Selves and persons are often used as synonyms in contemporaryphilosophy, and sometimes also in the history of Western philosophy.This is almost never the case in classical Indian philosophicaltraditions. The Sanskrit term ‘ātman’properly translated as self stands for whatever it is that is theessence of individual humans (manuṣya) or thepsychophysical complex (pudgala) which includes the mind,body and sense organs. There is disagreement among the philosophicalschools about whether the essence is a substantial soul or pureconsciousness and whether there is such an essence at all. TheBuddhist no-self theorists and the Cārvāka materialists denythat there is any such essence, the psychophysical complex is allthere is. Finding an equivalent term across the classical Indianphilosophical schools that properly can be translated as person is abit more challenging. The concept of ‘pudgala’used to signify the psychophysical complex as whole in Buddhistphilosophy is properly translated as person. But‘pudgala’ is not used with this strict meaningacross the philosophical spectrum. The Jaina philosophers use it as anequivalent for matter or material object. There are several terms inSanskrit, for example, ‘jīva-ātma’,‘puruṣa’,‘manuṣya’ which are often used to indicatepersons, but these terms have wider meanings and do not apply strictlyto persons. The lack of an exact equivalent in Sanskrit does not,however, mean that the concept of personhood was not central toclassical Indian philosophies other than Buddhism.

A primary concern that motivated most philosophers in ancient Indiawas to find the best way forward in an individual person’s questfor liberation from suffering. All living beings are trapped in thecycle of birth and rebirth (saṃsāra) whichaccording to most classical Indian philosophers, is characterised bysuffering. The highest goal of life is liberation(mokṣa ornirvāṇa). Except theCārvāka materialists who believed that death is the end andthere is nothing like rebirth or liberation, all other philosophicalschools believed in the possibility of liberation in this life or infuture lifetimes. The ultimate aim of the classical Indian philosophyteachings is thus to help individual persons attain liberation or atleast a better life in this life and future lifetimes. Most classicalIndian philosophers agreed that our ignorance about “who wereally are” is the source and the means to bringing an end tosuffering. Thus, metaphysical debates about the nature of individualpersons and the universe and our place in it are central to theclassical Indian philosophical traditions. These debates, however,tended to focus on the essence of persons, the self(ātman) or the soul substance.

This is in contrast with contemporary Western philosophy wherequestions about personal identity and its normative significance areat the forefront at least since Parfit (1984). In Section 2, we turnbriefly to the contemporary debates about personal identity andreflect on how they might benefit from paying attention to thediscussions of personhood in classical Indian philosophy. But beforewe attempt that, in Sections 1 and 2, we describe the differentconceptions of personhood in classical Indian philosophy. As I said,there is not much explicit discussion of personhood, so most of thetime I draw out the conceptions of persons from other discussions thatimplicitly refers to persons.

• 1. Classical Indian Conceptions of Persons
  • 1.1 Vedic Conception of Persons: Upaniṣads
  • 1.2 Spiritual Conceptions of Persons
  • 1.3 Worldly Persons
• 2. Unorthodox Conceptions of Persons
  • 2.1 Jaina
  • 2.2 Buddhist
  • 2.3 Cārvāka
• 3. What do we need persons for?
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Classical Indian Conceptions of Persons

1.1 Vedic Conception of Persons: Upaniṣads

Hindu philosophical schools develop their philosophical position as anattempt to interpret and defend the various metaphysical theses thatare found in the Vedas (the foundational Hindu scriptures) and morespecifically the Upaniṣads. The Upaniṣads, literally“the last chapters, parts of the Veda”, are often thoughtof as expressing the crux or the purpose of the Veda. The concept ofātman (soul, self) as the essence of individual personsand knowledge of that ātman is the central focus in all of theUpanishads. The self (ātman) is primarily conceived ofin the Upaniṣads as a pure subject of experiences, detached fromthe objects of its consciousness, enduring and changeless and separateand independent of its mental and physical states. In theBṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, the sageYājñavalkya says

The sages call it the eternal self. It is neither big nor small,neither long nor short, neither hot nor cold, neither bright nor dark,neither air nor space. It is without attachment, without taste, smell,or touch, without eyes, ears, tongue, mouth, breath, or mind, withoutmovement, without limitation, without inside or outside. It consumesnothing, and nothing consumes it.

The Self is the seer, Gargi, though unseen; the hearer, thoughunheard; the thinker, though unthought; the knower, though unknown.Nothing other than the Self can see, hear, think, or know (BU 3.7, 8,11).

This picture of the self as a witnessing subject is in sharp contrastwith another Upaniṣadic conception: that of persons as agents,the doers and the enjoyers of the fruits of their actions. Thisconception of persons is also found in theBṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad:

What a man turns out to be depends on how he acts and on how heconducts himself. If his actions are good, he will turn into somethinggood. If his actions are bad, he will turn into something bad. A manturns into something good by good action and into something bad by badaction. And so people say: “A person here consists simply ofdesire.” A man resolves in accordance with his desire, acts inaccordance with his resolve, and turns out to be in accordance withhis action. (BU 4.4, 5)

And again, in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, we findtalk of person as an embodied soul. Chapter 5 explains the cycle ofbirth and rebirth of individual persons as process of soul (self)becoming embodied as a result of being entangled in the materialqualities (Guṇas):

Only he [the person] who gets attached to the pleasurable qualities ofthings does work for the sake of its fruits, and enjoys the fruits ofhis own deeds. Though really the master of the senses, he becomesbound byGuṇas, and assuming various forms, wandersabout the three paths as a result of his own deeds.

By desire, contact, sight and delusion, the embodied soul assumessuccessively various forms in various places according to his deeds,just as the body grows nourished by showers of food and drink.

