Indian Philosophy - A Collection of Readings (5 Volumes) by Roy W. Perrett

Author:Roy W. Perrett [Perrett, Roy W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-11-01T18:30:00+00:00

II

As one possible answer to these questions I should like to present a rather free and speculative interpretation of the theory of the person put forward in the Pali Buddhist texts. Parfit claims that this theory is similar to his own, and there is certainly some justification for the claim; but the Buddhist account is, at least potentially, rather more sophisticated than he suggests.

We may start with the earliest of the Buddhist texts which Parfit himself quotes.5 The verses are spoken by a Buddhist nun to Māra the tempter, who asks ‘Where do sattas (literally ‘beings’: people, gods, demons etc) come from? How do they arise and pass away?’

Why do you keep referring to ‘beings’, Māra?

You have gone in for a false view of things.

There is merely a pile of saṃkharās here;

No ‘being’ is to be found here.

Just as the bringing together of parts

Gives rise to the word ‘chariot’,

So with reference to the khandhas that are present

Arises the conventional term ‘being’.6

Obviously the view being put forward here is reductivist in a strong sense; the analysis of ‘beings’ into saṃkhāras or khandhas is taken to imply the ultimate non-existence of ‘beings’. Speaking of them is using what is no more than misguided convention. This doctrine is usually known as anattā, no-self; each of us must apply it to himself.

I mentioned at the beginning of this paper three requirements we might make of a reductive theory of the person: 1. an account of what exists, according to the theory; 2. an explanation of how common understanding comes to be mistakenly non-reductive; and 3. arguments for the truth of the theory. We saw that Hume and Parfit failed to explain adequately the relationship between 1. and 2. A theory which hopes to do better will have to produce, for 1, an account of the elements of the reduction which is rich enough to fulfil the task set in 2. The previous paragraph gives a preliminary answer to 1.; in the rest of the paper I shall expand and explain this answer to show how it can cope with 2.

I shall not attempt to deal adequately with Buddhist answers to 3. They are a combination of soteriological, experiential and intellectual considerations. At the abstract intellectual level, it is interesting to note the emphasis placed on seemingly empiricist arguments. The doctrine of anattā is closely linked to the claim that all that we can see to exist in the world, including any aspect of ourselves by which we may try to identify ourselves, is impermanent, short-lived. The khandhas are a five-fold classification of the elements of which ‘beings’ are made up: physical form, feelings, perceptions, motives and consciousness. The argument is repeatedly used, of these five, ‘Physical form (and the other four) are impermanent; what is impermanent cannot constitute a self’. The possibility of the existence of anything else, outside the khandhas, which is permanent and therefore could be a genuine object of self-reference, is discounted by saying that any such thing is inexperienceable and inconceivable.

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