Attention and self in Buddhist philosophy of mind

Ratio 31 (4):354-362 (2018)
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Abstract

Buddhist philosophy of mind is fascinating because it denies that there is a self in one of the ways that has traditionally seemed best able to make sense of that idea: the idea that the self is the agent of actions including the thinking of thoughts. In the Buddhist philosophy of mind of the fifth century thinker Buddhaghosa what does the explanatory work is instead attention. Attention replaces self in the explanation of cognition’s grounding in perception and action; it does this because it performs two functions at once, a function of placing and a function of focussing. A comparison between the thought of Buddhaghosa and Brian O’Shaughnessy helps to clarify what is at stake in the residual employment of the concept self as a derived rather than a primitive notion.

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Jonardon Ganeri
University of Toronto, St. George Campus

References found in this work

Consciousness and the World.Brian O’Shaughnessy - 2002 - Philosophy 77 (300):283-287.
The Psychology of Nirvana.Rune E. A. Johansson - 1970 - Religious Studies 6 (3):295-296.

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