Buddhist perspectives on free will : agentless agency? / edited by Rick Repetti.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Repetti, Rick.

Series:

Routledge studies in Asian religion and philosophy ; 18.

Routledge Studies in Asian Religion and Philosophy ; 18

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fate and fatalism--Religious aspects--Buddhism.

Fate and fatalism.

Free will and determinism--Religious aspects--Buddhism.

Free will and determinism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2017.

Summary:

Throughout the history of Buddhism, little has been said prior to the Twentieth Century that explicitly raises the question whether we have free will, though the Buddha rejected fatalism and some Buddhists have addressed whether karma is fatalistic. Recently, however, Buddhist and Western philosophers have begun to explicitly discuss Buddhism and free will. This book incorporates Buddhist philosophy more explicitly into the Western analytic philosophical discussion of free will, both in order to render more perspicuous Buddhist ideas that might shed light on the Western philosophical debate, and in order to render more perspicuous the many possible positions on the free will debate that are available to Buddhist philosophy. The book covers: Buddhist and Western perspectives on the problem of free will The puzzle of whether free will is possible if, as Buddhists believe, there is no agent/self Theravāda views Mahāyāna views Evidential considerations from science, meditation, and skepticism The first book to bring together classical and contemporary perspectives on free will in Buddhist thought, it is of interest to academics working on Buddhist and Western ethics, comparative philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, agency, and personal identity.

Contents:

1. Why the Buddha did not discuss 'the problem of free will and determinism' / Christopher W. Gowans

2. Why there should be a Buddhist theory of free will / Rick Repetti

3. Uses of the illusion of agency : why some Buddhists should believe in free will / Charles Goodman

4. Just another word for 'nothing left to lose' : freedom, agency, and ethics for Madhyamikas / Jay Garfield

5. Negative dialectics in comparative philosophy : the case of Buddhist free will quietism / Owen Flanagan

6. Free will and the sense of self / Galen Strawson

7. What am I doing? / Susan Blackmore

8. Freedom from responsibility : agent-neutral consequentialism and the bodhisattva ideal / Christian Coseru

9. Free will, liberation, and Buddhist philosophy / Marie Friquegnon

10. Buddhism and free will : beyond the 'free will problem' / B. Alan Wallace

11. Degress of freedom : the Buddha's implied views on the (im)possibility of free will / Martin T. Adam

12. Buddhist paleocompatibilism / Mark Siderits

13. Shifting coalitions, free will, and the responsibility of persons / Ben Abelson

14. Psychological versus metaphysical agents : a Theravada Buddhist view of free will and moral responsibility / Peter Harvey

15. Emotions and choice : lessons from Tsongkhapa / Emily McRae

16. Grasping snakes : reflections on free will, samadhi, and dharmas / Karin Meyers

17. Agentless agency : the soft compatibilist argument from Buddhist meditation, mind-mastery, evitabilism, and mental freedom / Rick Repetti.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-317-36208-X

1-315-66876-9

1-317-36209-8

9781315668765

OCLC:

954617287