[Buddha-l] Lance's Remarks on Attan.com

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sat, 2005-11-19 at 08:16 +0000, L.S. Cousins wrote:

> Of course, despite the intense dislike of it on the website, Steve 
> Collins's book: _Selfless Persons_ (different title in US ?) remains 
> the best treatment. 

That really is a wonderful book. I keep returning to it and finding more
to it all the time. I am not sure which website you are referring to
when you say there is a intense dislike of it. Are you thinking of the
bizarre review of the book that appears on Amazon.com, which someone
quoted her to show what a crank Ken Wheeler is?

> See also: Collins, Steven "What are Buddhists doing when they deny a
> self?" in  _Religion and Practical Reason_  (ed. Reynolds, Frank E.
> and Tracy, David), State University of New York Press, 1994.

The American philosopher Kripke once quipped in a typical Kripke quip:
"The problem with doing philosophy in the 20th century is that all the
sensible positions have already been taken. The only unoccupied
positions left for us to defend are nonsense." One could caricature
Collins's position as saying something along the same lines: by the time
the Buddhists got on the scene, all the sensible positions had been
taken, leaving the Buddhist scholastics with nothing but a rather
extreme form of the anaatman doctrine to defend. I think the Buddhist
scholastics did their best, but I have become increasingly unsatisfied
with their position.

Someone whose work on various Buddhist views on non-self that I admire
is James Duerlinger, who has several good pieces in Journal of Indian
Philosophy. His approach is more philosophical than historical or
philological. If philosophy is your cup of tea, give him a try, if you
haven't already.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico