Buddhism and Mind

Catalog description

Can Buddhism rightly be considered a science, or theory of the minds? Is there a self? What is consciousness? Are there different kinds of consciousness? How can a theory of conscious experience be explained within a purely physicalist paradigm? What role can Buddhist thought play in phenomenological approaches to the mind? We will attempt to find answers to these and other questions in this course. We begin by reading foundational texts in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Then, we investigate topics in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, with a special emphasis on whether Buddhist approaches to the mind and consciousness can shed light on contemporary theoretical disputes.