The embodied soul chooses many forms, gross and subtle, based on thequalities belonging to himself, to the actions and to the mind. Thecause of their combination is found to be still another. (ŚVU 5.7, 10, 11)

The agential conception of persons assumes the Vedic doctrine ofkarma, so it deserves to a short explication. The doctrine ofkarma has two dimensions: a moral cosmology and apsychological dimension (Phillips 1997, 329). According to the thesisof moral cosmology, actions have immediate as well as non-immediateconsequences. The latter embody a moral dimension: good actions resultin rewards, bad actions in punishments in the form ofkarmicresidues which ripen and bear fruit in this lifetime or in futurelifetimes. According to the psychological thesis, actions create atendency, a disposition to repeat that act. The two dimensionstogether might seem to entail fatalism, bad actions result inacquisition of badkarmic residues and bad habits thatdispose the agent to repeat the same offences with the result that theagent is doomed to inferior rebirths with no possibility of liberationfrom the cycle of birth and rebirth. This impression is mistaken. Theindividual person is free at all times to break the bad habits andperform novel good actions in accordance with duty (dharma)and thereby inculcate the right dispositions that incline the agent togood actions and superior births and finally liberation. There is animportant caveat though, “duty has to be performed for the sakeof duty alone” not because of attachment to pleasures or fruitsof actions because that results in bondage of the soul to the materialqualities and many different rebirths follow. The quality of thedeeds, good or bad, determines the kind of embodiment (physical andpsychological characteristics, caste), length of life, quality ofexperiences, dreams and much else that is to be endured by personwhile it is entrapped in the cycle of birth and rebirth. Although thesoul is thought of as the controller of the senses, once it isembodied, the qualities of material form have the habit of taking overand driving individual persons on account of their attachments tosensual pleasures. And it is on account of the quality of its actionsand theirkarmic fruits, in this birth, that the embodiedsoul is reborn in (another) new form. The only way out of suffering inthe perpetual cycle of birth and rebirth is knowledge of the realnature of the individual person and its entanglement in the materialworld.

The Upaniṣadic philosophers recognize the conception of the selfas the pure detached subject of experiences separate and unaffected bythe material world (nivṛtti) and the person as anactive agent engaged with the material world(pravṛtti). The nivṛtti tradition is theexemplified in the later Upaniṣadic renunciant tradition and isalso developed by Hindu schools such as the Vedānta andSāṃkhya-Yoga. In contrast thepravṛttitradition exemplified in the Vedic ritualistic tradition isdeveloped by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika andMīmāṃsā schools. This difference in emphasis isalso brought out in the various paths to liberation: the path ofaction (karma yoga) and the path of knowledge(jñāna yoga). Thenivṛttitradition stresses the importance of knowledge of the self(ātma-vidyā) sometimes equated with mysticalawareness of Brahman (brahma-vidyā). This, according toUpaniṣads, is the most promising route to the supreme good,liberation (mokṣa). But it is not exclusive orindependent ofkarma yoga, because knowledge of the self willresult in transformation of a person’s attitudes towards sensualpleasure and earthly goods, and desires which contribute to action.And conversely, the training in karma yoga together with thedoctrine of rebirth and transmigration will result in a transformationof how the person views the self.

The Upaniṣadic conception of person is that of an‘embodied soul’. The soul is essence of the person and itis what makes us the same person over time (possibly even acrosslifetimes). The Hindu schools defend what is contemporary philosopherscall the Non-Reductionist view of persons. According to theNon-Reductionist view, the continued existence of persons is a deep,further fact, distinct from physical and psychological continuity, anda fact that holds completely or not at all (Parfit 1984, 445). Parfitnotes that a Cartesian Ego, would be one such entity. The soul(ātman) as described by the Vedas and explicated byHindu would be another. These ideas from the Upaniṣads aredeveloped into various conceptions of persons by the Hinduphilosophical schools which will be discussed in turn Sections 1.2 and1.3 before we turn to unorthodox conceptions in Section 1.4.

1.2 Spiritual Conceptions of Persons

The Vedānta and Sāṃkhya-Yoga is the most importantschool that develop the spiritual and mystical insights in theUpaniṣads. The Advaita Vedānta is well-known for upholdingmonism, there is only one reality and that is Brahman. Furthermore,the Advaita Vedānta philosophers argue that the individual selfand the supreme Self (Brahman) are identical. The pluralityof the external world of everyday experience is explained away as anillusory projection (māyā), a cosmic illusion whichis a product of our ignorance. The nature of this self is simply pureconsciousness. Self, according to the Advaita Vedānta is not tobe understood as a substance that has the property of consciousnessbut rather it is consciousness itself, the principle of illuminationor manifestation (prakāśa). This consciousnessmanifests all things. Just as without the sunlight, the universe wouldbe shrouded in darkness, similarly without consciousness nothing wouldbe known or manifested’ (Gupta 2003: 31–2; cf. 106).According to the Advaitins,

consciousness has no form, no content; its only function, like that oflight, is to show the object on which it is focused…. TheAdvaitins argue that, that which manifests everything cannot have theform of any particular thing; manifestation is its only function.(Gupta 2003: 119–20)

The Advaita Vedānta thesis is that this consciousness is what aperson is at the most fundamental level, the self(ātman). But as far as my sense of myself as a personis concerned, I take myself to be a psychophysical thing among others,having certain properties and relations, such as belonging to acertain family (caste, according to the Hindus) and having a certainsocial role. The Advaita Vedānta philosophers argue that thissense of self is a result of a false identification with aspects ofthe projected world. Person (an empirical self in their terminology)in their sense has no ultimate reality, it is merely anotherprojection of the cosmic illusion. Though the person is ordinarilyexperienced as a particular entity in the world and standing inmanifold relations to other entities, it is dismissed as a product ofignorance. Their concern is with the ‘self/supreme Self’identity and with self-knowledge as the most promising route toliberation (mokṣa). Once we understand the true natureof ourselves, primarily through the study of the Upaniṣadscomplemented by the practice of meditation, we will grasp that essenceof an individual (ātman) is identical with the realSelf (Brahman). The person or empirical self will fall awayas merely an illusory projection of consciousness.

The Sāṃkhya and Yoga schools draw inspiration for theirmetaphysics of persons from the Upaniṣads and develop theinsight that the real essence of a person is the soul or inSāṃkhya terminology, the Spirit (puruṣa).But unlike the Vedānta, the Sāṃkhya and Yogaphilosophers do not regard the multiplicity of true persons as a mereillusion. They speak of the absolute puruṣa(īśvara) and individual puruṣas(jīvas). Verse 18 of theSāṃkhya-kārikā offers a proof andexplanation for the existence of multiplicity of real persons

The incidence of birth and death and the action of the sense facultiesdifferent for different individuals; all people not having the sameinclinations at the same time; the thoughts arising out of the actionof the three guṇas being different for different people –it follows that souls (puruṣas) are many (each personhaving a separate soul). (Translation adapted from Radhanath Phukan1960).

