Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind

Dan Arnold

Published by Columbia University Press 2012

Brains, Buddhas, and Believing

The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind

Dan Arnold

https://doi.org/10.7312/arno14546

Overview
Contents

About this book

Through a careful exploration of the philosophical problems commonly faced by the seventh-century Indian Buddhist thinker Dharmakirti and twenty-first-century philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Dan Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and modern debates in philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that mental events are about (or mean, or represent) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through the arguments of Dharmakirti and some of his contemporaneous Indian critics, as well as Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold shows how seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of present-day philosophy.

Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable "mind scientists" whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death (its continuity is what Buddhists mean by "rebirth"), they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism.

By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called intentionality—the fact that the mind can be about (or represent or mean) other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms.

Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments (chiefly his apoha theory of meaning and his account of self-awareness), Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics (proponents of the orthodox Brahmanical Mimasa school as well as fellow Buddhists from the Madhyamaka school of thought), whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy.

Author / Editor information

Dan Arnold is associate professor of philosophy of religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he also received his Ph.D. His first book, Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Religion, won an American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion.

Reviews

...a rich and inspiring summary, livened up by many succint assessments of related positions.

Bronwyn Finnigan:
Brains, Buddhas, and Believing is outstanding. It is exegetically robust, providing richly informed expositions of historical positions.... It is exciting and refreshing to read a book that coherently explicates common issues between distinct intellectual traditions with such philosophical rigor and independence of thought.

Charles Goodman:
...an important work of philosophy...

Jan Westerhoff:
The book admirably shows how the philosophical views of Dharmakirti and others are not just exhibits in the Indian Wing of the Museum of the History of Ideas, but positions that are of considerable importance in our attempts of addressing contemporary philosophical problems.

Richard Nance:
The book is strong both philosophically and philologically, with Arnold's characteristic erudition, analytic rigor, interpretive sensitivity, and enthusiasm evident throughout.

Thomas Leahey:
I recommend Brains, Buddhas, and Believing to anyone interested in philosophy of mind and to those who would like to learn about a vigorous non-Western philosophy often thought of in purely practical rather than theoretical terms.

Graduate students and scholars of Buddhist scholastic thought-particularly those engaged by the philosophical dimensions of Buddhism and science discourse-are in for a treat. Recommended.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Dharmakīrti’s Proof of Rebirth A Dualist Account of the Causes of Cognition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. The Cognitive-Scientific Revolution Computationalism and the Problem of Mental Causation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
3. Responsiveness to Reasons as Such A Kantian Account of Intentionality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
4. The Apoha Doctrine Dharmakīrti’s Account of Mental Content Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
5. The Svasaṃvitti Doctrine Dharmakīrti’s “Methodological Solipsism” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
6. Indian Arguments from Practical Reason Mīmāṃsakas and Mādhyamikas Contra Cognitivism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Concluding Reflections Religious Studies and Philosophy of Mind Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	236
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 328

eBook

Published: May 15, 2012
ISBN: 9780231518215