Dr Bronwyn Finnigan (ANU) will presenting as one of the keynote speakers at Australasian Postgraduate Philosophy Conference 2018 (APPC).

The 2018 Australasian Postgraduate Philosophy Conference it will take place at Monash’s Caulfield Campus between the 28th and 30th of November.

The Conference is an opportunity for postgraduate students in all areas of philosophy to present and develop their work in a collegial environment.

The topic will be ‘Is Consciousness Reflexively Self-Aware? A Buddhist Analysis’

Abstract:

This paper examines contemporary Buddhist defences of the idea that consciousness is reflexively aware or self-aware. Call this the Self-Awareness Thesis. A version of this thesis was historically defended by Dignāga but rejected by Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika Buddhists. Prāsaṅgikas historically advanced four main arguments against this thesis. In this paper I consider whether some contemporary defence of the Self-Awareness Thesis can withstand these Prāsaṅgika objections. A problem is that contemporary defenders of the Self-Awareness Thesis have subtly different accounts with different assessment criteria. I start by providing a fourfold taxonomy of these different views and then progressively show how each can withstand Prāsaṅgika objections. And I conclude by giving reasons to think that even Prāsaṅgikas can accept some version of the Self-Awareness Thesis.

Further details are available at: https://appc2018.wordpress.com