Every individual person (jīva) is a manifestation orinstantiation of the absolutepuruṣa, which is presentas an undivided whole in every person. Thepuruṣa isthus the universal aspect in virtue of which we are persons. But eachindividual person is also a finite particular. The particular aspectof an individual person is derived from the material form or nature(prakṛti ) which supplies the physical body and itsadjuncts (sense organs, etc.). Nature (prakṛti) worksthrough threeguṇas which are its functional forces,known as existence or beingness (sattva), force of bringingabout change (rajas), and force for restrains change(tamas).Sattva exhibits the physical characteristicof buoyancy and illumination, and the psychological characteristic ofpleasure. Rajas exhibits the physical characteristic ofstimulation and movement and the psychological characteristics of painand passion.Tamasexhibits the physical characteristic ofweight and resistance and the characteristics of dejection anddespondency. The disturbance in the equipoise of the threeguṇas starts the process of evolution which is theprocess of creation. As explained in the quote above, each individualperson is a unique composition ofguṇas that determineher physical and psychological characteristics, for example those witha predominance oftamas will be naturally disposed to resistchange and activity.

According to Sāṃkhya philosophers, the relation betweenprakṛti andpuruṣa in an individualperson is said to be eternal and irresolvable. This raises a problemfor the Sāṃkhya, namely, how are we to explain the bondage(coming together) ofprakṛti andpuruṣa(soul), and how is the final release liberation ofpuruṣa possible? The clue lies in understanding theprocess of evolution. Verse 21 of theSāṃkhya-kārikā offers a succinctanswer:

For the sake ofpuruṣa’s perception ofprakṛti and for the sake of his release, a union of thetwo takes place, which resembles the union of the lame and the blind(translation adapted from Majumdar 1930, 77).

The author of theKārikā makes use of an analogyoften exploited in classical Indian philosophy, of the union of thelame and the blind who happen to encounter each other and decide tocooperate for their mutual benefit which is to reach their desireddestination (metaphorically liberation). The lame man (soul) mountsthe shoulders of the blind man (matter) and directs both to thedesired destination. And, just as the blind man and the lame man partcompany when they reach their mutual destination, so do soul andmatter. Creation of an individual person results from the desire toperceive and experienceprakṛti and her manifestationsin the form of sensual pleasures derived from material objects.Creation is more properly understood as evolution ofprakṛti to reveal her many forms to the soul for thesake of his enjoyment, even though the union ofprakṛtiandpuruṣa is eternal. Bondage results in the soulbeing tricked by the various forms ofprakṛtiespecially the ego-sense (ahaṃkāra) and thephysical body to the extent of identifying with these material formsas part of the soul. This identification results in the soulforgetting its true nature and being totally spell-bound byprakṛti and the many pleasures afforded by materialforms. This forgetfulness results in alienation of the soul whichcauses in unhappiness and misery. Most of us, ordinary persons, are infact in this situation. But because the enjoyment of the materialforms and the union of matter and soul is tainted with suffering andpain, persons seek liberation. The way out for an individual person isto dispel the delusion of the soul by developing the right kind ofpsychical conditions. The right kind of psychical development requiresproper moral and religious training though it may take an inordinatelylong time, possibly many rebirths. The end of the delusion also meansthe end of bondage and with it goes all unhappiness and misery.Liberation of the soul consists in indifference towards themanifestation ofprakṛti and with it the renunciationof many sensual pleasures and material objects. The puruṣa thusreturns to its native enlightened state of bliss. (For an elaborateaccount of such a delusion and its consequences, see theŚāntiparvan of the Māhābhārata, Chapter 302(verse 41–49) and Chapter 303).

The Yoga school shares much with the Sāṃkhya regarding thenature of the true self and the individual person, differing in itsemphasis on the yogic practices (psychophysical techniques centeringon meditation) as the means of discovering the true nature of the realself. The Sāṃkhya and Yoga philosophers disagree with theAdvaitic thesis that individual persons (jīvas) are onlydelusions, but agree that the true self, the essence of the person isthe soul or consciousness untainted by matter. There is no value todevelopment of persons as such, according to these spiritualphilosophies, the only activity worthy of pursuit is the search forthe true self.

1.3 Worldly Persons

The Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Mīmāṃsāphilosophers differ from the philosophers of Advaita-Vedānta inthat they emphasise the reality of distinct many distinct individualpersons (jīva). However, because of their allegiance tothe Vedas there is not much explicit discussion of persons, the focusis on the search for is the essence of persons (ātman)and their pursuit of the highest good, liberation(mokṣa). Ordinary persons are embodied souls, accordingto these philosophers. The soul (ātman) is the essenceof the person; the mind, body and the senses are merely adjuncts. Thesoul is a distinct and independent substance, possessing the propertyof consciousness. The philosophers belonging toNyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Mīmāṃsātraditions, contra the spiritual philosophers, emphasized that thesoul is not just an experiencer but more importantly an agent –a knower and a doer and enjoyer (ofkarmic consequences).But, one may ask how might a disembodied separate soul substance be adoer and knower and enjoyer? We return this question below in thediscussion of these views.

The focus of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika is on the self ratherthan the person. The individual self (jīva-ātma istheir preferred term) occupies a central place in theNyāya-Vaiśeṣika ontology. Selves are really distinctindividuals and do not merge into one ultimate reality at liberation.Much attention has been paid to the Nyāya arguments for theexistence of the self, the ways of knowing the self, thecharacteristics of the self and the means to liberation. Let us beginby notingNyāya-sūtra 1.1.10, which provides thefamous ‘characteristics of the self’ as well as the basisof the inferential proof for the existence of the self:

Desire, aversion, volition (prayatna), pleasure, pain, andcognition are characteristics of the self. (NS 1.1.10)

Dasti writes that for Nyāya, agency is a special expression ofthe self’s different capacities and potentialities, whichcoherently ties together all its distinctive characteristics (2013,114). Dasti is right to emphasise that the Nyāya self is muchmore than a subject of experience, that it is more importantly anagent – a doer and a knower. But Dasti and others incontemporary literature fail to emphasise that the distinctivequalities (viśeṣa) of the self, desire, cognition,pain, etc., are transitory and come into existence only when the selfis in contact with the mind-sense organs-body complex. Thesubstance-quality distinction which is the hallmark of Nyāyaontology, and an important tool that accounts for all the goodsafforded by the Nyāya postulation of the self as distinctsubstance. As Dasti puts it:

Nyāya’s account of personhood involves substances andproperties: an enduring substantial self with its fluctuating,world-engaging properties like memory, awareness, and volition allowfor full personhood. Like Sāṃkhya, Nyāya allows fora self which endures through time, survives bodily death, andparticipates in ultimate liberation. But like the Buddhists,Nyāya’s person is directly engaged in the world. We arehere now (2013: 135).

