This is a book for scholars of Western philosophy who wish to engage with Buddhist philosophy, or who simply want to extend their philosophical horizons. It is also a book for scholars of Buddhist studies who want to see how Buddhist theory articulates with contemporary philosophy. Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy articulates the basic metaphysical framework common to Buddhist traditions. It then explores questions in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, phenomenology, epistemology, the philosophy of language and ethics as (...) they are raised and addressed in a variety of Asian Buddhist traditions. In each case the focus is on philosophical problems; in each case the connections between Buddhist and contemporary Western debates are addressed, as are the distinctive contributions that the Buddhist tradition can make to Western discussions. Engaging Buddhism is not an introduction to Buddhist philosophy, but an engagement with it, and an argument for the importance of that engagement. It does not pretend to comprehensiveness, but it does address a wide range of Buddhist traditions, emphasizing the heterogeneity and the richness of those traditions. The book concludes with methodological reflections on how to prosecute dialogue between Buddhist and Western traditions. (shrink)

We discuss the structure of Buddhist theory, showing that it is a kind of moral phenomenology directed to the elimination of egoism through the elimination of a sense of self. We then ask whether being raised in a Buddhist culture in which the values of selflessness and the sense of non-self are so deeply embedded transforms one’s sense of who one is, one’s ethical attitudes and one’s attitude towards death, and in particular whether those transformations are consistent with the predictions (...) that Buddhist texts themselves make. We discover that the effects are often significant, but not always expected. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Spoken communication between social robotic devices, powered by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, and the senior population offers great potential for researching social interaction and robot identity perceptions as well as exploring the potential opportunities and challenges when implementing this human-machine interactions in real life situations and health care. In this paper we explore people’s perceptions of the social robot Furhat when administering verbal tasks similar to those used in screening for Alzheimer’s disease. We describe the Slovak system mounted (...) on the robot that includes a speech recognizer, the scenarios powered by generative large language model ChatGPT, and a speech synthesizer. We tested the functionality of the proposed approach with two groups of participants: attendees of a large science fair and a scientific conference. The observations from 87 collected questionnaires suggest good potential and applicability of such an approach for the given task and more positive attitudes of older subjects compared to younger ones. (shrink)

This article examines five different Medical-Legal Partnerships associated with Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut to illustrate how MLP addresses the social determinants of poor health. These MLPs address varied and distinct health and legal needs of unique patient populations, including: 1) children; 2) immigrants; 3) formerly incarcerated individuals; 4) patients with cancer in palliative care; and 5) veterans. The article charts a research agenda to create the evidence base for quality and evaluation metrics, capacity building, sustainability, and best (...) practices; it also focuses specifically on a research agenda that identifies the value of the lawyers in MLP. Such a focus on the “L” has been lacking and is overdue. (shrink)

This is a reply to the essays by Catherin Prueitt, Sonam Kachru, and Roy Tzohar on the problem of intersubjectivity in Yogācāra, from a panel at the American Academy of Religion. I argue that the problem of explaining genuine intersubjectivity, as opposed to parallel subjectivity remains unsolved.

The consensus recommendations by Salter and colleagues (2023) regarding pediatric decision-making intentionally omitted adolescents due to the additional complexity their evolving autonomy presented. Using two case studies, one focused on truth-telling and disclosure and one focused on treatment refusal, this article examines medical decision-making with and for adolescents in the context of the six consensus recommendations. It concludes that the consensus recommendations could reasonably apply to older children.

Sellars' critique of the myth of the given can help us understand the epistemology of consciousness in Madhyamaka and Yogacara thought.

What does it mean to be human? Philosophers and theologians have been wrestling with this question for centuries. Recent advances in cognition, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and robotics have yielded insights that bring us even closer to an answer. There are now computer programs that can accurately recognize faces, engage in conversation, and even compose music. There are also robots that can walk up a flight of stairs, work cooperatively with each other and express emotion. If machines can do everything we (...) can, does that mean we are machines? -/- This book examines whether an artificial person can be constructed and if so, what that might tell us about our future and ourselves. Different human capacities such as perception, creativity, consciousness, social behavior, and free will are described in separate chapters. Technological advances in these areas are summarized and compared to our own abilities. The book adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, with a naturalistic perspective drawn from biology and psychology matched against a technological perspective based on computer science and robotics. (shrink)

A summary of topics and theoretical approaches to dynamical systems and psychology. Includes chapters on physical systems, self-organization, state space and dimensionality, networks, neurodynamics, fractals and how such concepts help to explain cognition and the mind.

