The thesis focuses on the relationship between Sanskrit classical grammar, Ahludharma, and the debates between Madhyamaka and Yogacara. In particular, it shows how the karaka system, and the idea of laksana, influence philosophical argumentation in the context of medieval Indian Buddhist thought. The karaka system is the way in which classical Sanskrit grammarians discuss syntax, and in particular, actions and agency. Laksana means a defining trait, or a definition, at once a scholastic tool and a fundamental way to identify existent entities. There are five Chapters and two Appendices. Chapter One shows the close links between Sanskrit classical grammar and basic ideas in Buddhist thought, and isolates the karaka system as being most relevant in this regard. It also shows certain structural analogies between the karaka system and certain important features of Buddhist philosophy. Chapter Two is mostly based on Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosabhasya and its sub-commentary; it highlights and reconstructs the discussions on laksana and agency found therein. Chapter Three shows how Madhyamaka understands similar issues, and what is the proper context and significance of its refutation of laksanas,. Chapter Four shifts the focus upon the Madhyamaka understanding of conventional truths, and the role of the laksana of Abhidharma, as well as of the karaka system, within satfivni) Chapter Five compares the Yogdcdra views on the very same topics. Appendix 1 is a translation of Prajnakaramati's commentary to Bodhicarydvatdra 9.1-34, a work where many of the philosophical debates discussed throughout the thesis are well represented. Appendix 2 is a photographic reproduction of a manuscript, containing an anonymous commentary to Nagarjuna's Lokatitastava.

Convention and agency in the philosophies of the Mahayana

Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy

Agency in Sāṃkhya and Yoga: The Unchangeability of the Eternal

Pāṇinian Grammarians on Agency and Independence

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Reasons and conscious persons

It is a common view in modern scholarship on Buddhist ethics that attachment to the self constitutes a hindrance to ethics, whereas rejecting this type of attachment is a necessary condition for acting morally. The present article argues that in Vasubandhu’s theory of agency, as formulated in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya (Treasury of Metaphysics with Self-Commentary), a cognitive and psychological identification with a conventional, persisting self is a requisite for exercising moral agency. As such, this identification is essential for embracing the ethics of Buddhism and its way of life. The article delineates the method that Vasubandhu employs to account for the notion of a selfless moral agent, with particular emphasis on his strategies for dealing with one central aspect of agency, self-interested concern for the future.

Moral Agency and the Paradox of Self-Interested Concern for the Future in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya

Derek Parfit’s early work on the metaphysics of persons has had a vast influence on Western philosophical debates about the nature of personal identity and moral theory. Within the study of Buddhism, it also has sparked a continuous comparative discourse, which seeks to explicate Buddhist philosophical principles in light of Parfit’s conceptual framework. Examining important Parfitian-inspired studies of Buddhist philosophy, this article points out various ways in which a Parfitian lens shaped, often implicitly, contemporary understandings of the anātman (no-self) doctrine and its relation to Buddhist ethics. I discuss in particular three dominant elements appropriated by Parfitian-inspired scholarship: Parfit’s theoretical categories; philosophical problems raised by his reductionist theory of persons; and Parfit’s argumentative style. I argue that the three elements used in this scholarship constitute different facets of one methodological approach to cross-cultural philosophy, which relies on Western terminology and conceptual schemes to establish a conversation with non-Western philosophy. I suggest that while this methodology is fruitful in many ways, philosophy as a cosmopolitan space may benefit significantly from approaching Buddhist philosophy using its own categories and terminology.

Buddhism as Reductionism: Personal Identity and Ethics in Parfitian Readings of Buddhist Philosophy; from Steven Collins to the Present

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Papers

Moral Agency and the Paradox of Self-Interested Concern for the Future in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya

Buddhism as Reductionism: Personal Identity and Ethics in Parfitian Readings of Buddhist Philosophy; from Steven Collins to the Present

Ethan Mills, Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India: Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī Harṣa