Search engine for discovering works of Art, research articles, and books related to Art and Culture
Javascript must be enabled to continue!
Buddhist Reductionist Action Theory
View through CrossRef
This essay develops the theory of action presupposed by Buddhist Reductionists. Their account uses the theory of two truths to reconcile the folk theory of human action with the Buddhist claim that there are no agents. The conventional truth has it that persons are substance-causes of actions, and the willings that trigger actions are exercises of a person’s powers in light of their reasons. According to the ultimate truth, there are no persons, only causal series of bundles of tropes. An action is a bodily or mental event in one such series that has the occurrence of a prior intention event as its cause. Facts about causally connected psychophysical elements explain the utility, and thus the conventional truth, of claims about persons as agents. This two-tier account of human agency makes possible a novel approach to making attributions of moral responsibility compatible with psychological determinism.
Title: Buddhist Reductionist Action Theory
Description:
This essay develops the theory of action presupposed by Buddhist Reductionists.
Their account uses the theory of two truths to reconcile the folk theory of human action with the Buddhist claim that there are no agents.
The conventional truth has it that persons are substance-causes of actions, and the willings that trigger actions are exercises of a person’s powers in light of their reasons.
According to the ultimate truth, there are no persons, only causal series of bundles of tropes.
An action is a bodily or mental event in one such series that has the occurrence of a prior intention event as its cause.
Facts about causally connected psychophysical elements explain the utility, and thus the conventional truth, of claims about persons as agents.
This two-tier account of human agency makes possible a novel approach to making attributions of moral responsibility compatible with psychological determinism.
Related Results
Introduction
Introduction
This chapter provides an introduction to the history of Indian Buddhist philosophy set out in the following chapters. It gives an overview of the key factors that shaped the format...
Introduction
Introduction
In the past twenty years, the sub-discipline of Buddhist ethics has expanded in terms of the breadth of methodological perspective and depth of inquiry. Scholars have used Buddhist...
Buddhist Economics
Buddhist Economics
Despite the strong historical relationship between the early Indian Buddhist saṅgha and the merchant classes, Western scholars have for only a few decades explored in detail the de...
Lay Buddhism and Spirituality: From Vimalakīrti to the Nenbutsu Masters
Lay Buddhism and Spirituality: From Vimalakīrti to the Nenbutsu Masters
Early issues of The Eastern Buddhist contain short translations from various Buddhist texts, some of them quite important and all of considerable interest. Since they are set unobt...
Buddhist Responses to Christianity in Postwar Taiwan
Buddhist Responses to Christianity in Postwar Taiwan
After the Communist victory in China's civil war, Taiwan, then governed by the KMT (or Nationalist Party), became a focal point for both Buddhist and Christian activity in the Chin...
The Many Faces of Meiji Buddhist Enlightenment
The Many Faces of Meiji Buddhist Enlightenment
Chapter 1, “The Many Faces of Meiji Buddhist Enlightenment,” provides the historical and philosophical context for the emergence of Buddhist reform in the mid- to late-Meiji period...
The Sacred oasis
The Sacred oasis
Irene (Vongehr) Vincent, Art, Buddhist, 1953, University of Chicago Press...
The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World
The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World
The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World is a cohesive collection of studies by Japanese, Russian and Central Asian scholars deploying previously unexplored ...