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Cognitive Science and the Ontology of MindDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 1986.This is a critical examination of the ontological and methodological commitments of contemporary cognitive science, and more generally, of the relation between the manifest and scientific images of man-in-the-world. A preliminary characterization is offered of the relationship between these images, and of the nature of intertheoretic reduction in science, followed by an account of the structure of theory, explanation, and account of the psychophysical relation embodied by contemporary cognitive …Read more
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9Review of Boden ed, Dimensions of Creativity (review)Philosophical Psychology 9 (3): 395-397. 1996.
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2Review of V Hardcastle, How to Build a Theory in Cognitive Science (review)Philosophical Psychology 11 (1): 89-91. 1998.
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35The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy (edited book)Oup Usa. 2011.The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy provides the advanced student or scholar a set of introductions to each of the world's major non-European philosophical traditions.
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8Review of KC Chakrabarti, Definition and Induction: A Historical and Comparative Study (review)Metascience 6 (1): 134-138. 1997.
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123Moonshadows. Conventional Truth in Buddhist PhilosophyOxford University Press. 2011.The doctrine of the two truths - a conventional truth and an ultimate truth - is central to Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology. The two truths (or two realities), the distinction between them, and the relation between them is understood variously in different Buddhist schools; it is of special importance to the Madhyamaka school. One theory is articulated with particular force by Nagarjuna (2nd ct CE) who famously claims that the two truths are identical to one another and yet distinct. One o…Read more
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6Propositional AttitudesIn Lynn Nadel (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Macmillan. 2002.
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18Public TrustIn Cynthia Townley & P. Maleka (eds.), Trust: Analytic and Applied Perspectives., Rodopi. 2013.We often think of trust as an interpersonal relation, and of the distinction between trust and reliance as a distinction between kinds of interpersonal relations. Indeed this is often the case. I may trust one colleague but not find her reliable; rely on another but find him untrustworthy; both trust and rely on my best friend; neither trust nor rely on my dean. One of us has discussed the nature of such relations and distinctions at length. But trust is not only an interpersonal matter. Human s…Read more
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79Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings (edited book)Oup Usa. 2009.The Buddhist philosophical tradition is vast, internally diverse, and comprises texts written in a variety of canonical languages. It is hence often difficult for those with training in Western philosophy who wish to approach this tradition for the first time to know where to start, and difficult for those who wish to introduce and teach courses in Buddhist philosophy to find suitable textbooks that adequately represent the diversity of the tradition, expose students to important primary texts i…Read more
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22Modularity in Knowledge Representation and Natural-Language Understanding (edited book)MIT Press. 1987.The notion of modularity, introduced by Noam Chomsky and developed with special emphasis on perceptual and linguistic processes by Jerry Fodor in his important book The Modularity of Mind, has provided a significant stimulus to research in cognitive science. This book presents essays in which a diverse group of philosophers, linguists, psycholinguists, and neuroscientists - including both proponents and critics of the modularity hypothesis - address general questions and specific problems relate…Read more
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154Bodhicaryåvatåra was composed by the Buddhist monk scholar Íåntideva at Nalandå University in India sometime during the 8th Century CE. It stands as one the great classics of world philosophy and of Buddhist literature, and is enormously influential in Tibet, where it is regarded as the principal source for the ethical thought of Mahåyåna Buddhism. The title is variously translated, most often as A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life or Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds, translations that fol…Read more
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978Acquiring the Notion of a Dependent Designation: A Response to Douglas L. BergerPhilosophy East and West 61 (2): 365-367. 2011.In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the inter…Read more
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34Just What Is Cognitive Science Anyway?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (4): 1075-1082. 1999.
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153The myth of Jones and the mirror of nature: Reflections on introspectionPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (September): 1-26. 1989.
