We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Buddhism as Reductionism: Personal Identity and Ethics in Parfitian Readings of Buddhist Philosophy; from Steven Collins to the Present.
- Authors
Hanner, Oren
- Abstract
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 (no-self) 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.
- Subjects
BUDDHIST psychology; BUDDHIST ethics; REDUCTIONISM; IDENTITY (Psychology); BUDDHIST philosophy; COLLINS, Steven
- Publication
Sophia, 2018, Vol 57, Issue 2, p211
- ISSN
0038-1527
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11841-018-0668-3