Dasti rightly uses the term personhood as signifying the self togetherwith its properties and talks about person (rather than the self) asdirectly engaged in the world, but he fails to note that theNyāya-Vaiśeṣika account is plagued with problems.Problems arise when we pay attention to the fact that according to theNyāya philosophers, although the self is a substance which isseparate from the mind-sense organs-body complex, the self is totallydependent on this complex for its functionality. The mind-senseorgans-body contact is needed to engender cognition, desire, etc., theself cannot bring cognition into being by itself. Reflection andmemory too require the self to be in contact with the mind. Even theeffort of the self is induced by the mind-sense-body contact, so itseems that the self cannot initiate any activity by itself. Self byitself is causally impotent (this is, indeed, exactly the Buddhistargument against the existence of the Nyāya self). It seems thatthe self by itself is just a bearer of its distinctive qualities whichare induced by mind-sense organs-body contact. It is merely thepassive observer of activity and remote carrier of the mediate(karmic) consequences of actions. Therefore, it is not theself by itself but the embodied self or person that is the agent, doerand originator of all actions and the enjoyer of the results of theaction.

Furthermore, the distinctive qualities of the self are not itsessential qualities. The self is without its qualities temporarilyduring sleep and similar states and loses these qualities permanentlyin the state of liberation (mokṣa). The self in the state ofliberation is totally lacking in consciousness, Dravid describing itas ‘an insentient stone-like condition’ (1995, 1). Thefirm separation between the self and its qualities means that eventhough the latter are always changing, the self is totally unaffectedby these changes. The Buddhist objects if the self remains totallyunaffected by changes in its qualities it would not be able toregister the changes, that is to say that the self by itself would notbe able to perceive those changes (Watson, 2018, 337). This robs theself of its status as the cognizer (jñātṛ);it is rather the embodied worldly self or persons that perceive. So,it seems that the Nyāya self by itself can’t even be anexperiencer. To ensure that self can really live up to its jobdescription as an agent and experiencer the Nyāya discussionshould have been focused on the embodied wordly self or person that isthe agent (kartṛ), enjoyer (bhōktṛ)and cognizer (jñātṛ), rather than theself.

Most Nyāya philosophers claim that the agential self is notperceived but can only be inferred from the actions of the body. TheNyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers offer the analogy ofinferring the driver of a chariot when you see it moving along theroad, avoiding potholes and other moving vehicles and persons. Theanalogy might remind us of Descartes’ analogy of a sailor in theship. But as Descartes pointed out in the sixth Meditation that theconnection between self (conceived of as the referent of‘I’) and body has to be much more intimate than that of asailor in the ship, otherwise the self would not feel pain when thebody was hurt, but would merely perceive the damage just as a sailorperceives by sight if his ship is broken (Cottingham, 1996, 56). TheNyāya-Vaiśeṣika self in the driver’s seat,independent and separate from the chariot (body), doesn’t quitedo justice to the relationship between the self and its body.

The Nyāya philosophers have two options at this point. They mustgive up on the notion of the self as a separate substance untouched byits qualities. The talk of the remote self needs to be replaced withembodied selves (or persons). Or, they need to conceive of the self inthe way the Bhaṭṭa Mīmāṃsā do as moreclosely connected with its qualities, so that it can undergomodification. The second option is available, but does it suffice? Wewill revisit this question after drawing out the conception of personimplicit in Mīmāṃsā.

The stated goal of Mīmāṃsā is to interpret thestatements of the Vedas, and thus to provide specific guidance toHindus for performing the rituals and sacrifices they enjoin. TheMīmāṃsā philosophers agree with other Hinduschools that the true self that we cognize in self-recognition is asingle thing that remains identical over time and thus it cannot beidentified with the mind, body and the sense organs (See Taber 1992for the Mīmāṃsā argument for a self). There isnot much discussion of their notion of a person directly in the texts.However, there is implicit discussion of wordly persons in the contextof the performance of duty (dharma) and religious rituals. Aperson is one who performs the rituals and follows thedharma, the doer of the deeds and enjoyer of the fruits ofthe deeds in accordance with the karma doctrine. Every religiousritual or sacrifice, according to the Mīmāṃsāphilosophers, is said to have a specific result and characterized byan eligible persons (adhikāra) (Freschi, et al. 2019).The eligibility identifies the person who is enjoined by the Vedas toperform a religious ritual or sacrifice, has the means to perform itand will be the bearer of thekarmic result accrued onaccount of the performance. This is particularly relevant in thecontext of Vedic sacrifices, since they always include manyperformers. An eligible person (adhikārin) is the onewho is enjoined by the Vedas to perform the sacrifice and entitled toits result; the former implies that one can hear or read a Vedicinjunction and understand oneself as the addressee, which, in turn,implies that one belongs to one of the social groups that istraditionally expected to study the Vedas. Being eligible furtherimplies having physical ability (seeExegetic Aphorisms6.1.42) and material resources (Exegetic Aphorisms6.7.18–20) to organize the performance of a sacrifice (Freschi,et al. 2019). The latter, the entitlement to the result of thesuccessful performance of a sacrifice is automatically guaranteed bythe law of karma. This notion of a person implicit in this discussionof injunctions by Mīmāṃsā philosophers suggeststhat persons are embodied beings, belonging to a certain social class,possessing material wealth or otherwise, the bearers ofkarmic residues and the enjoyers ofkarmicresults.

The Bhaṭṭa Mīmāṃsā, specificallyKumārila, argues that the self can undergo transformation eventhough it is eternal. Pleasure, pain etc. are qualities of the self,changes in these qualities entail a change in the self, but it is merequalitative change. The self can be transformed but it remainsnumerically identical through the change in its qualities. Someaspects of the self are permanent, for example its consciousness,existence and substantiality, but other aspects such as pleasure, painetc. undergo change. The self, Kumārila says, can be compared toa piece of gold that can be remoulded into a necklace or earrings or agold coin. The stuff of which the self is composed is eternal, justlike the eternal gold atoms. The self can change, but to count as thesame self there can be no change in whatsoever in its essence, it mustremain the very same substance. In this sense, the self remains a puresubject untainted by physicality. The Vedic assumption that the selfis a separate soul substance is difficult to square with theconception of the self as cognizer, agent and the enjoyer. The Hinduphilosophers who want to maintain this conception must reject theassumption of an eternal separate soul substance. An embodied self orperson, by contrast, is a more suitable candidate for it can be thecognizer and characterized by agency and by enjoyment.

2. Unorthodox Conceptions of Persons

2.1 Jaina

Among the non-Hindu traditions, we begin with Jaina conception ofpersons because it is closest to the Hindu conception, specificallythat of the Bhaṭṭa Mīmāṃsā andSāṃkhya schools. Like the Sāṃkhya, the Jainasare essentially dualistic. The universe is constituted by two kinds ofthings: living (jīva) and non-living(ajīva) akin topuruṣa anfprakṛti. The self is described in Jaina from thenoumenal and the phenomenal points of view. From the ultimate ornoumenal points of view the self or the soul is pure and perfect,characterised by pure consciousness. It is a simple, immaterial andformless substance. From the phenomenal point of view, the soul isdescribed as life force (prāna) which in conjunction thenon-living forces is manifested in various life forms, including humanpersons. The Jainas posit only four non-living (ajīva)forces: matter or pudgala which is manifested as karma, time, spaceand movement (Kalghatgi, 1965). The coming together of these things isthe Jaina conception of life as pervading all aspects of the naturalworld. Each life-form stands within a hierarchy of ascent fromelemental beings, microbes and plants, worms, insects and the array offish, reptiles, amphibians and mammals all the way to persons. Thenature of the next birth is dependent of the actions performed in theimmediate past body, plants and microbes can be reborn higher up inthe hierarchy, or mammals can be demoted to lower forms. Persons toodepending on whether their actions are virtuous or vicious can bereborn in a heavenly realm, or suffer torture in one of the sevenhells. Persons at the top of the hierarchy, are unique in that theyare able to perform thekarmic necessary purgations to attainfreedom or liberation (kevala), the highest end which isbreak free from the cycle of birth and rebirth. The story so far isnot very different from what we find in the Hindu texts, except thatkarma is literally a material force.

The Jainas also agree with the BhaṭṭaMīmāṃsā that the essence and the qualities of theself are not totally separate from each other. They are two aspects ofthe same thing: one and the same self substance is unchanging andeternal when viewed from one point of view, and changing when viewedfrom another point of view. Its permanence is indexed to its essenceand its impermanence to its qualities to allow for the very same selfto be transformed through the cycle of birth and rebirth. Though thereis much similarity between Jaina and the BhaṭṭaMīmāṃsā view, there is a curious difference. TheJainas think that though the self is immaterial, it changes it sizeaccording to the body with which it is associated. The self, so tosay, fits the body it is housed in.

Again, though there is not much explicit discussion of persons in theJaina tradition, the notion of a person is present as a moral agentwith the capacity for attaining the highest freedom or liberation.Persons alone have the capacity to escape the cycle of birth andrebirth. Moral agency requires sensitivity to the nature of our world,according to which all living beings are said to be interconnected.This brings with it a moral obligation to respect all living beingsincluding plants and not be unscrupulous in using natural resources.What makes us the same person over time is the soul substance, so theJainas would also be classified as Non-Reductionists about persons incontemporary parlance.

2.2 Buddhist

The next group of philosophers to consider in this section are theBuddhists. The Buddhist tradition is unique in having a clear conceptof a person as distinct from a self. Mark Siderits sums up theBuddhist distinction between persons and selves succinctly: “By‘self’ (ātman) they understand whatevercounts as the essence of the psychophysical complex, while by‘person’ (pudgala) they understand thepsychophysical complex as a whole” (2019, 303). It is well-knownthat the Buddhists reject the self, but it is not so well known thatsome Buddhists defended the reality of persons. There are manydifferent Buddhist schools and the most well-known for an ardentdefenders of persons, against fellow Buddhists, are calledPudgalavādins or personalists. The main impetus for theintroduction of persons in Buddhist philosophy, in the absence ofselves, is the need for a bearer of moral responsibility. We need abearer to support the notion of moral responsibility, which is aconstitutive element of their theory of karma and rebirth. Buddhistsbelieve in rebirth without appeal to transmigration of self. AllBuddhists allude to the Buddha’s talk of persons in theBhārahārasūtra (thesūtraonthe bearer of the burden) as one of the most important reasons toconsider the question about the reality of persons. The text reads asfollows:

I am going to teach you, O monks, the burden, the taking up of theburden, the laying down of the burden, and the bearer of the burden.Listen to it, pay attention carefully and well. I am going to speak.Of what does the burden consist? It consists of the five constituentsto which one clings. Which five? The constituent to which one clingsthat consists of corporeality, [and] the [four] constituents to whichone clings that consist of [affective] sensation, ideation, theconditioning factors, and cognition. Of what does the taking up of theburden consist? It consists of craving, which leads to rebirth [and]which, accompanied by desire for joys, takes delight here and there.Of what does the laying down of the burden consist? It is the totalelimination, the abandonment, the removal, the exhaustion, theavoidance, the cessation, the extinction, and the disappearance ofthat very craving which leads to rebirth [and] which, accompanied bydesire for joys, takes delight here and there. Of what does the bearerof the burden consist? One could say: ‘A person’, i.e.,that sir who has such a name, who has such an origin(/birth), whobelongs to such a family(/lineage), who has such a livelihood, whoexperiences such pleasure and pain, who has such a long life span, whoremains for such a long time, whose life has such an end. [I havethus] answered to what I [promised to] say, i.e., “I am going toteach you, O monks, the burden, the taking up of the burden, thelaying down of the burden, and the bearer of the burden”. TheBlessed One said this. Having said this, the Sugata, the Teacher,further said this: “Having laid down the heavy burden, one wouldnot take up another one, [for] taking up the burden is suffering,[while] laying down the burden is bliss. Having, due to the exhaustionof all fetters, eliminated all craving [and] thoroughly known allsubstrates [of existence], one no [longer] falls into rebirth.”(Eltschinger 2014: 457).

The originality of thissūtra lies in introducing thenotion of a burden-bearer (bhārahāra) defined asa ‘person’(pudgala). In the text, the term‘burden’ is interpreted as desire or craving that is theroot cause of morally wrong action, which in turn is the cause ofrebirth and suffering according to the Buddhist doctrine of karma. Theperson is introduced in the originalsūtraas thebearer of moral desert.

The controversy over persons raged among Indian Buddhists for morethan a millennium. The question is whether the ‘person’ inthesūtra is to be interpreted as ultimately real, asPudgalavādins (Personalists) did, or, as only conventionallyreal, as the mainstream Abhidharma Buddhists did. According to theAbhidharma doctrine, the only things that are ultimately real are theindivisible, momentary physical and mental dharmas (best understood astropes; see Ganeri 2001). Everything else that can be decomposed intoparts, physically or conceptually, is only conventionally real.Siderits explains the Ābhidharmika position thus:

A statement is said to be ultimately true iff it corresponds to howthings are independently of the concepts one happens to employ. Such astatement can neither assert nor presuppose the existence of anycomposite entity… . Many entities in people’s folkontology are not ultimately real: chariots, forests, trees, pots, andso on. Such entities are said to be conventionally real, mereconceptual fictions. (2019: 314)

Different schools in the Indian Buddhist tradition have differentstrategies for making sense of the Buddha’s thought and talk ofpersons. The Pudgalavādins are alone in holding that persons areultimately or substantially real. The dispute between thePudgalavādins and their opponents is not just an attempt to layclaim to ‘what the Buddha taught’, but it is alsomotivated by philosophical considerations about consistency with theno-self doctrine and other important Buddhist theses, for exampleimpermanence, dependent origination, and thekarmatheory.The Pudgalavādin position on persons is best placed in theEmergentist camp, they try to steer a middle path between HinduNon-Reductionism (eternalism) and Abhidharma Buddhist Reductionism(annihilationism) (Ganeri, 2012; Carpenter, 2015). They regard personsas emergent entities not reducible to mental and psychological andmental atoms (dharmas), although they depend on those atoms.The Abhidharma and Madhyamaka traditions hold very different viewsabout persons.

According to the Mādhyamikas, the pragmatic usefulness ofperson-talk is important as a catechetic device for teaching thedoctrine to the uninitiated. The Buddha’s talk about persons andother continuing entities in the sūtras is aimed at ordinarypeople who, due to ignorance are beset with the false view of a self.As Vincent Eltschinger puts it, “these preliminary and merelyprovisional teachings are meant to offer a transition between theadhesion to worldly beliefs and the intuition of universalemptiness” (2014, 470). The PrāsaṇgikaMādhyamikas not only deny the inherent existence of persons atthe ultimate level but also deny the inherent existence of persons ateven the conventional level. In doing so the Prāsaṇgikastake themselves to be faithful to the original teachings ofNāgārjuna, the founder of Madhyamaka. Nāgārjunadenies both that the person is the same as the psychophysicalconstituents to which the Buddhist Reductionists try to reduce it andthat it is other than those constituents in the way that the HinduNon-Reductionists claim. Nāgārjuna warns: “Beyond goodand evil, profound and liberating, this [doctrine of emptiness] hasnot been tasted by those who fear what is entirely groundless.”In contemporary terms, Madhymaka position can be likened to minimalism(Perrett, 2002). As Johnston argues in “the particular case ofpersonal identity, minimalism implies that any metaphysical view ofpersons which we might have is either epiphenomenal or a redundantbasis for our practice of making judgements about personal identityand organizing our practical concerns around this relation”(Johnston 1997, 150).

Nāgārjuna, and his follower Candrakīrti denied thatpersons are reducible to the aggregates and that they are distinctfrom the aggregates. They are irrealists about selves and persons.According to Candrakīrti the proper explanation of this is thatour everyday conception of self or person consists in ‘anappropriative act of laying claim to the elements of thepsycho-physical aggregate, an act that does not require there to beany object that is the person, nor any of the usual apparatus ofreference to things. The term ‘I’ does not refer to selvesor persons. In support of Candrakīrti’s view, Ganeri notesthat that Reductionist accounts fail to explain the significance ofthe distinction between the anticipation of one’s own futurepain and the concern one feels for the future pain of another (2007,195). He further claims that irrealists are able to avoid this problemby substituting for a positive account of the metaphysics of personsan account of how one’s sense of self arises from thepsycho-physical stream. According to this irrealist account, in spiteof appearances the function of person-talk is not to talk aboutpersons, or selves, but to appropriate experiences, emotions, andbodies.

The Ābhidharmikas, on the other hand, did not think of‘person’ as a useful pragmatic device or skillful meansbut emphasized that it is nothing but a conventional designation, amere name for a group of psychophysical aggregates, ultimately thecollections of dharmas The Abhidharma position has been classified bySiderits as Reductionism. Parfit claims that on the Reductionist view,“persons do exist. But they exist only in the way in whichnations exist. Persons are not, as we mistakenly believe fundamental.This view in this sense is more impersonal” (1984, 445).So-called Abhidharma Reductionism about persons was first championedby Mark Siderits in his classic paper “BuddhistReductionism” (1997, see also Perett 2002). More recently, thisinterpretation has been challenged in literature. Chadha (2021) arguesthat Vasubandhu’s Abhidharma is best construed as anEliminativism about persons. Vasubandhu’s argument against thePudgalavādins is based on the causal efficacy principle:everything that is real or substantial (dravya) is causallyefficient, having specifiable cause-and-effect relations with otherentities (see, for example, Gold 2015). Everything else is aconceptual construct, a mere convention (prajñapti),and thus should be rejected as only conventionally real.Vasubandhu’s uses the same principle to argue against the selfas posited by the Hindu philosophers (in particular theNyāya-Vaiśeṣika). Selves too, according to Vasubandhu,are only conventionally real.

What does Vasubandhu mean by saying that persons are onlyconventionally real? The term person is just a collective term for agroup of aggregates, ultimately collection of physical and mentaldharmas, just as milk is a term for a collection of tropes—suchas whitishness, liquidness, and potability. For Vasubandhu, onlydharmas or tropes exist ultimately or substantially. All other thingsexist in name only. Siderits explains the idea thus: ‘The pointabout “chariot” and “person” is that they areopaque enumerative expressions: when taken at face value they seem todenote individual entities, only further analysis shows them to beways of referring to a plurality of entities in a certainarrangement’ (2019: 313). So, persons, chariots and pots areconceptual fictions. Siderits adds, ‘The idea here is that theenumerative term “pot” represents a concept that hasproven useful for creatures with certain interests (in this case, forstorage) and certain cognitive limitations (such as the inability totrack all the many parts)… . Now conventional truths dotypically guide one to successful practice. This would be difficult toexplain if the truth-makers for conventionally true statementsconsisted of nothing but mere conceptual fictions. Thus conventionallyreal entities are said to supervene on ultimately real entities’(2019: 314–15). The idea of conventional realities like personsbeing useful fictions was introduced in Siderits (1997) as a faithfulinterpretation of Abhidharma. Recently, this too has been contested(Chadha 2021). Some conventional entities may well be useful fictions,for example, chariots, armies and nations. But persons cannot be onthat list. Persons inherit the work of the selves, so they are just asdangerous as selves. The Buddhist Eliminativist about selves cannotand should not condone persons.

2.3 Cārvāka

The last group of philosophers to consider in this section are theCārvākas. Cārvāka philosophers are materialists inthe classical Indian tradition and the most ardent critics of theVedas and scriptural authority among the heterodox schools. They denythe existence of the self, as the essence of the person and with itthe possibility of transmigration and rebirth. They are the onlyphilosophers in the classical Indian tradition that rejected thedoctrine of karmaand liberation or freedom. Death of thebody is the end of the person. The Cārvāka philosophers arebest thought of as defending animalism or the biological view ofpersonal identity. The Cārvāka philosophers argued that aperson, just like everything else in the world, is just a body, anaggregate of material elements qualifies by consciousness.Consciousness is an emergent property of the four material elements(earth, water, fire and air) in a specific proportion. TheCārvākas offer the analogy of an Indian after dinner treatcalled “paan” which releases red colour whenchewed even though none of its ingredients (betel leaf, choppedbetelnut (areca) and slaked lime (calcium hydroxide)), are red. Justso consciousness emerges when several material elements come togetherin a specific proportion that constitutes a person. Their view issurprisingly close to modern day physicalism. They did not believe inthe existence of the soul as the essence of the individual person orany other immaterial substance. The main argument against theexistence of the self rests on an epistemological principle:perception is the only source of knowledge. The argument can be statedthus:

P1: The self cannot be perceived.
P2: Whatever exists must be perceived.
C: The self does not exist.

Another argument offered by the Cārvākas for the claim thata person is identical with the body is a linguistic argument. Considersentences: “I am youthful”, “I am stout”. Inthese sentences the “I” refers to the body. Linguisticarguments were quite common in classical Indian philosophy because ofthe influence of the grammarians and also because the Indianphilosophers paid attention to common speech behaviour whichpresumably expresses what common sense teaches us. With respect to theconception of a self, philosophers in the Indian tradition paidattention to the usages employing the first-person pronoun as datathat any philosophical theory of the self must account for. TheNyāya philosophers also relied on arguments from language torespond to the Cārvāka philosophers. The Nyāyaphilosophers claim that the referent of ‘I’, whatever itis, appears in our consciousness as something internal. Therefore,‘I’ cannot refer to the body. Furthermore, the word‘I’ in each person’s mouth refers to (picks out,denotes) that person uniquely. The referent of ‘I’ cannotbe a generic body (material object) because it does not refer to thebody of another person. Nor can ‘I’ refer to one’sown body because properties of the body (physical characteristics) arenot sufficient to identify a unique person. Any physical property, forexample, the shape of the body is an essential property of the body,but other bodies can have exactly the same shape. If the term‘I’ referred properties of the body, two persons who haveexactly the same shape would be equally good candidates for thereferent of a given use of ‘I’ by either of them.Therefore, ‘I’ cannot refer to the body. And lastly, theNaiyāyikas challenged the Cārvākas to account forphrases like ‘my body’. Such phrases suggest that there isa distinction between me and the body, it implies that there issomething, the referent of ‘I’, a self, which has orpossesses a body. The Cārvākas dismiss such phrases as‘my body’ are mere metaphors and do not indicate thatthere is a self that is separate from the body. It is worth notingthat the Naiyāyikas and other Hindu philosophers have a similarproblem accounting for statements such as “I am fat”,“I am tall” etc.

To conclude, it is worth noting that apart from Abhidharma Buddhismand Advaita Vedānta, most Buddhist philosophers and otherclassical Indian philosophers accept that persons are real.

3. What do we need persons for?

Contemporary philosophical investigation into questions about thenature of persons and personal identity may seem very far from theseancient discussions in classical Indian philosophy. TheNon-Reductionist view so popular among the mainstream Hindus is not infavour these days. The most important reason to deny that we areseparately existing non-physical soul substances is that such thingsare impossible to trace through space-time. If we are essentiallynon-physical souls, there still would be no way to know that you noware one and the same person that committed the crime at an earliertime. If judgments about personal identity were grounded on judgementsabout the identities of immaterial souls, then personal identity wouldbe completely mysterious (Perry 1978, 402–3). It is true that wesometimes lack epistemic access to metaphysical truths. But if thiswere the right metaphysical theory it should undermine all confidencein our judgments of identity in a way that seems bizarre (Shoemakerand Tobia, forthcoming). That might seem bizarre from a contemporarypoint of view, but the Hindu Non-Reductionists are not going to beworried by these objections. Most classical Indian philosophers,except the Cārvākas, agree that ignorance about our ownnatures— about who and what we are—is the cause of ourbondage in the cycle of birth and rebirth and the suffering that comeswith it. The Upaniṣadic sages were no strangers to metaphors andmysteries. Their strategy was to heighten the mystery associated withknowledge, “not so much in a self‐serving secretiveness ora disinclination to share the knowledge that gives them power but asresponse to a deep respect for the power of that knowledge, and arecognition of the need not to be frivolous either with the knowledgeitself or with its potential recipients” (Ganeri 2007,13). TheKatha Upaniṣad puts it thus: “Hidden in all the beings,this self is not visibly displayed. Yet, people of keen vision see himwith eminent and sharp minds.” (KU 3.12).

