Description
Book SynopsisBuddhist Philosophy of Consciousness brings Buddhist voices to the study of consciousness. This book explores a variety of different Buddhist approaches to consciousness that developed out of the Buddhist theory of non-self. Topics taken up in these investigations include: how we are able to cognize our own cognitions; whether all conscious states involve conceptualization; whether distinct forms of cognition can operate simultaneously in a single mental stream; whether non-existent entities can serve as intentional objects; and does consciousness have an intrinsic nature, or can it only be characterized functionally? These questions have all featured in recent debates in consciousness studies. The answers that Buddhist philosophers developed to such questions are worth examining just because they may represent novel approaches to questions about consciousness.
Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Introduction Part 1: Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism Introduction to Part 1 1 Knowing Blue: Ābhidharmika Accounts of the Immediacy of Sense Perception Robert H. Sharf 2 Nonconceptual Awareness in Yogācāra and Madhyamaka Thought John Spackman 3 Turning Earth to Gold: the Early Yogācāra Understanding of Experience Following Non-conceptual Cognition Roy Tzohar Part 2: Meta-cognition Introduction to Part 2 4 Whose Consciousness? Reflexivity and the Problem of Self-Knowledge Christian Coseru 5 Should Mādhyamikas Refute Subjectivity? Thoughts on what might be at stake in debates on self-awareness Dan Arnold 6 Self-Knowledge and Non-self Mark Siderits 7 The Genesis of *Svasaṃvitti-saṃvittiReconsidered Toru Funayama 8 Dharmapāla on the Cognition of Other Minds (paracittajñāna) Shinya Moriyama Part 3: Mental Consciousness in East Asian Buddhism: MSF Introduction to Part 3 9 Mānasa-pratyakṣa as the Perception of Conventionally Real (prajñaptisat) Properties – Interpreting Dignāga’s mānasa-pratyakṣa based on Clues from Kuiji Ching Keng 10 Mental Consciousness and Its Objects Zhihua Yao 11 Vasubandhu’s Theory of Memory: a Reading based on the Chinese Commentaries Chen-kuo Lin Index
