•  5
    Peter Strawson (1962) argued that the truth of determinism would not threaten our reactive attitudes, e.g., resentment, or our normative practices, e.g., punishment, though these presuppose (indeterministic) free will, because they are too entrenched. If autonomous agency presupposes an agent-self, however, the same concern faces the issue of the resilience of belief in an agent-self. If belief in agency would persist in the face of determinism, would belief in the agent-self? If not, what are t…Read more
  •  11
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics by Mark SideritsRick Repetti (bio)How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics. By Mark Siderits. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. vi + 204. Paperback $29.95, ISBN 978-0-19-760691-9.How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics, by Mark Siderits, presents ten chapters on Buddhist metaphysics that will appeal to readers from any numb…Read more
  •  28
    This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview & analysis of the state of the field of the philosophy of meditation. It will serve as textbook reading in courses in philosophy of mind, consciousness, selfhood/personhood, metaphysics, or phenomenology.
  •  10
    Traditionally, Buddhist philosophy has seemingly rejected the autonomous self. In Western philosophy, free will and the philosophy of action are established areas of research. This book presents a comprehensive analytical review of extant scholarship on perspectives on free will. It studies and refutes the most powerful Western and Buddhist philosophical objections to free will and explores the possibility that a form of agency may in fact exist within Buddhism. Providing a detailed explanation …Read more
  •  50
    This is my response to the criticisms of Gregg Caruso, David Cummiskey, and Karin Meyers, in their roles as members of the “Author Meets Critics” panel devoted to my book, Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will: A Theory of Mental Freedom at the 2019 annual meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, organized by Christian Coseru. Caruso's main objection is that I am not sufficiently attentive to details of opposing arguments in Western philosophy, and Cummiskey's and…Read more
  •  29
    Freedom of the Mind: Buddhist Soft Compatibilism
    Philosophy East and West 70 (1): 174-195. 2020.
    In this essay, I argue that an analysis of the mind-control skills exhibited by Buddhist meditation experts may be used to formulate a theory of mental freedom, Buddhist Soft Compatibilism, that includes not only freedom of the will but the freedoms of emotion, attention, perception, the self, and all voluntary phenomena. BSC is compatible with determinism, indeterminism, the various Buddhist conceptions of causation, and the Buddhist conception of the self.The structure of my essay is as follow…Read more
  •  907
    Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists (review)
    Science, Religion and Culture 1 (2): 93-96. 2014.
    Book review of Peter Boghossian, A Manual for Creating Atheists, Pitchstone Publishing, 2013, 280pp., $14.95, ISBN 978-1939578099 (paperback). Foreword by Michael Shermer. Science, Religion & Culture 1:2 (August 2014), 93-96
  •  349
    Jay L. Garfield, Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy (review)
    Science, Religion and Culture 2 (2): 1-6. 2015.
    Book review of Jay Garfield's Engaging Buddhism: Why It Matters to Philosophy.
  •  20
    Reply to Steven Cahn’s ‘The Ethics of Teaching: A Puzzle
    APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy 3 (2): 18-19. 2004.
    Steven Cahn posed a puzzle in this issue of the APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy, asking whether philosophy professors are morally obliged to reason students out of presumably irrational religious beliefs, by analogy with a hypothetical case in which a young person has been led to believe she has a magnanimous uncle who she never met but who has the wherewithal to watch over her life from afar and protect her. I responded in a nuanced manner, but basically emphasizing that we have an obliga…Read more
  •  1317
    The Case for a Contemplative Philosophy of Education
    New Directions for Community Colleges 151 5-15. 2010.
    I argue for the use of contemplative practices, such as meditation, journaling, reflection, etc., as an adjunct or alternative form of pedagogy that can help enrich student engagement, facilitate the creation of a philosophical mind state, and engender intrinsic curiosity and related psychological and/or motivational qualities that are supportive of educational ideals. I report on my own scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research performed in my philosophy classes, as a case study in p…Read more
  •  1549
    I argue for a soft compatibilist theory of free will, i.e., such that free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism, directly opposite hard incompatibilism, which holds free will incompatible both with determinism and indeterminism. My intuitions in this book are primarily based on an analysis of meditation, but my arguments are highly syncretic, deriving from many fields, including behaviorism, psychology, conditioning and deconditioning theory, philosophy of language, philoso…Read more
  •  527
    Meditation and Mental Freedom: A Buddhist Theory of Free Will
    Journal of Buddhist Ethics 17 166-212. 2010.
