Altough buddhism does a good job showing there is no such thing as a homunculus/controler self, i don’t think it succeeds at showing there is no-self at all.
The minimal-self (by philosopher Zahavi) survives to the buddhist via-negativa imho ” In several books and articles, Zahavi has defended the existence and significance of pre-reflective self-consciousness, and argued in favor of the idea that our experiential life is characterized by a form of self-consciousness that is more primitive and more fundamental than the reflective form of self-consciousness that one finds in various kinds of introspection.[1][2][3] More generally speaking, Zahavi has spoken out against different reductionist approaches to consciousness, and insisted on the theoretical significance of subjectivity and the first-person perspective.[2][4] ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Zahavi#Pre-reflective_self-consciousness_and_the_minimal_self
It’s nothing but the “meeness”, first-personal “experiencing” of experience itself.
And if you exclude any self, the path of buddhism itself doesn’t make any sense. Why would i go to such extreme lengths engaging in practices and studies to liberate another momentary self that will rise another second from now but won’t be me ? Who makes the insight that there is no-self ? Who is liberated ? Sutras like the diamond sutras make some attempt to answer those paradoxes, but the attempt is unsuccessful IMHO.
As I noted in the beginning of the article, the argument (at least as I interpret it) isn’t that “absolutely nothing like some kind of a self can be found”, but rather that “the mind doesn’t work like our intuitive concept of the self would suggest”. (More on this in a future post.)
Altough buddhism does a good job showing there is no such thing as a homunculus/controler self, i don’t think it succeeds at showing there is no-self at all.
The minimal-self (by philosopher Zahavi) survives to the buddhist via-negativa imho ” In several books and articles, Zahavi has defended the existence and significance of pre-reflective self-consciousness, and argued in favor of the idea that our experiential life is characterized by a form of self-consciousness that is more primitive and more fundamental than the reflective form of self-consciousness that one finds in various kinds of introspection.[1][2][3] More generally speaking, Zahavi has spoken out against different reductionist approaches to consciousness, and insisted on the theoretical significance of subjectivity and the first-person perspective.[2][4] ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Zahavi#Pre-reflective_self-consciousness_and_the_minimal_self
It’s nothing but the “meeness”, first-personal “experiencing” of experience itself.
And if you exclude any self, the path of buddhism itself doesn’t make any sense. Why would i go to such extreme lengths engaging in practices and studies to liberate another momentary self that will rise another second from now but won’t be me ? Who makes the insight that there is no-self ? Who is liberated ? Sutras like the diamond sutras make some attempt to answer those paradoxes, but the attempt is unsuccessful IMHO.
As I noted in the beginning of the article, the argument (at least as I interpret it) isn’t that “absolutely nothing like some kind of a self can be found”, but rather that “the mind doesn’t work like our intuitive concept of the self would suggest”. (More on this in a future post.)