Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - The phenomenal separateness of self
T2 - Udayana on body and agency
AU - Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Classical Indian debates about ātman—self—concern a minimal or core entity rather than richer notions of personal identity. These debates recognise that there is phenomenal unity across time; but is a core self required to explain it? Contemporary phenomenologists foreground the importance of a phenomenally unitary self, and Udayana's position is interpreted in this context as a classical Indian approach to this issue. Udayana seems to dismiss the body as the candidate for phenomenal identity in a way similar to some Western philosophers. He also provides some inkling of how alternative ways of defending phenomenal unity without self fail. A criticism of some Western phenomenological theories of self is that they do not explain how unity is provided by the ‘mineness’ of cognition. Udayana's suggestion that a sort of agency provides such an explanation can be developed as an original argument for a phenomenally unitary self.
AB - Classical Indian debates about ātman—self—concern a minimal or core entity rather than richer notions of personal identity. These debates recognise that there is phenomenal unity across time; but is a core self required to explain it? Contemporary phenomenologists foreground the importance of a phenomenally unitary self, and Udayana's position is interpreted in this context as a classical Indian approach to this issue. Udayana seems to dismiss the body as the candidate for phenomenal identity in a way similar to some Western philosophers. He also provides some inkling of how alternative ways of defending phenomenal unity without self fail. A criticism of some Western phenomenological theories of self is that they do not explain how unity is provided by the ‘mineness’ of cognition. Udayana's suggestion that a sort of agency provides such an explanation can be developed as an original argument for a phenomenally unitary self.
U2 - 10.1080/09552367.2011.597929
DO - 10.1080/09552367.2011.597929
M3 - Journal article
VL - 21
SP - 323
EP - 340
JO - Asian Philosophy
JF - Asian Philosophy
SN - 1469-2961
IS - 3
ER -