graham Priest's The Fifth Corner of Four, Mark Siderits, while criticising Priest's philology, suggests that Priest's work is 'of considerable interest' for two reasons. First, 'when two independent traditions use similar methods to work on similar issues, it is always possible that one may have hit on approaches that the other missed'. Second, 'the decentering that can be induced by looking at another tradition may trigger fresh insights, even if those insights are not ones that (...) were actually developed by the tradition marked 'other''. The main task of this paper is to unpack Siderits' thought. By analysing some of Priest's work, I will suggest a decentering that must have taken place in China when Buddhism was 'exported to China in Buddhist shipping containers'. For anyone familiar with the forms of Buddhist philosophy developed in India, various forms of Chinese Buddhism can often look strange. Some ideas that were debated and defended by Indian Buddhists do not appear anywhere in Chinese Buddhism and some assumptions have been quietly added to Buddhism by Chinese Buddhists. By showing that Priest's work brings out the 'innovation' that Chinese Buddhists gave to Buddhism, I will suggest that it is this decentering that Siderits suggests Priest makes use of. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to bring to light some of the factors that allowed the emergence of secularization, and to understand to what extent and in what ways these factors contributed to the formation of the main lines of Spinozism. I will first examine the issues of secularization, emphasizing the importance of the transformations in the status of the Hebrew language during the Renaissance. I will then analyze the role that the Tractatus theologico-politicus may have had in European (...) culture. Finally, I will clarify Spinoza’s relationship to deism and atheism, specifying the nature of the controversies related to his religious attitude. (shrink)

Most Western Buddhists employ both utilitarian and virtue ethics, in the paradoxical unity of compassion and wisdom. On the one hand, our personal karmic clarity is most related to our cultivation of compassionate intention, but on the other hand we also need to develop penetrating insight into the most effective means to the ends. We do not believe that the person who helps others without any intention of doing so to have accrued merit, while we look upon the person who (...) causes others suffering with the best intentions a hapless fool. Similarly, in approaching the abortion decision, both the mindset of the actors and the utilitarian consequences are important. (shrink)

This is a three-part popular philosophy article for the Daily Philosophy website. -/- I challenge the 'engaged Buddhist' conviction that social and political activism is consistent with Buddhist teachings. -/- I focus on the Buddha's teachings on compassion and the 'overcoming of suffering' (part one), the kinds of attitudes and actions he endorsed and condemned (part two), and the essentially quietist character of his moral vision (part three). -/- A theme of the discussion is the neglect or dismissal, by modern (...) engaged Buddhists, of themes in the texts that are inconsistent with their own outlook and convictions. (shrink)