Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness Tradition and Dialogue (Value Inquiry Book / Cognitive Science, 354)

Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness explores a variety of different approaches to the study of consciousness developed by Buddhist philosophers in classical India and China. It addresses questions that are still being investigated in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness: Tradition and Dialogue Copyright Contents Notes on Contributors Introduction Part 1: Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism 1 Knowing Blue: Abhidharmika Accounts of the Immediacy of Sense Perception 2 Nonconceptual Cognition in Yogacara and Madhyamaka Thought 3 Turning Earth to Gold: The Early Yogacara Understanding of Experience Following Non-conceptual Cognition Part 2: Meta-cognition Intoduction to Part 2 4 Whose Consciousness? Reflexivity and the Problem of Self-Knowledge 5 Should Madhyamikas Refute Subjectivity? Thoughts on What Might be at Stake in Debates on Self-awareness 6 Self-Knowledge and Non-self 7 The Genesis of *Svasa?vitti-sa?vitti Reconsidered 8 Dharmapala on the Cognition of Other Minds (paracittajñana) Part 3: Mental Consciousness in East Asian Buddhism: MSF 9 Manasa-pratyak?a as the Perception of Conventionally Real (prajñaptisat) Properties - Interpreting Dignaga's manasa-pratyak?a Based on Clues From Kuiji 10 Mental Consciousness and Its Objects 11 Vasubandhu's Theory of Memory: a Reading based on the Chinese Commentaries Index "Buddhist Philosophy of Consciousness brings Buddhist voices to the study of consciousness. This book explores a variety of different Buddhist approaches to consciousness that developed out of the Buddhist theory of non-self. Topics taken up in these investigations include: how we are able to cognize our own cognitions; whether all conscious states involve conceptualization; whether distinct forms of cognition can operate simultaneously in a single mental stream; whether non-existent entities can serve as intentional objects; and does consciousness have an intrinsic nature, or can it only be characterized functionally? These questions have all featured in recent debates in consciousness studies. The answers that Buddhist philosophers developed to such questions are worth examining just because they may represent novel approaches to questions about consciousness"-- Provided by publisher