Abstract
Mark Siderits has been one of the sharpest, clearest philosophers working on Buddhism in the last several decades. His work has also been strikingly wide-ranging. In this chapter, we will focus on two themes in his work that we find particularly interesting. First, Siderits makes a strong case that Abhidharma Buddhists promote mereological nihilism – the view that only simple entities are ultimately real, and aggregates (like a chariot or a heap) are at best useful fictions. Mereological nihilism grounds an argument against the existence of selves, which of course, is central to the tradition. But Siderits draws out a further, bracing conclusion from mereological nihilism – that consciousness isn’t ultimately real. We think this conclusion so antithetical to other commitments of Buddhism that it provides reason to doubt whether Buddhists should sustain the commitment to mereological nihilism. There is another important argument for the no-self view, however, Vasubandhu’s causal-efficacy argument; on this argument, real things must enter in cause-and-effect relations, and when we turn to cause-and-effect, there is no place where the self plays a necessary role. This argument informs our exploration of the second theme from Siderits – his defense of the “personalist” view that person (unlike self) is a useful fiction. We challenge this claim, first by noting that Vasubandhu himself uses the causal-efficacy argument against both selves and persons, and second by arguing that selves and persons are also on a par when it comes to whether they are useful fictions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
There are significant differences among Buddhists themselves about the interpretation and the role of dharmas. In the canonical sūtra texts, dharma is used in the sense of “law,” “truth,” or “teaching”. This is in contrast to the various translations and meanings of dharma in Abhidharma Indian Buddhist philosophy, where it is glossed as factor, thing, element, constituent, phenomenon, event, datum, property, quality, fundamental existent, reality, or not infrequently left untranslated. In the early Abhidharma tradition the primary concern is soteriological, thus the dharma analysis focuses on cultivating wholesome dharmas and abandoning unwholesome ones. However, as the Abhidharma tradition evolves the emphasis shifts from categorisation to ontological status of the individual analytical products. For an informative discussion of the evolution of dharma in the early Abhidharma tradition see (Cox 2004).
- 2.
Vasubandhu, unlike later philosophers, like Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, does not want to subscribe to the self-illumination or reflexivity thesis.
References
Chadha, M. 2015. Time-Series of Ephemeral Impressions: The Abhidharma-Buddhist View of Conscious Experience. Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences 14 (4): 543–560.
Ganeri, Jonardon. 2012. Buddhist No-Self: An Analysis and Critique. In Hindu and Buddhist Ideas in Dialogue: Self and No-Self, ed. Jonardon Ganeri, Irina Kuznetsova, and C. Ramprasad, 63–76. London: Ashgate.
Gold, Jonathan C. 2018. Vasubandhu. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2018 edition, ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/vasubandhu/.
Kapstein, Matthew. 2001. Reason’s Traces: Identity and Interpretation in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist Thought. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
Pruden, L. 1988. Abhidharmakośabhāsyam. English translation of Poussin, Louis de la Vallée (1923–1931 [1980]), L’Abhidharmakośa de Vasubandhu, 6 vols. Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press.
Ronkin, Noa. 2018. Abhidharma. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Summer 2018 edition, ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/abhidharma/.
Siderits, Mark. 1997. Buddhist Reductionism. Philosophy East and West 47 (4): 455–478.
———. 2007. Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction. Aldershot: Hackett.
———. 2011. Buddhas as Zombies: A Buddhist Reduction of Subjectivity. In Self, No Self?: Perspectives From Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions, ed. Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson, and Dan Zahavi, 308–332. Oxford University Press.
———. 2014. Causation, ‘Humean’ Causation and Emptiness. Journal of Indian Philosophy 42 (4): 433–449.
———. 2015. Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate.
Westerhoff, Jan Christoph. 2019. Nāgārjuna. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2019 edition, ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/Nāgārjuna/.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chadha, M., Nichols, S. (2023). Eliminating Selves, Reducing Persons. In: Coseru, C. (eds) Reasons and Empty Persons: Mind, Metaphysics, and Morality. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13995-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13995-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-13994-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-13995-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)