Identity, Perception, Action and Choice in Contemporary and Traditional :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Identity, Perception, Action and Choice in present-day(a) and Traditional No-Self TheoriesABSTRACT The ego is traditionally held to be synonymous with soulfulness identity and autonomy, while the mind is widely held to be a needful basis of cognition and volition, with state following accordingly. However Buddhist epistemology, a posteriori phenomenology and poststructuralism all hold the notion of an independent, subsisting, egotism-identical subject to be an illusion. This not only when raises problems for our understanding of cognition (if the self is an illusion, then who does the perceiving and who is deluded) and volition (who initiates acts), as thoroughly as for the notion of responsibility (in the absence of an independently subsisting subject thither appears to be no autonomous agent). For Buddhism, no-self theory raises serious problems for the doctrine of renascence (in the absence of a self, who is responsible for failing to overcome desires and attachments fur thermore, who gets reincarnated?). Arguing for such no-self theories, the paper attempts to demonstrate how such difficulties can nevertheless be resolved. The self is traditionally held to be synonymous with individual identity and autonomy, while the mind, which is intimately associated in that respectwith, is widely held to be a necessary basis of cognition and volition, and the responsibility following therefrom. However Buddhism, Existential Phenomenology and Postsructuralism all point out that we contract neither direct empirical experience of, nor sufficient justification for inferring, the human beings of an independently subsisting self. Buddhists for instance point out that, careful attention to the empirical evidence reveals that all the experiences we have of human subjectivity per se whitethorn be characterized in terms of five skandhas or aggregates. These are 1) exercise understood as the Body, including the sense-organs, 2) Feelings and Sensations, 3) Perceptio ns, 4) Mental Formations (or volitional tendencies) including habits and dispositions etcetera, and 5) Six Consciousnesses, consisting of the consciousness or awareness of sensations emanating from each of the five senses, plus a consciousness of non-sensory or purely mental experiences. Noting the changing nature of each of these skandhas, they conclude that there is no adequate justification for the common inference that these constantly changing phenomena are changing appearances of a persistent, independently subsisting self or ego. Nor, as Phenomenologists and others have pointed out, do we experience a mind as such, which ofttimes Western Philosophy regards, if not as synonymous with, then certainly essential to, individual identity and autonomy, independent of the constantly changing sensations, perceptions, feelings, thoughts and ideas etc.