Monima Chadha (Monash): No-Self and the phenomenology of ownership

Abstract: Abhidharma-Buddhist philosophers put forward a revisionary metaphysics which
lacks a "self" in order to provide an intellectually and morally preferred picture of the
world. I argue for a strong reading of the no-self view as a variety of no-subject or
no-ownership view. The Buddhists are not just denying the diachronically unified and
extended self but also minimal selfhood insofar as it associated with a sense of
ownership and agency.

The view is deeply counterintuitive and the Buddhists are acutely aware of this fact. 
Accordingly, the Abhidharma-Buddhist writings and contemporary reconstructions of the
view are replete with attempts to  explain the phenomenology of experience in a no-self
world. The paper defends the no-ownership view using resources from contemporary
discussions about sense (or lack thereof) of ownership.

Date & time

Thu 05 May 2016, 4:00pm to 6:00pm

Location

Coombs Seminar Room A

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