Category: Self, Self-Awareness, Self-Reference
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Am I a Body or Do I Have a Body?
In his latest and last book, Mortality, Christopher Hitchens writes, "I don't have a body, I am a body." (86) He goes on to observe that he has "consciously and regularly acted as if this was [sic] not true." It is a curious fact that mortalists are among the worst abusers of the fleshly vehicle. …
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The ‘Control Argument’ for the Anatta Doctrine
In other posts I have sketched the Buddhist doctrine of 'No Self.' I now consider an early Buddhist argument for it. Here are the words of Buddha according to the Anattalakkhana Sutta, his second discourse, the Sermon on the Mark of Not-Self: The body [rupa], monks, is not self. If the body were the self, this…
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The Dalai Lama and the Self: An Anti-Buddhist Argument
A friend refers me to a rather poor article, "The Dalai Lama, the Pope, and Creation," in which the dubious claims of the Dalai Lama are ineptly rebutted by a Catholic journalist. We read: Beyond the complex world of nature, Buddhism asserts a fundamental “nothingness.” Buddhist thought sees as illusory all distinction between beings. As…
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Self-Effacement and Self-Importance
To what extent is it a sign of self-importance that one regularly draws attention to one's own insignificance? I am thinking of Simone Weil. In self-effacement the ego may find a way to assert itself. "Do you see how pure and penetrating is my love of truth that I am able to realize and admit…
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The Problem of First-Person identity Sentences
0. Am I identical to my (living) body, or to the objectively specifiable person who rejoices under the name 'BV'? Earlier I resoundingly denied this identity, in (rare) agreement with London Ed, but admitted that argument is needed. This post begins the argument. We start with the problem of first-person identity sentences. 1. 'I am…