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Buddhist Studies 220.

Friday 10am-12pm.
288 Dwinelle.
Professor Evan Thompson: evantimothythompson@gmail.com
http://evanthompson.me

Buddhist Philosophy, Phenomenology, and Cognitive Science: Assessing
the Dialogue.

This seminar will be devoted to recent work in cross-cultural philosophy that links
Buddhist philosophy with cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and
phenomenology. Our guiding question will be whether Buddhist philosophical
psychology can be understood as a kind of phenomenology. The conviction that
it can be so understood is often used as a way to argue for the relevance of
Buddhist accounts of the mind, as well as Buddhist meditative practices, to
cognitive science, especially to recent neuroscience attempts to explain
consciousness. Yet this approach to the Buddhism-cognitive science dialogue
has provoked criticism. Buddhist scholars have argued that Buddhist accounts of
the mind are theoretical constructs, not phenomenological descriptions, and they
have emphasized that these accounts are embedded in metaphysical and
epistemological frameworks that are incompatible with neurophysicalism, the
view that consciousness is a state of the brain. At the same time, philosophers
and cognitive scientists have voiced scepticism about the validity of
phenomenology for a scientific understanding of the mind. Examining these
criticisms in light of our guiding question will require us to think about what
exactly phenomenology is and what it could be in a modern cross-cultural context.
At stake is nothing less than the fundamental issue of what it means for the
human mind to examine itself and the place that Buddhist philosophy can have in
this endeavor for us today. Our readings will include chapters from my
forthcoming book, Waking, Dreaming, Being: New Light on the Self and
Consciousness from Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy, chapters from
Jay Garfields forthcoming book, Engaging Buddhism: Why Buddhism Matters to
Philosophy, as well as a wide variety sources from Buddhist studies, Buddhist
philosophy, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and phenomenology.

Class Format:
Given the wide range of readings and the diverse backgrounds of the seminar
participants, I will take the first half-hour or so to introduce and critically present
the readings; the rest of our time will be devoted to discussion.

Texts:
The book manuscripts by Jay Garfield and Evan Thompson will be made
available electronically. Other primary readings are available electronically, either
through the University library or as indicated on the class schedule below. For the
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background and supplementary materials, which are not required reading, I have
given links to electronic versions, where available.

Requirements
Midterm paper (can be a detailed proposal for the final paper): 3000-4000
words.
Final paper: 7000-8000 words.

Schedule

Readings in bold typeface are the required seminar readings and should be
completed before each class meeting. Do these readings in the order listed. The
other readings are background and supplementary materials; they are not
required. I will draw from them in my presentations and you can make use of
them in writing your papers. (Note: I do not expect you to have read the required
readings prior to the first class meeting on Jan. 24.)

I. Introduction.

Jan 24. The Buddhism-Cognitive Science Dialogue: Where Are We Now and
Where Might We Go?
Thupten Jinpa, Buddhism and Science: How Far Can the Dialogue
Proceed? Zygon 45 (2010): 871-882.
Donald S. Lopez, Jr., The Future of the Buddhist Past: A Response to the
Readers, Zygon 45 (2010): 883-896.
Jay Garfield, Ask Not What Buddhism Can Do for Cognitive Science; Ask
What Cognitive Science Can Do for Buddhism, Bulletin of Tibetology
47 (2012): 15-30.
http://www.smith.edu/philosophy/docs/garfield_ask_not.pdf
Evan Thompson, Wakin g, Dreamin g, Bein g, Prologue.
Dan Arnold, Reaching Bedrock: Buddhism and Cognitive Science, Berfois.com
(April 2012). http://www.berfrois.com/2012/04/dan-arnold-buddhism-
cognitive-science/
Bernard Faure, Buddhist Meditation and Neuroscience,
http://files.meetup.com/1502376/FaureB2012.pdf
Asaf Federman, What Buddhism Taught Cognitive Science about Self, Mind,
and Brain, Enrahonar. Quaderns de Filosofia 47 (2011): 39-62.
http://ddd.uab.cat/pub/enrahonar/0211402Xn47/0211402Xn47p39.pdf
Peter Harrison, A Scientific Buddhism? Zygon 45 (2010): 861-869.
Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne, and Richard J. Davidson, Meditation and the
Neuroscience of Consciousness: An Introduction, in Philip David Zelazo,
Morris Moscovitch, and Evan Thompson, eds., The Cambridge Handbook
of Consciousness (New York and Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2007).
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http://www.sheermind.com/uploads/9/3/7/0/9370422/meditation_and_the_n
euroscience_of_consciousness.pdf
Antoine Lutz, Heleen A. Slagter, John D. Dunne, and Richard J. Davidson,
Attention Regulation and Monitoring in Meditation, Trends in Cognitive
Sciences 12 (2008): 163-169.
http://brainimaging.waisman.wisc.edu/~lutz/Lutz_attention_regulation_monit
oring_meditation_tics_2008.pdf

