Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages

Personal Identity

Buddhism

(Text as at 06/07/2023 00:43:12)

Plug Note¹

• Thesis Text:
  1. Buddhist teachings are relevant in at least two ways to the philosophy of personal identity:-
     1. The rejection of the importance of the Self². There are some connections to Parfit’s³ ideas.
     2. The insistence on Reincarnation⁴.
  2. The Buddhist claim is that the focus on the Self, together with attachments to anything whatever, is the cause of all the world's ills. No doubt there's something in this - but it's illicit or inordinate attachments that are the problem, not attachments as such. Attachments are what gives life meaning, and its selfishness, not selves, that is the problem. Anyway, some philosophers think it would be a "good thing" if the boundaries between one self and another were broken down so that we cared less about who was benefitted from our actions, just that our actions were beneficial - so we wouldn't care whether it was ourselves, or our families or friends, or someone unknown to us who benefitted, just that someone did. Despite the potential benefit to the world’s poor, this strikes me as:-
     1. Overly idealistic and
     2. Ignoring our proper responsibilities (ie. we have some greater responsibility - though not an exclusive one - for those close to us, because they are "our job" to look after).
  3. Those philosophers who take a "psychological view⁵" of our persistence conditions⁶ – that we're psychological beings whose degree of connectedness to our future selves is exclusively based on psychological factors – some of whom think that we are somehow portable from one body to another – can make some sense of reincarnation⁷. Those who are thoroughgoing materialists⁸ (like me) can't. I’m sure the Dalai Lama₉ is a very nice man, but his position and authority depends on him being a reincarnation¹⁰ of someone else, which isn’t likely to be true.
  4. However, I think this may be a misrepresentation, for if Buddhists take the soul view¹¹ of our identity, then the very same soul may be reincarnated¹² – ie. given a new body. This is despite the possessor of that soul – in a previous life – being a different human being¹³ (or, indeed, not a human being at all).
  5. Where Buddhism differs from Hinduism with regard to the benefits of reincarnation is that for Buddhists reincarnation is never a benefit in itself, because the idea is to achieve nirvana by escaping the cycle of rebirth. For Hindus, the benefit depends on Karma – if it is good, then you go up the ladder, else down.

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  Further Remarks
  1. So, I'm vaguely interested in Buddhism – though not from the religious angle – where my interests are strictly "Abrahamic" (Christianity, Judaism, Islam). It slightly impinges on my research topic, though in a rather negative way.
  2. I have to admit to being mostly ignorant of Buddhist teachings, and unsympathetic towards those I know of (other than the woolly “peace, love and compassion” stuff). No doubt a Buddhist would have an answer to my concerns, and correct my many confusions.
  3. Despite all the "peace and love" stuff, some of the ideas that Buddhism inherited from Hinduism strike me as being rather pernicious. It all stems from Karma and reincarnation¹⁴ - the idea that whatever we do in this life stores up good or ill for us the next time round. Maybe this (despite being based on metaphysical falsehoods) has some tendency to encourage some people to be less wicked than they might otherwise be (just like the threat of the eternal bonfire used to do for Christians), but it also has a tendency (for those who take the doctrine seriously) to encourage the thought that people deserve what they get because of what they did in a past life – so the poor deserve their poverty and the rich their wealth; all very convenient for those in power; though this isn’t the Dalai Lama’s take on things). No doubt the thought that any living thing might once have been human, or might in some future cycle be human, might lead to "universal compassion", but it's all a complete muddle metaphysically-speaking, and we should found our ethics on truths rather than falsehoods, it seems to me.
  4. A couple of Websites may be useful, though clearly they don’t focus on my research interests:-
     1. The Buddhist eLibrary
     2. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet: The Dalai Lama’s site
  5. The following brace of books might also help, with the same caveats:-
     1. "Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Van Bragt (Jan), Heisig (James), Swanson (Paul) & O'Leary (Joseph), Eds. - Buddhist Spirituality I - Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, Early Chinese", and
     2. "Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Heisig (James), O'Leary (Joseph) & Swanson (Paul), Eds. - Buddhist Spirituality II - Later China, Korea, Japan and the Modern World".
  6. However, the following book may be the best philosophical start:-
     1. "Garfield (Jay L.) - Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy".

References

• Relevant Works cited above:
  1. "Garfield (Jay L.) - Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy", 2015, Book
• For a page of Links¹⁵ to this Note, Click here. There were too many for an updating run – given the relative unimportance of this topic for my thesis – but I’ve used it to cherry-pick some items of interest.
• Works on this topic that I’ve actually read¹⁶, include the following:-
  • Aeon:
    1. "Kreplin (Ute) - Meditation under the microscope", 2018, External Link, Internal PDF Link
  • General:
    1. "Ettenberg (Jodi) - Silence and Spiders at a 10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course", 2021, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Footnote₁₇
    2. "Gunaratana (Bhante Henepola) - What Exactly Is Vipassana Meditation?", 2018, External Link, Internal PDF Link
    3. "Kwong (Ivy) - A Brutally Honest Review of My 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat", 2017, External Link
    4. "Marshall (Richard) & Priest (Graham) - Graham Priest: Logically Speaking", 2014
    5. "Vardy (Peter) & Arliss (Julie) - Evil in Eastern traditions", 2004
• A further reading list might start with:-
  • General:
    1. "Bauer (Rudolph) - The Direct Experience of Our Ontological Sense of Being as Self", 2018, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 33%
    2. "Bourgeois (Warren) - Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Parfit: The Oxford Buddhist", 2003, Read = 5%
    3. "Chopra (Deepak) & Hameroff (Stuart) - Can science explain the soul?", 2010, External Link, Read = 150%
    4. "Garfield (Jay L.) - Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy", 2015, Book
    5. "Giles (James) - The No-Self Theory: Hume, Buddhism, And Personal Identity", 1993, Internal PDF Link
    6. "Goodman (Charles) - Vaibhāṣika Metaphoricalism", 2005, Internal PDF Link, Read = 8%
    7. "Hayward (Jeremy) - A rDzogs-chen Buddhist Interpretation of the Sense of Self", 2002
    8. "Hofstadter (Douglas) - Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll", 1979, Book, Read = 1%
    9. "Laycock (Stephen) - Consciousness It/Self", 2002
    10. "Martin (Raymond) - Review: Mark Siderits: Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons", 2006, Internal PDF Link
    11. "Perrett (Roy W.) - Future Generations and the Metaphysics of the Self: Western and Indian philosophical perspectives", 2003, Internal PDF Link
    12. "Perrett (Roy W.) - Personal Identity, Minimalism, And Madhyamaka", 2002, Internal PDF Link
    13. "Rivas (Titus) - Rebirth and Personal Identity: Is Reincarnation an Intrinsically Impersonal Concept?", 2005, Internal PDF Link
    14. "Siderits (Mark) - Buddhist Reductionism", 1997, Internal PDF Link
    15. "Sprague (Elmer) - Giving Persons a Hard Time", 1999
    16. "Velleman (David) - So It Goes", 2006, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 11%
    17. "Wagner (Rachel) & Flannery-Dailey (Frances) - Wake Up! Worlds of Illusion in Gnosticism, Buddhism, and The Matrix Project", 2005, No Abstract
    18. "Wikipedia - Vipassana", 2014, External Link, Internal PDF Link, Read = 78%
    19. "Williams (Paul) - Indian Philosophy", 1999
    20. "Williams (Paul) - Response to Mark Siderits' Review", 2000, Internal PDF Link
    21. "Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Heisig (James), O'Leary (Joseph) & Swanson (Paul), Eds. - Buddhist Spirituality II - Later China, Korea, Japan and the Modern World", 1999, Book
    22. "Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Van Bragt (Jan), Heisig (James), Swanson (Paul) & O'Leary (Joseph), Eds. - Buddhist Spirituality I - Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, Early Chinese", 1995, Book

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• For a list of Works that have been considered, but have missed the cut for inclusion in this Section of my Thesis, see the following:-
  1. Read: No items to list.
  2. Further Reading: No items to list.
• This is mostly a place-holder¹⁸.