Examines the philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience behind visual experience. Chapters on attention, illusions, aftereffects, binocular rivalry, hemispheric differences, attentional blink, agnosias and other disorders. Particular attention paid to consciouseness. The systematic review of key topics and the multitude of perspectives make this book an ideal primary or ancillary text for graduate courses in perception, vision, consciousness, or philosophy of mind.

Pain can be a body-wrenching curse. Yet it is often a life-defining and supporting blessing!Pain is a distinct physiological event, yet it is also an emotional, social, spiritual, and economic force. Pain in its more destructive form alters lives, changes relationships, and disrupts families.Quality pain management should not be just a pharmacological response to a medical situation; it must also be a theological, ethical, and societal response to human need. Appropriate pain management is a gift to both the receiver and (...) the provider. As a parish priest, a supervisor of pastoral services, and an ethics resource specialist, I have seen many pain-filled situations that have involved multiples of these dimensions.Born in 1969, Casey died in 1995, just a few months after his twenty-sixth birthday. Casey was an intelligent, charismatic college student, strong in religious faith, who had few problems … at least until one day in the summer of 1994. That day he began to suffer extreme pain in his lower stomach and bowels. (shrink)

Pain can be a body-wrenching curse. Yet it is often a life-defining and supporting blessing!Pain is a distinct physiological event, yet it is also an emotional, social, spiritual, and economic force. Pain in its more destructive form alters lives, changes relationships, and disrupts families.Quality pain management should not be just a pharmacological response to a medical situation; it must also be a theological, ethical, and societal response to human need. Appropriate pain management is a gift to both the receiver and (...) the provider. As a parish priest, a supervisor of pastoral services, and an ethics resource specialist, I have seen many pain-filled situations that have involved multiples of these dimensions.Born in 1969, Casey died in 1995, just a few months after his twenty-sixth birthday. Casey was an intelligent, charismatic college student, strong in religious faith, who had few problems … at least until one day in the summer of 1994. That day he began to suffer extreme pain in his lower stomach and bowels. (shrink)

Finnigan, in the course of a careful and astute discussion of the difficulties facing a Buddhist account of the moral agency of a buddha, develops a challenging critique of a proposal I made in Garfield. Much of what she says is dead on target, and I have learned much from her paper. But I have serious reservations about the central thrust both of her critique of my own thought and about her proposal for a positive account of a buddha’s enlightened (...) action. Curiously, in another fine paper, Finnigan and her co-author have anticipated much of what I will say in reply. I will rely in part on that second paper in my reply to the essay that appears in this volume. (shrink)

In the course of a careful and astute discussion of the difficulties facing a Buddhist account of the moral agency of a buddha, Bronwyn Finnigan develops a challenging critique of a proposal I made in a recent article (Garfield 2006). Much of what she says is dead on target, and I have learned much from her comment. But I have serious reservations about both the central thrust of her critique of my own thought and her proposal for a positive account (...) of a buddha’s enlightened action. Curiously, in another fine essay (Finnigan andTanaka forthcoming), Finnigan and her co-author have anticipated much of what I will say in reply. I will rely in part on that second essay in my reply to the critique that appears in this .. (shrink)

Mental representation is a metaphor. It has perhaps become so entrenched that it appears to have been frozen, and it is easy to lose sight of its metaphorical character. Literally, a representation is a re-presentation, a symbol that stands for something else because that thing can’t be with us. I send my parents photos of the grandchildren because e-mail is cheaper than air tickets. I consult a map of Adelaide to find the shortest route to the philosophy department because wandering (...) through the streets would take too much time. Perhaps in a similar sense I use words in this discussion because the very ideas in my head have no way of being transferred directly to yours. It is tempting to think that when you hear them thoughts in your head substitute in further processing for the sounds I produce or for the words they encode. But if I am right in what follows, we should resist this temptation. (shrink)

Taking its lead from analyses of gift exchange by Marcel Mauss and Marshall Sahlins as well as of contact by Charles Long and Jonathan Z Smith, this article elaborates a theory of the exchange, among dominant social subjects, of representations of their subjected proximate others in order to rectify the crisis precipitated by contact with otherness that threatens their claims to autonomy, authority, homogeneity, and universality. Specifically it situates the polemical exchange of representations of women among Friedrich Schlegel, G W (...) F Hegel, and Karl Gutzkow as exemplary German male bourgeois efforts to rectify the crises to subject formation generated, in part, by the emergence of gender-coded bifurcated bourgeois society and signaled by the Kantian and French Revolutions. The public dissemination of apotropaic representations screened the dependence upon proximate others by, and determined the positions among, exchange participants as well as maintained structures of domination. (shrink)