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Vasubandhu on the First Person
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2023
Abstract
In classical South Asia, most philosophers thought that the self (if it exists at all) is what the first-person pronoun ‘I’ stands for. It is something that persists through time, undergoes conscious thoughts and experiences, and exercises control over actions. The Buddhists accepted the ‘no self’ thesis: they denied that such a self is substantially real. This gave rise to a puzzle for these Buddhists. If there is nothing substantially real that ‘I’ stands for, what are we talking about when we speak of ourselves? In this paper, I present one Buddhist answer to this question, an answer that emerges from the work of the Abhidharma thinker Vasubandhu (4th to 5th century CE).
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References
References
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AK Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośakārikā in Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu, edited by Prahlad Pradhan and Aruna Haldar, second edition, (Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Institute, 1975).Google Scholar
AKBh Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośabhāṣya in Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam of Vasubandhu, edited by Prahlad Pradhan and Aruna Haldar, second edition, (Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Institute, 1975).Google Scholar
AKBhD Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakośabhāṣya in Abhidharmakośa and Bhāṣya of Ācārya Vasubandhu with Spuṭārthā Commentary of Ācārya Yaśomitra, edited by Svāmī Dvārikādāsa Śāstrī, (Varanasi: Bauddha Bhāratī, 1987).Google Scholar
Sphu Yaśomitra's Spuṭārthā in Svāmī Dvārikādāsa Śāstrī (ed.), Abhidharmakośa and Bhāṣya of Ācārya Vasubandhu with Spuṭārthā Commentary of Ācārya Yaśomitra (Varanasi: Bauddha Bhāratī, 1987).Google Scholar
Carpenter, Amber D., ‘Persons Keeping Their Karma Together’, in Tanaka, Koji, Deguchi, Yasuo, Garfield, Jay L., and Priest, Graham (eds.), The Moon Points Back (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dhammajoti, K.L., Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, third edition, (Hong Kong: Centre for Buddhist Studies, University of Hong Kong, 2007).Google Scholar
Duerlinger, James, Indian Buddhist Theories of Persons: Vasubandhu's ‘Refutation of the Theory of a Self’ (London: Routledge, 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganeri, Jonardon, Philosophy in Classical India: An Introduction and Analysis (London: Routledge, 2001).Google Scholar
Ganeri, Jonardon, ‘Subjectivity, Selfhood and the Use of the Word ‘I’’, in Siderits, Mark, Thompson, Evan, and Zahavi, Dan (eds.), Self, No Self?: Perspectives From Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ganeri, Jonardon, The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness, and the First-Person Stance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Charles, ‘The Treasury of Metaphysics and the Physical World’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 54:216 (2004), 389–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, Jonathan, Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu's Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Kapstein, Matthew, Reason's Traces: Identity and Interpretation in Indian Tibetan Buddhist Thought (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003).Google Scholar
Nunberg, Geoffrey, ‘Transfers of Meaning’, The Journal of Semantics, 12 (1995), 109–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Priestley, Leonard, Pudgalavāda Buddhism: The Reality of the Indeterminate Self (Toronto: Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto, 1999).Google Scholar
Châu, Thích Thiện and Boin-Webb, Sara, The Literature of the Personalists of Early Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999).Google Scholar