Jan 31. No Class
I have to be away at the annual Zen Brain conference at the Upaya Institute
and Zen Center: http://www.upaya.org/programs/event.php?id=1099

II. How Contemporary Buddhist Philosophy of Mind
Leads to an Encounter with Phenomenology

Feb 7. Buddhist Philosophy Basics.
Jay Garfield, En gagin g Buddhism, chapters 1-3.
Mark Siderits, Buddhism as Philosophy, chapters 1-2.

Feb 14. The Self.
Jay Garfield, En gagin g Buddhism, chapter 4.
Evan Thompson, Wakin g, Dreamin g, Bein g, Introduction and chapter 10.
Amber Carpenter, Persons Keeping Their Karma Together: The Reasons for the
Pudgalav!da in Early Buddhism, unpublished. Email me if you want a copy.
Jonardon Ganeri, Buddhist Individuals and Inward Empathy, World View and
Theory in Indian Philosophy. Warsaw Indological Studies 5 (2012): 247-260.
https://www.academia.edu/2146304/Buddhist_Individuals_and_Inward_Em
pathy_2012_
Jonardon Ganeri, Emergentisms, Ancient and Modern, Mind 120 (2011): 671-
703.
Mark Siderits, Buddhism as Philosophy, chapters 3 and 6.

Feb 21. Varieties of Consciousness.
Jay Garfield, En gagin g Buddhism, chapter 5.
Evan Thompson, Wakin g, Dreamin g, Bein g, Introduction, chapters 1-2.
Jake H. Davis and Evan Thompson, From the Five Aggregates to Phenomenal
Consciousness: Towards a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science, in Steven
Emmaneul, ed., A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy (John Wiley & Sons,
2014).
http://evanthompsondotme.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/emmanuel_8772
_c38_main.pdf
Jonardon Ganeri, The Self: Naturalism, Consciousness, and the First-Person
Stance, chapter 7.

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Feb 28. Buddhist Dualism, Neurophysicalism, and the Hard Problem of
Consciousness.
Dan Arnold, Dharmak!rtis Dualism: Critical Reflections on a Buddhist
Proof of Rebirth, Philosophy Compass 3 (2008): 1079-1096.
https://www.academia.edu/284734/Dharmakirtis_Dualism_Critical_Reflectio
ns_on_a_Buddhist_Proof_of_Rebirth
Evan Thompson, Wakin g, Dreamin g, Bein g, chapters 3 and 9.
Dan Arnold, Buddhas, Brains, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in
Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind, chapter 1.
Michel Bitbol, Is Consciousness Primary? NeuroQuantology 6 (2008): 53-72.
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4007/1/ConsciousnessPrimaryArt2.pdf
The Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom, chapter 6.
Owen Flanagan, The Bodhisattvas Brain, chapter 3.
Piet Hut and Roger Shepard, Turning the Hard Problem Upside Down and
Sideways, Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1996): 313-329.
http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/turning/tuc2.ps
Galen Strawson, Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism.
Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (2006): 3-31.

March 7. Phenomenology.
Jay Garfield, En gagin g Buddhism, chapter 6, pp. 201-212.
Francisco J. Varela, Neurophenomenology: A Methodological Remedy for
the Hard Problem, Journal of Consciousness Studies 3 (1996): 330-349.
https://unstable.nl/andreas/ai/langcog/part3/varela_npmrhp.pdf
Natalie Depraz, Francisco J. Varela, and Pierre Vermersch, The Gesture of
Awareness: An Account of Its Structural Dynamics, in Max Velmans,
ed., Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness: New Methodologies and
Maps (Amsterdam and New York: John Benjamins Publishing, 2000).
http://www.autopoiesis.com/documents/Depraz%20Varela%202000.pdf
The Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom, chapters 7-8.
Piet Hut, The Role of Husserls Epoch for Science: A View from a Physicist,
paper presented at the 31st Husserl Circle Conference, 2001.
http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/other/husserlcircle.html

III. Can Phenomenology Be Buddhist?
Can Buddhist Philosophy Be Phenomenology?
The Problematic Status of Phenomenology
in Buddhist Philosophy of Mind

