[Buddha-l] FW: Three year Research Associate, UK, Indian & Buddhist theories of self

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 01 August 2007 12:07, jkirk wrote:

> I don't get Tricycle so haven't seen this article.
> Depends on what is meant by the term "ego."
> Is a reified Freudian concept intended here?

I think something like a Freudian or Jungian notion of ego is at work here. I 
don't think the Freudian notions is reified. It is certainly not static and 
unchangeable. As far as I can tell, the only view of self that Buddhists 
denied was any notion that depicts the self as static, uncaused, unchanging 
and permanent. But what the Buddhists denied is something that no one in 
modern times ever affirms. In other words, the Buddhist view has really 
become the standard view in modern thought.

> I agree with the idea that some sort of a notion of self is necessary for
> survival, but that agreement doesn't refer to a notion of a reified Self (
> as anthematised in Buddhism), or something called the Ego--any more than I
> go along with something called the Subconscious, the Id, the Super-ego, et
> al.

Freud said nothing about th subconscious. That was the invention of later 
followers of Freud. What Freud talked about was the unconscious (das 
Unbewüsst), by which he meant psychologically active impulses to action of 
which a person is not fully unaware. Buddhists talked about very much the 
same thing, except they called it karma-vipaaka. I don't think anyone who 
agrees with Buddhist teachings on karma would dispute the claims of depth 
psychologists that a great deal of what influences our behavior is hidden 
from us. Commitment to karma seems to require a commitment to the notion of 
an unconscious.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes