Daniel R. Siakel

Contemporary constructions of Process Buddhism, while laudable for their attempted integration of Process Philosophy and Buddhism, are motivated by problematic assertions and assumptions about Buddhism. These assumptions apply to Buddhist philosophy broadly, to historical traditions such as Madhyamaka "Middle Way" Buddhism, as well as to specific systems, particularly those of Shentong "Other-Emptiness" schools associated with the Jonang, Kagyü, Nyingma, and Sakya traditions. I challenge several such assertions, including the claim that Shentong's descriptions of ultimate reality are absolutist, hence refuted by Madhyamaka's deconstructive dialectics and unable to serve as the latter's positive dialectical supplement. In addition, I criticize the corollary notion that Process Philosophy represents the best metaphysical theory for supplementing Madhyamaka. In dialogue with Peter Paul Kakol, who, in Emptiness and Becoming, proffers an integration of Madhyamaka and Whiteheadian-Hartshornean Process Philosophy, I argue that Buddhism does not require supplementation by Process Philosophy or any non-Buddhist theory. My argument utilizes translations and commentaries provided by Karl Brunnhölzl, who, in concert with Klaus-Dieter Mathes and other scholars, offers a pivotal distinction between exclusivist and non-exclusivist Shentong. I use this distinction to show that non-exclusivist Shentong Madhyamaka, as an open-relational view, already proffers the kind of positive, anti-absolutist dialectics of creative synthesis that Process Buddhism endeavors to deliver. Finally, I attempt to convey the richness and diversity of Buddhist philosophical traditions while disrupting homogenizing tendencies that have distorted some Process Philosophers' engagement with Buddhism, so that ongoing dialogue between these traditions can facilitate deeper understanding and more impactful complementarity.

David Hume’s thought has interrupted entire disciplines from dogmatic slumbers. Yet Hume’s influence is even more expansive and continuous than we might have thought. There are two significant areas of inquiry where Hume’s influence has not been adequately appreciated or articulated: analytic phenomenology and analytic process philosophy. My dissertation explores these traditions’ indebtedness to Hume by engaging with the work of Edmund Husserl and Alfred North Whitehead, who introduce consequential changes into their systems in direct response to what they see as Humean problems with their initial models. Three major themes are of special interest. First, vis-à-vis “Unity of Mind,” each philosopher asks what accounts for the apparent unity of mind and experience, including what principles connect distinct experiences. Second, vis-à-vis “Temporal Awareness,” each philosopher inquires into what grounds temporality and the experience of temporal passage, including what principles connect distinct moments. Third, vis-à-vis “Personal Identity,” each philosopher investigates what constitutes the experience of continuity and unity over time, including personal continuity and unity qua “personal identity.” A fourth concordance is methodological. In pursuing the aforementioned themes, each philosopher accords epistemic primacy to lived experience and what discloses itself therein. An overarching Humean problem for all, correlatively, is how continuity and unity arise from distinct items: perceptions, intentional experiences, and actual occasions, respectively. My dissertation attempts to explicate this and related systematic issues from a historical perspective informed by contemporary analytic metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and recent scholarship in Hume, Husserl, and Whitehead studies. Chapter One argues that Hume’s infamous “Appendix problem” concerns reconciling the incontrovertible unity of mind with his unrenounceable epistemological principle that the mind never perceives real connections between distinct perceptions. Chapter Two traces Hume’s proto-phenomenological influence on Husserl’s theories (not theory) of temporal awareness. Chapter Three examines Hume’s proto-processual influence on Whitehead's theories (not theory) of personal identity. Unfortunately, neither Husserl nor Whitehead read each other’s work. Nevertheless, both take Hume to be the one who knocks at, yet ultimately fails to walk through the doors that his explorations unveil. By so doing, they beg that we do the same with them.

The purpose of this article is to introduce, interpret, and develop two incompatible processontological theories of personal identity that have received little attention in analytic metaphysics. The first theory derives from the notion of personal identity proposed in Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics, but I interpret this notion differently from previous commentators. The Whiteheadian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but has nothing to do with diachronic objectual identity: the (putative) binary equivalence relation that every entity bears to itself, and only to itself, even after undergoing intrinsic change. The Whiteheadian theory may also find favor with those who, like Whitehead, reject the possibility of pure processes and hold that in every becoming, something—which need not be an object, thing, or individual substance—becomes. The second theory derives from the notion of recurrent dynamics presented in Johanna Seibt’s General Process Theory. The Seibtian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves not only an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but also the relation of diachronic objectual identity. The Seibtian theory may alsofind favor with those who, like Broad and Sellars, find reason to postulate pure processes.

Given the difficulty of characterizing the quandary introduced in Hume’s Appendix to the Treatise, coupled with the alleged “underdetermination” of the text, it is striking how few commentators have considered whether Hume addresses and/or redresses the problem after 1740—in the first Enquiry, for example. This is not only unfortunate, but ironic; for, in the Appendix, Hume mentions that more mature reasonings may reconcile whatever contradiction(s) he has in mind. I argue that Hume’s 1746 letter to Lord Kames foreshadows a subtle, but significant, shift in Hume’s reasonings regarding the relevance of “real connexions”; that the Enquiry of 1748 provides evidence for this shift; and that this shift obviates Hume’s second thoughts by reconciling the contradiction that he had in mind. In short, Hume’s letter to Kames and Enquiry supply the retrodictive keys to a systematically satisfactory account.