March 14. Husserl and Indian Thought.
Edmund Husserl, Pure Phenomenology, Its Method and Its Field of
Investigation.
http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/Husserl%20-
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%20Pure%20Phenomenology,%20Its%20Method%20and%20Its%20Field
%20of%20Investigation.pdf
Edmund Husserl, Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man.
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/husserl_philcris.html
Karl Schuhmann, Husserl and Indian Thought, in D.P. Chattopadhyaya,
Lester Embree, and Jitendranath Mohanty, eds., Phenomenology and
Indian Philosophy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992).
Steven Crowell, Is There a Phenomenological Research Program?, Synthese
131 (2002): 419-444.
Steven Crowell, Jan Pato"ka and the Phenomenological Research Program.
http://www.o-p-o.net/essays/CrowellArticle.pdf
Fred J. Hanna, Husserl on the Teachings of the Buddha, The Humanistic
Psychologist 23 (1995): 365-372.
Jonardon Ganeri, Well-Ordered Science and Indian Epistemic Cultures: Toward
a Polycentered History of Science, Isis 104 (2013): 348-359.
https://www.academia.edu/4105450/Well-
Ordered_Science_and_Indian_Epistemic_Cultures_Towards_a_Polycentre
d_History_of_Science_2013_
Edmund Husserl, Sokrates-Buddha: An Unpublished Manuscript from the
Archives, Husserl Studies 26 (2010): 1-17.
Richard King, Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Hindu and Buddhist Thought,
chapters 1 and 2.
Lau Kwok-Ying, Husserl, Buddhism and the Problematic of the Crisis of
European Sciences.
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rih/phs/events/200405_PEACE/papers/LAUKwokYi
ng.PDF
J.N. Mohanty, Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy: The Concept of
Rationality, in D.P. Chattopadhyaya, Lester Embree, and Jitendranath
Mohanty, eds., Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 1992). http://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/52314.pdf

March 21. Is Yog!c!ra Philosophy a Kind of Phenomenology?
Jay Garfield, Vasubandhus Treatise on the Three Natures: A Translation
and Commentary, in Jay Garfield, Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy
and Cross-Cultural Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Jay Garfield, En gagin g Buddhism, chapter 6, pp. 212-241.

March 28: Spring break

April 4. Is Yog!c!ra Philosophy a Kind of Phenomenology?
Dign"ga, Pramn asamuccaya, Section 1: Exposition of the Theory of Peception.
In Masaaki Hatori, Dign!ga on Perception (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1968), pp. 28-31.
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Birgit Kellner, Self-Awareness (svasa#vedana) in Dign"gas
Pram"$asamuccaya and -v%tti: A Close Reading, Journal of Indian
Philosophy 38 (2010): 203-231.

April 11. Is the Svasa#vitti Doctrine Necessarily Internalist?
Dan Arnold, Brain s, Buddhas, an d Believin g: The Problem of In ten tion ality
in Classical Buddhist an d Cogn itive Scien tific-Philosophy of Min d,
chapter 5.
Christian Coseru, Taking the Intentionality of Perception Seriously: Why
Phenomenology is Inescapable, Philosophy East and West, in press.
http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~ckeng/doc/Coseru1_svasamvitti_paper_PEW.pdf
John Dunne, Resources for the Study of Svasa#vitti in Ultimate Contexts,
paper presented at the American Academy of Religion 2012.
Dan Arnold, Is Svasa#vitti Transcendental? A Tentative Reconstruction
Following $!ntarak%ita, Asian Philosophy 15 (2005): 77-111.
Dan Arnold, Self-Awareness (svasa#vitti) and Related Doctrines of Buddhists
Following Dign!ga: Philosophical Characterizations of Some of the Main
Issues, Journal of Indian Philosophy 38 (2010): 323-378.
Georges Dreyfus, Is Perception Intentional? A Preliminary Exploration of
Intentionality in Dharmak&rti, in B. Kelner, H. Krasser, H. Larsic, M.T. Much,
and H. Tauscher (eds.) Pram!"akirti#: Papers Dedicated to Ernst
Steinkellner On the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, Wien: Arbeitskries fr
Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universitt Wien, 95-113.
Jonardon Ganeri, Self-Intimation, Memory and Personal Identity. Journal of
Indian Philosophy 27: 46983.
Jay Garfield, The Conventional Status of Reflexive Awareness: Whats At Stake
in a Tibetan Debate? Philosophy East and West 56 (2006): 201-228.
Birgit Kellner, Self-Awareness (svasa#vedana) in Dign!gas
Pram!'asamuccaya and -v(tti: A Close Reading, Journal of Indian
Philosophy 38 (2010): 203-231.
Brigit Kellner, Self-awareness (svasa#vedana) and Infinite Regresses: a
Comparison of Arguments by Dign!ga and Dharmak&rti, Journal of Indian
Philosophy 39 (2011): 411-426.
Evan Thompson, Self-No-Self: Memory and Reflexive Awareness, in Mark
Siderits, Evan Thompson, and Dan Zahavi, eds., Self, No Self?
Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
http://evanthompsondotme.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/self-no-self.pdf

April 18. Is Yog!c!ra Philosophy a Kind of Phenomenology?
Iso Kern, The Structure of Consciousness According to Xuanzang,
Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 19 (1988).
Iso Kern, Object, Objective Phenomenon, and Objectivating Act
According to the Vijaptim"trat"siddhi of Xuanzang (600-644), in D.P.
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Chattopadhyaya, Lester Embree, and Jitendranath Mohanty, eds.,
Phenomenology and Indian Philosophy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992).
Robert Sharf, Is Yog"c"ra Phenomenology? Some Evidence from the
Chn g wish ln , unpublished.
Dan Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of
Yog!c!ra Buddhism and the Cheng Wei-shih lun (London:
RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2002. A useful synopsis of this book is William
Waldrons review at
http://www.middlebury.edu/media/view/440170/original/review-
lusthaus_buddhist_phenomenology_h-buddhism.pdf

IV. Mindfulness: A Meeting Ground for Cognitive Science,
Phenomenology, and Buddhist Philosophy of Mind?

April 25. Can There Be a Cognitive Science of Mindfulness?
Antoine Lutz, Amishi P. Jha, John D. Dunne, and Clifford D. Saron,
Investigating the Phenomenal and Neurocognitive Matrix of
Mindfulness-Related Practices, American Journal of Psychology, in
press.
Thomas Metzinger, The Myth of Cognitive Agency: Subpersonal Thinking
as a Cyclically Recurring Loss of Mental Autonomy, Frontiers in
Psychology 4:931. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00931
http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00931/abstract
Jake H. Davis and Evan Thompson, Developing Attention and Decreasing
Affective Bias: Toward a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science of
Mindfulness, in K.W. Brown, J.D. Creswell, and R.M. Ryan, eds.,
Handbook of Mindfulness (New York: Guilford Press), in press.
http://evanthompsondotme.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/davis-thompson-
chap-08-final1.pdf
Georges Dreyfus, Is Mindfulness Present-Centered and Non-Judgmental? A
Discussion of the Cognitive Dimensions of Mindfulness, Contemporary
Buddhism 12 (2011): 41-54.
John Dunne, Toward an Understanding of Non-Dual Mindfulness,
Contemporary Buddhism 12 (2011): 71-88.
Paul Grossman and Nicholas T. Van Dam, Mindfulness, By Any Other Name
Trials and Tribulations of Sati in Western Psychology and Science,
Contemporary Buddhism 12 (2011): 219-239.
Anne Harrington and John Dunne, Mindfulness Meditation: Frames and
Choices, American Psychologist, in press.
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/10718406/46521719.pdf?seque
nce=1
Robert Sharf, Mindfulness and Mindlessness in Early Chan, unpublished.

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The Buddhism, Mind, and Cognitive Science Conference at UC Berkeley
begins the afternoon of Friday, April 25, with afternoon lectures by me and
Clifford Saron. http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/events/

May 2. Phenomenology, Cognitive Science, Meditation, and the Rhetoric of
Experience.
Georges Dreyfus, But Arent We Conscious? A Phenomenological
Approach to Buddhist Philosophy of Mind, unpublished draft.
Georges Dreyfus, Taking Meditation Seriously But Not Too Much,
unpublished draft.
Robert Sharf, Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience,
Numen 42 (1995): 228-283.
http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sharf/documents/Sharf19
95,%20Buddhist%20Modernism.pdf
Robert Sharf, The Rhetoric of Experience and the Study of Religion, Journal of
Consciousness Studies 7 (2000): 267-287.
http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sharf/documents/Sharf19
98,%20Religious%20Experience.pdf
Mark Siderits, Buddhas as Zombies: A Buddhist Reduction of Subjectivity, in
Mark Siderits, Evan Thompson, and Dan Zahavi, eds., Self, No Self?
Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

May 9
Classes end May 2, but I am happy to schedule an extra class to make up for the
missed class on Jan 31 if there is interest.