A Case Against Simple-mindedness

Śrīgupta on Mental Mereology

Bibliographic Data

ID21293393
AuthorsAllison Aitken (0000-0002-5355-2373, Columbia University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume102
Issue3
Pages581-607
Publication date2024-07-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralasian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-8402 • E-ISSN: 1470-6828
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00048402.2023.2226687
OpenAlexW4385223703
LanguageEN
References cited44

There’s a common line of reasoning which supposes that the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is grounded in a mind-like simple subject. To the contrary, Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophers beginning with Śrīgupta (seventh–eighth century) argue that any kind of mental simple is incoherent and thus metaphysically impossible. Lacking any unifying principle, the phenomenal unity of conscious experience is instead an unfounded illusion. In this paper, I present an analysis of Śrīgupta’s ‘neither-one-nor-many argument’ against mental simples and show how his line of reasoning is driven by a set of implicit questions concerning the nature of and relation between consciousness and its intentional object. These questions not only set the agenda for centuries of intra-Buddhist debate on the topic, but they are also questions to which any defender of unified consciousness or a simple subject of experience arguably owes responses

Argument (complex analysis) · Buddhism · Consciousness · Epistemology · Foundationalism · Metaphysics · Object (grammar) · Simple (philosophy) · Subject (documents) · Theology · Computer Science · Historical Philosophy and Science · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access