Buddhism As Philosophy: Nonself and Reality

After introducing himself as a philosopher, Mark Siderits explains how examining Buddhist doctrines using the tools of philosophy will help you develop greater understanding of Buddhist teachings, by challenging you to think deeply about them throughout this course. He begins by framing Buddhism as a religion or soteriological system, but one in which philosophical investigation has an important role to play. This means you’ll be asked to interrogate exactly what it is you believe and why you believe it. In the process, you’ll learn to be open to debate, better understand objections others may raise to your worldview, and more carefully probe the reasonings underlying that worldview. Mark then introduces the basic Buddhist project—to overcome existential suffering—as understood through the lens of the Buddha’s life-story.

Mark explores in some detail those core teachings of the Buddha that set the stage for all subsequent development: the four noble truths, the twelvefold chain of dependent origination and the eightfold path to liberation. What reason is there to believe that any of these doctrines are correct, or that they might help us overcome suffering? Central to the Buddha’s teachings is the claim that there is no self, and that it is ignorance of this fact that lies at the root of suffering. But how do we come to think there is such a thing as a self, and what role might that play in a happiness-seeking project if that turns out to be a kind of Ponzi scheme?

This is the first of two lessons on the topic of nonself. Buddhists understand the ‘I’-sense, the feeling that there is a real ‘me’ somewhere inside, to be the source of the ignorance that initiates a twelvefold chain of causes and effects ending in suffering. In this lesson, Mark explores the idea that this ‘I’-sense might stem from the existence of a self, understood as the one core part of each of us that is the real thinker and doer, the subject of awareness and the agent of action. You will see how Buddhists use philosophical reasoning to demonstrate that there can be no such thing. And you’ll be invited to examine their reasoning and decide for yourself whether it’s any good.

Refuting a self might not be enough to undermine the ‘I’-sense. In this lesson, Mark explores another way we might believe in the existence of a real ‘I’, the idea that it is the person as a whole, something consisting of all the psychophysical elements (skandhas or aggregates), that is the ‘I’. You will explore the analysis of another composite object, a chariot, to see how Buddhists argue that the person could not, strictly speaking, be real. After careful examination of the reasoning they use, you will see how this might answer one common question raised about Buddhist teachings: if Buddhists believe there is no self, how can they also hold that there is rebirth?

Mark explores the concept of diachronic personal identity (DPI) in the context of the Buddhist theory of nonself. We each believe (or hope) that we will continue to exist for some time to come: that there will be a future person who is me. If there is neither a self nor a person, must this not be false? He’ll lead you through a series of thought-experiments devised by the Buddhist monk Nāgasena to explore how belief in DPI might work even if there really are no persons. And you’ll learn about Buddhism’s distinction between two kinds of truth as a response to this question, and how the person functions as a sort of “useful fiction.”

Mark shifts his focus to a philosophical examination of ethics in the Buddhist tradition. He’ll explain how to distinguish clearly between the karmic and Dharmic dimensions of Buddhist moral teachings—ethics for layfolk and ethics for those on the Path. You’ll gain insight into Buddhist answers to questions about what the good life is, what the moral laws are, and what reasons there are to practice precepts like universal benevolence. You will see how the Buddhist teaching of nonself might serve to answer the perennial question, “Why should I be moral?”

In the first of four lessons on Abhidharma, Mark explains how the Abhidharma tradition—distinct from early Buddhism and Mahāyāna—aims to systematize and elaborate upon the Buddha’s teachings to devise a “metaphysics of empty persons.” If composites such as chariots, forests and persons are not strictly speaking real, then what is? Only dharmas, we are told, but what are they? You’ll discover how to analyze whether something is a dharma—namely by determining if it has svabhāva (i.e., bears its nature intrinsically). And you’ll begin to see how this seemingly very dry topic of Abhidharma metaphysical analysis might turn out to be important to our welfare.

Mark explores more of that “dry” Abhidharma metaphysics, this time the metaphysics of time. The Buddha taught that everything is impermanent, but Abhidharma schools give that teaching a radical twist: everything is momentary, going out of existence an instant after it comes into existence. You’ll explore the argument they use to support this surprising conclusion. And you’ll examine the ways they try to square the conclusion with our everyday experience. All this will affect how we understand causation, something that is central to the Buddhist analysis of our existence. Just what might it mean to say that when something occurs, it brings about the existence of something else?

In this third lesson on Abhidharma, Mark examines a point that will prove crucial for his second set of lectures, Buddhism As Philosophy: Yogācāra and Madhyamaka. It concerns the question of what we are actually aware of when we perceive something: is it the physical object outside the mind, or is it a mental representation? One Abhidharma school exploits their theory of time and causation to argue that it must be the latter. This will be another case where a seemingly obscure philosophical dispute will turn out to have major consequences for our understanding of what the world is like. For this view about perception will lead straight to the question of whether the external physical world might all be an illusion. Some Mahāyāna Buddhists make the surprising claim that it is, so it is important to carefully examine the Abhidharma arguments about the object of perception.

In the final lesson of the course, Mark returns to some fundamental questions about the Buddhist conception of persons and the role of that conception in the path. He’ll challenge you to think more carefully about the idea that a person is something merely posited based on a causal series of momentary bodily and mental events. If nothing about me persists from one moment to the next, how can I remember my past and anticipate my future? You’ll gain greater clarity about how Abhidharma theories might help us rid ourselves of a concrete ‘I’-sense that is reinforced by personal memory, future rumination, and even present-moment introspection. He will also discuss a question many people have about the Buddhist claim that everything about us is causally determined: does that not rule out the possibility that we ever freely choose anything?