    I argue for a possible Buddhist theory of free will that combines Frankfurt's hierarchical analysis of meta-volitional/volitional accord with elements of the Buddhist eightfold path that prescribe that Buddhist aspirants cultivate meta-volitional wills that promote the mental freedom that culminates in enlightenment, as well as a causal/functional analysis of how Buddhist meditative methodology not only plausibly makes that possible, but in ways that may be applied to undermine Galen Strawson's …Read more
  •  521
    Earlier Buddhist Theories of Free Will: Compatibilism
    Journal of Buddhist Ethics 17 279-310. 2010.
    A critical review of the first wave of publications on Buddhism and free will between the 1960s and 1980s.
  •  228
    Buddhist Reductionism and Free Will: Paleo-compatibilism
    Journal of Buddhist Ethics 19 33-95. 2012.
    A critical review of Mark Siderits's arguments in support of a compatibilist Buddhist theory of free will based on early Abhidharma reductionism and the two-truths distinction between conventional and ultimate truths or reality, which theory he terms 'paleo-compatibilism'. The Buddhist two-truths doctrine is basically analogous to Sellers' distinction between the manifest and scientific images, in which case the argument is that determinism is a claim about ultimate reality, whereas personhood a…Read more
  •  1418
    Buddhist Hard Determinism: No Self, No Free Will, No Responsibility
    Journal of Buddhist Ethics 19 130-197. 2012.
    A critical review of Charles Goodman's view about Buddhism and free will to the effect that Buddhism is hard determinist, basically because he thinks Buddhist causation is definitively deterministic, and he thinks determinism is definitively incompatible with free will, but especially because he thinks Buddhism is equally definitively clear on the non-existence of a self, from which he concludes there cannot be an autonomous self.
  •  1092
    Critical review of Buddhist theories of free will published between 2000 and 2014.
  •  301
    Buddhist Meditation and the Possibility of Freedom
    Science, Religion and Culture 2 (2): 81-98. 2016.
    I argue that if the claims Buddhist philosophy makes about meditation virtuosos are plausible, then Buddhism may rebut most of the strongest arguments for free will skepticism found in Western analytic philosophy, including the hard incompatiblist's argument (which combines the arguments for hard determinism, such as the consequence argument, with those for hard indeterminism, such as the randomness argument), Pereboom's manipulation argument, and Galen Strawson's impossibility argument. The mai…Read more
  •  1232
    Meditation Matters: Replies to the Anti-McMindfulness Bandwagon!
    with Ron Purser, David Forbes, and Adam Burke
    In Ron Purser David Forbes and Adam Burke (ed.), Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context and Social Engagement, Springer. pp. 473-494. 2016.
    A critical reply to the anti-mindfulness critics in the collection, who oppose the popular secularized adoption of mindfulness on various grounds (it is not Buddhism, it is Buddhism, it is a tool of neo-capitalist exploitation, etc.), I argue that mindfulness is a quality of consciousness, opposite mindlessness, that may be cultivated through practice, and is almost always beneficial to those who cultivate it.
  •  916
    A critical overview to the bulk of extant Buddhist theories of free will.
  •  15205
    Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency? (edited book)
    Routledge / Francis & Taylor. 2016.
    A collection of essays, mostly original, on the actual and possible positions on free will available to Buddhist philosophers, by Christopher Gowans, Rick Repetti, Jay Garfield, Owen Flanagan, Charles Goodman, Galen Strawson, Susan Blackmore, Martin T. Adam, Christian Coseru, Marie Friquegnon, Mark Siderits, Ben Abelson, B. Alan Wallace, Peter Harvey, Emily McRae, and Karin Meyers, and a Foreword by Daniel Cozort.
  •  24
    This work focuses on a narrow Buddhist epistemological tradition that begins with the Abhidharma philosopher Vasubandhu’s analyses of perception and is developed by Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Kamalaśīla, and Śāntarakṣita. Coseru explains how Buddhist epistemology evolved in dialogue with competing conceptions internal to Buddhism and against orthodox Indian philosophies, particularly Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā. Coseru’s main argument is that although widespread interpretations of Buddhist epistemology are fou…Read more