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18This is not a general essay on the craft and institution of translation, though some of the claims and arguments I proffer here might generalize. I am concerned in particular with the activity of the translation of Asian Buddhist texts into English in the context of the current extensive transmission of Buddhism to the West, in the context of the absorption of cultural influences of the West by Asian Buddhist cultures, and in the context of the increased interaction between Buddhist practitioner…Read more
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24Erratum to: Max Charlesworth’s Sophia: The First Half-Century and the Next (review)Sophia 52 (1): 217-217. 2013.
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47As a critic, I am in the unenviable position of agreeing with nearly all of what Mark does in this lucid, erudite and creative book. My comments will hence not be aimed at showing what he got wrong, as much as an attempt from a Madhyamaka point of view to suggest another way of seeing things, in particular another way of seeing how one might think of how Madhyamaka philosophers, such as Någårjuna and Candrak¥rti, see conventional truth, our engagement with conventional truth, and the status of p…Read more
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445Dependent arising and the emptiness of emptiness: Why did nāgārjuna start with causation?Philosophy East and West 44 (2): 219-250. 1994.
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3Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika (fundamental verses of the middle way): Chapter 24: Examination of the Four Noble TruthsIn Jay Garfield & William Edelgass (eds.), Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings, Oup Usa. pp. 26--34. 2009.
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30Coherence as an explanation for theory of mind task failure in autismMind and Language 17 (3). 2002.O’Loughlin and Thagard (2000) present a specific computational implementation of the idea that the problems encountered by a child with autism in classic False Belief tasks derive from a failure to maintain coherence among multiple propositions. They argue that this failure can be explained as a structural feature of a connectionist network attempting to maintain coherence. The current paper criticizes this implementation because it falsely predicts that the same children will have a parallel pr…Read more
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38Mmountains are just mountainsIn Mario D'Amato, Jay L. Garfield & Tom J. F. Tillemans (eds.), Pointing at the moon: Buddhism, logic, analytic philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 71--82. 2009.four ancestry, is that there are . A proposition may be true (and true only), false (and false only), both true and false, neither true nor false , ,.
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156Vasubandhu's treatise on the three natures translated from the tibetan edition with a commentaryAsian Philosophy 7 (2). 1997.Trisvabh vanirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures) is Vasubandhu's most mature and explicit exposition of the Yogc c ra doctrine of the three natures and their relation to the Buddhist idealism Vasubandhu articulates. Nonetheless there are no extent commentaries on this important short test. The present work provides an introduction to the text, its context and principal philosophical theses; a new translation of the text itself; and a close, verse-by-verse commentary on the text explaining the …Read more
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2Madhyamaka and Classical Greek SkepticismIn Georges Dreyfus, Bronwyn Finnigan, Jay Garfield, Guy Newland, Graham Priest, Mark Siderits, Koji Tanaka, Sonam Thakchoe, Tom Tillemans & Jan Westerhoff (eds.), Moonshadows. Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 115--130. 2011.
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393The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way:Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika: Nagarjuna's MulamadhyamakakarikaOxford University Press. 1995.For nearly two thousand years Buddhism has mystified and captivated both lay people and scholars alike. Seen alternately as a path to spiritual enlightenment, an system of ethical and moral rubrics, a cultural tradition, or simply a graceful philosophy of life, Buddhism has produced impassioned followers the world over. The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the first century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahayana Buddhist…Read more
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50Hey, Buddha! Don't think! Just act!—A response to Bronwyn finniganPhilosophy East and West 61 (1): 174-183. 2011.In the course of a careful and astute discussion of the difficulties facing a Buddhist account of the moral agency of a buddha, Bronwyn Finnigan develops a challenging critique of a proposal I made in a recent article (Garfield 2006). Much of what she says is dead on target, and I have learned much from her comment. But I have serious reservations about both the central thrust of her critique of my own thought and her proposal for a positive account of a buddha’s enlightened action. Curiously, i…Read more
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Smith CollegeDepartment of Philosophy
Buddhist Studies
Harvard Divinity SchoolDistinguished Professor
Northampton, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Cognitive Science |
Asian Philosophy |
History of Western Philosophy |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
History of Western Philosophy |