Analytical Buddhism : the two-tiered illusion of self / Miri Albahari.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Albahari, Miri, 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Self--Religious aspects--Buddhism.

Self.

Anātman.

Nirvana.

Buddhism--Doctrines.

Buddhism.

Physical Description:

xiv, 235 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Summary:

It is not unusual for Western philosophers to deny existence to the 'self': that unified, separate, persisting thinker/owner/agent that we take ourselves to be. Following Hume and James, such philosophers have denied the self existence by treating as illusory its supposed unity and unbroken persistence. These qualities are deemed mere fictions, borne from imagination and acting upon a bundle of discrete thoughts, feelings and perceptions. In this book, Miri Albahari also denies existence to the self, but with a new twist: unity and unbrokenness are argued to be real qualities native to consciousness. Consciousness merges with desire-driven thought and emotion to create the impression of a separate and unified self; separateness, not unity, makes the self illusory. Albahari draws this 'two-tiered' model of the self-illusion from Canonical sources in Theravada Buddhist literature, augmenting it with research from neurologist Antonio Damasio. Since scholars usually ascribe a 'bundle theory' of no-self to Buddhism, Albahari offers a fresh perspective on this central Buddhist 'no-self' concept.

Contents:

Abbreviations from the Sutta Pitaka of the Pali Canon ix

Introduction: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self 1

1 Some Central Distinctions and the Four Noble Truths 6

1 Subject and object 6

1.1 Subject 7

1.2 Object 10

2 Distinguishing self from sense of self 16

2.1 What is the difference between 'self' and, 'sense of self'? 16

2.2 What is meant by 'sense' in 'sense of self'? 18

2.3 The Buddhist perspective on the sense of self 21

3 Defining 'person' 21

4 The essence of Buddhist teaching: The Four Noble Truths 22

2 Nibbana 31

1 Unconditioned nibbana is real 34

2 Unconditioned nibbana is experienced directly by the mind of the Arahant 35

3 The mind of the Arahant is (intrinsically) 'luminous', involving percipience and witnessing 36

4 The intrinsic mind of the Arahant is identical to unconditioned nibbana 36

5 By indiscernability of identicals, what is true of unconditioned nibbana is true of the Arahant's mind and vice versa 40

5.1 Unconditioned by quality 40

5.2 Unconditioned by space 42

5.3 Unconditioned by time 42

5.4 Unconditioned by relation 45

6 Nibbanic consciousness and the khandhas 45

6.1 The Arahant with 'proximate nibbanic consciousness' 46

6.2 'Pre-nibbanic consciousness' of the ordinary person 48

3 The Definition and Status of Self in Buddhism 50

1 Defining the self in Buddhism 51

1.1 Ownership and identification as reciprocal assumptions of self 51

1.2 Identification and the self 56

1.3 Personal ownership, the self and identification 60

1.4 The sense of self (through reciprocal senses of personal ownership and self-identification) co-arises with tanha 61

1.5 Further features Buddhism ascribes to the reflexively assumed self 63

1.6 What nibbanic consciousness could bring to the sense of self 69

1.7 The definition and status of self in Buddhism 73

2 The misportrayal of Buddhism as endorsing a 'bundle theory' of persons 75

4 The Reflexively Assumed Self 81

1 An East-West convergence on the description of self 81

1.1 Roles ascribed reflexively to the self 87

1.2 Attributes ascribed reflexively to the self 87

2 Role: Knower/observer/witness; Attribute: Mental/aware/conscious 88

3 Roles: Owner, agent, thinker, seeker of happiness; Attribute: Bounded 90

3.1 Identification as general evidence for boundedness 92

3.2 Four common modes of assumed self-identity: This-ness, autonomy, consistent self-concern and personal ownership 94

3.3 Integrating modes of identification into an overall conception of personality 105

3.4 Identification, ownership, boundedness and tanha 107

4 Attribute: Elusiveness 110

5 Attribute: Unity (singularity) 111

6 Attributes: Unbrokenness and invariability 113

6.1 Unbrokenness 113

6.2 Invariability 117

7 Attribute: Unconstructedness 118

5 How Do We Construe 'The Self Lacks Reality'? 121

1 What does it mean to deny reality to the self? 121

1.1 What is an illusion? 122

1.2 The self as construct and illusion 126

1.3 An intersection of agreement for those who deny reality to the self 130

2 Western thinkers who deny reality to the self 132

3 Buddhist and the Western accounts of 'no-self': Summarising the similarity and differences 138

6 Linking Problems of Consciousness with Awareness 140

1 Awareness as a concept of consciousness 142

1.1 More on the modus operandi of witnessing 142

1.2 The intrinsic phenomenal character of awareness 143

2 Linking problems of consciousness with 'awareness' 145

2.1 Elusiveness 146

2.2 The synchronic unity of consciousness 151

2.3 Unbroken and invariable unity 155

2.4 Unconstructedness 158

3 Awareness as central to phenomenal consciousness 159

4 Why boundedness is not implied by awareness 160

7 The Unconstructed Reality of Awareness 162

1 The central argument 162

2 The spectre of eliminative materialism 165

3 The object-knowledge thesis 167

8 How the Self Could Be a Construct 170

1 Revisiting evidence that awareness purports to be a bounded self 171

2 Is the bounded self a construct? 172

2.1 Can awareness exist without sense of bounded self? 172

2.2 The next steps to arguing that the self is a construct 177

2.3 The shortfalls of Damasio's theory 188

2.4 Identification revisited in light of self as illusion 189

2.5 Integrating concept of identification with Damasio's analysis to yield the two-tiered illusion of self 191

9 The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self 193

1 A schema for the two-tiered illusion of self 193

2 Witnessing presence 196

3 Unity 197

4 Elusiveness 199

5 Unbrokenness 200

6 Invariability 202

Glimpses Beyond 206.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 220-227) and index.

ISBN:

0230007120

OCLC:

69680188

Online:

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