Buddhists are famous for their thesis that selves do not exist. But if they are right, what would that thesis mean for our apparent sense of self and for ordinary practices involving selves—or at least persons? In Selfless Minds: A Contemporary Perspective on Vasubandhu’s Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2022), Monima Chadha answers these questions by c ... Show More
Jul 10
Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Metasemantics studies the foundations of meaning, asking what makes it the case that certain words have the meanings that they do. But what makes metasemantic theories true? This question has been all but ignored in philosophy of language. In this book, Cohnitz and Haukioja addre ... Show More
1h 9m
Jun 13
Philippe Huneman, "When Metaphysics Meets Biology: Kantian Approaches to the Concept of An Organism" (Routledge, 2026)
Central to modern biology and the study of life is the concept of the organism—roughly, a body with interconnected parts that make specific contributions to the development and functioning of the whole. There are competing organism concepts even today, but the 18th century was a ... Show More
1h 15m
Jun 3
Rivka Weinberg, "The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time" (Oxford UP, 2026)
You can stock your life with important work, relationships, activities, and art, and yet, you can still ask: what's the point of it all? Almost every thinking person has had that question—many more than once. Granted, you're more likely to worry about the point of life when thing ... Show More
49m 59s
Aug 2024
Ep. 347: Nyaya Sutra Against Buddhist Skeptics (Part Two)
<p>Mark, Seth, and Dylan now turn to ch. 4 of Dasti/Phillips' <em>Nyaya Sutra: Selections with Early Commentaries</em> about the self. Buddhism famously claims that there is no self, and the Nyaya philosophers respond with both common-sensical arguments (e.g. psychological proper ... Show More
37m 57s
Sep 2011
David McMahan, “The Making of Buddhist Modernism” (Oxford UP, 2008)
For many Asian and Western Buddhists today, Buddhism means meditation and an embrace of the world’s interdependence. But that’s not what it meant to Buddhists in the past; most of them never meditated and often saw interdependence (or dependent origination) as something fearful t ... Show More
58 m
Jun 2020
Alan Watts - Philosophy & Society - The Veil of Thoughts - The Modern Day Zen Buddhists & Philosophers Battle
Alan Watts - Far Beyond the West - Modern Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy, Zen, Buddhism, Hindu Philosophy, Tao, Taoism
Alan Watts provides insights into how to break through this veil that holds us back & does so in an easy to comprehend, yet profound manner.
Watts discusses the ... Show More
52m 57s
Feb 2021
Buddhist Enlightenment: Impermanence, No Self, and the Dark Night of the Soul
<p>Breht is joined by Dr. Daniel M. Ingram, author of "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha", to discuss what Enlightenment is in the Buddhist tradition, what it feels like from the inside, what it can and cannot offer the individual and society, spirituality and mysticism ... Show More
1h 37m
May 2022
#282 — Do You Really Have a Self?
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sam Harris speaks with Jay Garfield about the illusion of the self. They discuss the default sense of subjectivity, the difference between absolute and conventional truth, interdependence, free will, subject-object duality, emptiness, the "mind- ... Show More
54m 13s