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In-Page Footnotes:

Footnote 9:

1. See Wikipedia: Succession of the 14th Dalai Lama for a discussion of the succession from 14th to 15th Delai Lama.

Footnote 17:

• This account seems to be updated periodically.

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Table of the Previous 6 Versions of this Note:

Date	Length	Title
20/09/2022 11:24:00	6830	Buddhism
01/05/2022 18:20:10	6440	Buddhism
07/02/2021 19:46:34	6061	Buddhism
04/12/2019 23:36:58	5387	Buddhism
03/02/2018 21:27:22	5614	Buddhism
18/12/2010 19:58:05	3585	Buddhism

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Note last updated	Reading List for this Topic	Parent Topic
06/07/2023 00:43:12	Buddhism	Parfit

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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note

Awaiting Attention (Personal Identity)	Human Beings	Note Links Explanation	Parfit	Persistence Criteria
Physicalism	Plug Note Apologia	Psychological View	Reincarnation	Self
Soul Criterion	Works Read - Explanation

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Summary of Notes Citing This Note

Aeon Papers, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15	Aeon Papers - Summary Document: 2017-2018	Baker - Materialism with a Human Face	London Review of Books	PID Note, Book & Paper Usage, 2, 3, 4
Religion, 2	Survival	Taking Persons Seriously	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What are We?), 2, 3, 4, 5	Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?)
Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)	Thesis - Current Stance	Thesis - Personal Identity, 2, 3, 4, 5	Website Generator Documentation - Functors, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.

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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note

Author	Title	Medium	Extra Links	Read?
Aeon	Video - Hacking enlightenment	Paper		Yes
Baillie (James)	We all know that we will die, so why do we struggle to believe it?	Paper		Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Materialism with a Human Face	Paper		Yes
Bauer (Rudolph)	The Direct Experience of Our Ontological Sense of Being as Self	Paper
Goodman (Charles)	Vaibhāṣika Metaphoricalism	Paper
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: 2019+	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15	Yes
Han (Byung-Chul)	Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese	Book		Yes
Koslowski (Peter), Ed.	The Origin and the Overcoming of Evil and Suffering in the World Religions	Book
Kreplin (Ute)	Meditation under the microscope	Paper		Yes
LRB	London Review of Books	Paper
Martin (Raymond)	Review: Mark Siderits: Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons	Paper
Noble (Denis)	The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes	Book
Perrett (Roy W.)	Personal Identity, Minimalism, And Madhyamaka	Paper
Siderits (Mark)	Buddhist Reductionism	Paper	2, 3, 4
Talbot (Mary)	The good death	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 02 (What Are We?)	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 03 (What is a Person?)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 05 (Persistence and Time)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Chapter 07 (The Constitution View and Arguments for It)	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Current Position	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Personal Identity	Paper	2, 3, 4, 5
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Religion	Paper	2	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Survival	Paper		Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Taking Persons Seriously	Paper		Yes
Tolhurst (Bryony)	You can think like an animal by silencing your chattering brain	Paper		Yes
Velleman (David)	So It Goes	Paper		Yes
Ward (Warren)	Sooner or later we all face death. Will a sense of meaning help us?	Paper		Yes
Williams (Paul)	Response to Mark Siderits' Review	Paper	2

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References & Reading List

Author	Title	Medium	Source	Read?
Aeon	Video - Hacking enlightenment	Paper - Referencing	Aeon, 16 August 2021	Yes
Baker (Lynne Rudder)	Materialism with a Human Face	Paper - Referencing	Corcoran - Soul, Body and Survival, Chapter 10	Yes
Bauer (Rudolph)	The Direct Experience of Our Ontological Sense of Being as Self	Paper - Cited	Retrieved from Academia.edu, 14th August 2018	33%
Blackmore (Susan)	Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Blackmore (Susan) - Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences	2%
Blackmore (Susan)	Dying to Live: Preface	Paper - By Subtopic	Blackmore - Dying to Live, Preface	Yes
Bourgeois (Warren)	Contemporary Philosophers' Views on Persons: Parfit: The Oxford Buddhist	Paper - By Subtopic	Bourgeois - Persons: What Philosophers Say about You, 2003, Chapter 13	5%
Bourgeois (Warren)	Persons: What Philosophers Say about You	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Bourgeois (Warren) - Persons: What Philosophers Say about You	15%
Capra (Fritjof)	The Tao of Physics	Book - By Subtopic	Capra (Fritjof) - The Tao of Physics	1%
Chopra (Deepak) & Hameroff (Stuart)	Can science explain the soul?	Paper - By Subtopic	San Francisco Chronicle, Website - 9th August 2010	33%
Cook (Roger)	The Tree of Life: Image for the Cosmos	Book - By Subtopic	Cook (Roger) - The Tree of Life: Image for the Cosmos	No
Corcoran (Kevin)	Biology or Psychology? Human Persons and Personal Identity	Paper - By Subtopic	Petrus - On Human Persons, 2003	Yes
Corcoran (Kevin), Ed.	Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	99%
Ettenberg (Jodi)	Silence and Spiders at a 10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course	Paper - By Subtopic	Legal Nomads Website	Yes
Gallagher (Shaun) & Shear (Jonathan), Eds.	Models of the Self	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Gallagher (Shaun) & Shear (Jonathan), Eds. - Models of the Self	2%
Gardner (Percy)	Exploratio Evangelica: A Brief Examination of the Basis and Origin of Christian Belief	Book - By Subtopic	Gardner (Percy) - Exploratio Evangelica: A Brief Examination of the Basis and Origin of Christian Belief	No
Garfield (Jay L.)	Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy	Book - Cited	Garfield (Jay L.) - Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy	0%
Goodman (Charles)	Vaibhāṣika Metaphoricalism	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophy East and West, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 377-393	8%
Grau (Christopher)	Philosophers Explore 'The Matrix'	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Grau (Christopher) - Philosophers Explore 'The Matrix'	8%
Grayling (Anthony), Ed.	Philosophy 2 - Further Through the Subject	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Grayling (Anthony), Ed. - Philosophy 2 - Further Through the Subject	1%
Gunaratana (Bhante Henepola)	What Exactly Is Vipassana Meditation?	Paper - By Subtopic	Tricycle Website (Buddhism for Beginners)	Yes
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: Follow-up Boxes	Book - Referencing (via Paper Referencing)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	100%
Hains (Brigid) & Hains (Paul)	Aeon: G-K	Book - Cited (via Paper Cited)	Bibliographical details to be supplied	30%
Hofstadter (Douglas)	Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll	Book - Cited	Hofstadter (Douglas) - Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - A Metaphorical Fugue on Minds and Machines in the Spirit of Lewis Carroll	1%
JCS	Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 01, Issue 1 (1994)	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	JCS - Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 01, Issue 1 (1994)	No
JCS	Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 01, Issue 1 (1994)	Paper - By Subtopic	JCS - Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 1, Issue 1 (1994)	No
Kreplin (Ute)	Meditation under the microscope	Paper - Cited	Aeon, 09 July, 2018	Yes
Kwong (Ivy)	A Brutally Honest Review of My 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat	Paper - By Subtopic	Legal Nomads Website	Yes
Laycock (Stephen)	Consciousness It/Self	Paper - By Subtopic	Gallagher & Shear - Models of the Self	No
Martin (Raymond)	Review: Mark Siderits: Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons	Paper - By Subtopic	Mind, 115, Number 458, April 2006, pp. 472-475(4)	No
Niwano (Nikkyo) & Tamura (Yoshiro)	The Threefold Lotus Sutra	Book - By Subtopic	Niwano (Nikkyo) & Tamura (Yoshiro) - The Threefold Lotus Sutra	No
Perrett (Roy W.)	Personal Identity, Minimalism, And Madhyamaka	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophy East & West, Jul2002, Vol. 52 Issue 3, p373, 13p;	No
Petrus (Klaus), Ed.	On Human Persons	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Petrus (Klaus), Ed. - On Human Persons	73%
Pirsig (Robert M.)	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values	Book - By Subtopic	Pirsig (Robert M.) - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values	Yes
Pirsig (Robert M.)	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values	Paper - By Subtopic	Pirsig (Robert M.) - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values	Yes
Siderits (Mark)	Buddhist Reductionism	Paper - By Subtopic	Philosophy East & West, Oct97, Vol. 47 Issue 4, p455, 24p;	No
Sprague (Elmer)	Giving Persons a Hard Time	Paper - By Subtopic	Sprague - Persons and Their Minds, 1999, Chapter 9	No
Sprague (Elmer)	Persons and Their Minds: A Philosophical Investigation	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Sprague (Elmer) - Persons and Their Minds: A Philosophical Investigation	No
Talbot (Mary)	The good death	Paper - Referencing	Aeon, 25 September 2014	Yes
Thompson (Evan)	Dying: What Happens When We Die?	Book - By Subtopic	Thompson (Evan) - Dying: What Happens When We Die?	Yes
Todman (Theo)	Thesis - Buddhism	Paper - By Subtopic		Yes
Tolhurst (Bryony)	You can think like an animal by silencing your chattering brain	Paper - Referencing	Aeon, 19 December 2024	Yes
Vardy (Peter) & Arliss (Julie)	Evil in Eastern traditions	Paper - By Subtopic	Vardy (Peter) & Arliss (Julie) - The Thinker's Guide to Evil, Chapter 3	Yes
Vardy (Peter) & Arliss (Julie)	The Thinker's Guide to Evil	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Vardy (Peter) & Arliss (Julie) - The Thinker's Guide to Evil	Yes
Velleman (David)	Beyond Price: Papers On Life And Death	Book - By Subtopic (via Paper By Subtopic)	Velleman (David) - Beyond Price: Papers On Life And Death	10%
Velleman (David)	So It Goes	Paper - By Subtopic	The Amherst Lecture in Philosophy 1 (2006): 1–23	Yes
Wagner (Rachel) & Flannery-Dailey (Frances)	Wake Up! Worlds of Illusion in Gnosticism, Buddhism, and The Matrix Project	Paper - By Subtopic	Grau - Philosophers Explore "The Matrix", 2005	No
Ward (Keith)	The Big Questions in Science and Religion	Book - By Subtopic	Ward (Keith) - The Big Questions in Science and Religion	3%
Wikipedia	Vipassana	Paper - By Subtopic	Wikipedia, last modified on 1 January 2014	56%
Williams (Paul)	Indian Philosophy	Paper - By Subtopic	Grayling - Philosophy 2 - Further Through the Subject, Chapter 13	No
Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Heisig (James), O'Leary (Joseph) & Swanson (Paul), Eds.	Buddhist Spirituality II - Later China, Korea, Japan and the Modern World	Book - Cited	Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Heisig (James), O'Leary (Joseph) & Swanson (Paul), Eds. - Buddhist Spirituality II - Later China, Korea, Japan and the Modern World	No
Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Van Bragt (Jan), Heisig (James), Swanson (Paul) & O'Leary (Joseph), Eds.	Buddhist Spirituality I - Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, Early Chinese	Book - Cited	Yoshinori (Takeuchi), Van Bragt (Jan), Heisig (James), Swanson (Paul) & O'Leary (Joseph), Eds. - Buddhist Spirituality I - Indian, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, Early Chinese	No
Zukav (Gary)	The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics	Book - By Subtopic	Zukav (Gary) - The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics	No

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Text Colour Conventions

1. Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025

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