Most contemporary philosophers assume that Reductionism is true. TheReductionists draw inspiration from Locke, perhaps the firstphilosopher in the history of Western philosophy to put forward aversion of the psychological continuity view that was developed byParfit. But there is another more important point that Locke broughtcentre-stage to the discussion about personal identity: theorizingabout persons is motivated by a distinctive normative concern aboutmoral responsibility. Locke writes:

In this personal Identity is founded all the Right and Justice ofReward and Punishment; Happiness and Misery, being that, for whichevery one is concerned for himself…the Apostle tells us, thatat the Great Day, when every one shall receive according to hisdoings, the secrets of all Hearts shall be laid open. The Sentenceshall be justified by the consciousness all Persons shall have, thatthey themselves in what Bodies soever they appear, or what Substancessoever that consciousness adheres to, are the same, that committedthose Actions, and deserve that Punishment for them. (Locke 1690[1975, 341–347])

In the classical Indian context, as we have seen above, it is the sameconcerns that led to the search for an eternal soul as the essence ofpersons by the Hindu philosophers and also motivated the Buddhistpersonalists to introduce persons (pudgala) as‘burden-bearers’. Classical Indian philosophers did notinvoke God but relied on karma to dole out just rewards andpunishments in the course of the cycle of birth and rebirth. Normativeconcerns about responsibility are thus an important motivating concernacross the East-West divide.

Contemporary philosophers, however, have broadened the scope ofnormative concerns beyond that of moral responsibility. Shoemaker(2007, 318–9) helpfully presents a list of practical concernsthat are presumably grounded in personal identity which includes moralresponsibility but adds many more: anticipation of future experiences;special self-concern for one’s own future self; surviving deathand anticipation of the afterlife; compensation, maximizing utilityintrapersonally but not interpersonally; self-conscious emotions(pride, regret, etc.); special non-derivative concern andother-regarding emotions I have for a certain limited network ofpeople, all of whom bear certain sorts of special relations to me;first-person reidentification and self-regarding emotions I have formy past and future self. This long list is likely to put pressure onany single criterion of personal identity.

The psychological continuity criterion originally proposed by Lockeand developed most famously by Parfit (1984) does well to account formoral responsibility and anticipation of the afterlife and survivalbut falls short on compensation and maximizing utilityintrapersonally. The animalist or biological continuity criterion doesnot fare well in accounting for concern about moral responsibility,but it does much better on compensation and special non-derivativeconcern and other-regarding emotions I have for a certain limitednetwork of people, all of whom bear certain sorts of special relationsto me (DeGrazia 2005). These are not the only competitors though. Somemight suggest, as do Tierney et al., that we can be pluralists aboutpersonal identity. Rather ‘empirical evidence and philosophicalthought experiments indicate that judgments about personal identityare regimented by two different criteria, one in terms ofpsychological traits and one that largely conforms to biologicalcriteria’ (Tierney et al. 2014, 198). Shoemaker (2007) goesfurther to settle for a wide-ranging pluralism in the face of thedisunity of our practical concerns. But Shoemaker stops short ofgiving up on persons and person-related concerns in the hope thatthere is a theory (or theories!) of the relation between personalidentity and our person-related practices and concerns. He says,‘several concessions may be required, including admission,perhaps, of (a) the irrelevance of certain powerful and popularcriteria of personal identity for (at least some of) our practices andconcerns, (b) the ultimate disunity of these practices and concerns(such that multiple types of theories of the relation between them andthe metaphysics may be called for), and/or (c) the possibility ofdifferent types of rational grounding—justification andrendering-possible—where justification may actually be off thetable altogether for some practices and concerns’ (2007,354).

Some others though develop a different approach to the problem ofpersonal identity which upends the debate between the supporters ofanimalism and psychological continuity theorists. One example of suchan approach is the “characterisation” criterion that hasbeen recently developed by Marya Schectman (2014). In her words,personal identity “just consists in the fact that the personbefore us now is viewed as, treated as, and acts as the same locus ofnormative concerns as the [previous] person” (Schectman 2014,152). Although Schectman has only four normative concerns in mind fromthe above list (moral responsibility, special self-interested concern,compensation, and survival), her move ensures that these normativeconcerns trump any metaphysical considerations. According toSchectman, a person is, whatever it is, that is the locus of ournormative concerns. Another recent view that deserves a mention inthis context is the Minimalist view, defended in a series of papers byMark Johnston (1987, 1992, 1997). According to Minimalism, themetaphysical “deep” facts of personal identity areirrelevant to the justification of our person-related practices andpractical concerns. Our practices are grounded not on a metaphysics ofpersons but on our circumstances and needs. Johnston writes: “inthe particular case of personal identity, minimalism implies that anymetaphysical view of persons which we might have is eitherepiphenomenal or a redundant basis for our practice of makingjudgements about personal identity and organizing our practicalconcerns around this relation” (Johnston 1997, 150). Thecharacterisation criterion and Minimalism extol the primacy of ournormative practices and concerns suggesting the latter

may actually authoritatively constrain, shape, or even be immune orirrelevant to one’s theory of personal identity. This is ageneral methodological dispute about the proper direction ofargumentation in the arena of personal identity and ethics. (fromsection 7 of the entrypersonal identity and ethics, Winter 2021 Edition)

This is, however, not the only dispute. The biggest problem is that wehave no settled conception of persons or personal identity. I’vediscussed four different views here, and there are many more. Thereseems to be no clear winner.

Revisionism about personal identity has been popular sinceParfit’sReasons and Persons. But contemporaryphilosophers stop short of questioning our normative concerns andpractices. Parfit flirted with revisionism about normative concernsabout practices in proposing the Extreme Claim, according to which,one’s moral and prudential concerns cannot be grounded without adeep separate fact about personal identity. But Parfit thinks thatanother view is also defensible. This view results from thecombination of reductionism with the Moderate Claim, which says thatour moral and prudential concerns may well be grounded in what doesmatter in personal identity. This, according to Parfit, ispsychological connectedness and/or continuity (1984, 311). Parfitbelieved that the Extreme Claim is defensible, he retracted it onlybecause he did not have an argument to defend it. But if we run withthe Extreme Claim it entails that our person-related practices andconcerns are ungrounded, period. This opens the door forreconsideration of our person-related practices. However, this optionis ignored in contemporary philosophy. Philosophers, as we saw, arewilling to consider pluralism about criteria of personal identity,pluralism about theories of the relation between personal identity andperson-related practices. Shoemaker, as we saw above, is also willingto consider the disunity of practices. But no one is willing toconsider revising the practices themselves. But why are the practicesconsidered sacrosanct? P.F. Strawson balks at such a question. Hewrites, ‘I shall reply, first, that such a question could seemreal only to one who had utterly failed to grasp the purport of… the fact of our natural human commitment to ordinaryinter-personal attitudes. This commitment is part of the generalframework of human life,not something that can come up forreview’ (1974: 14, emphasis added). Strawson is not onlyclaiming that it is hard for us to give up our interpersonal attitudesand concerns, but he also thinks to give up these would be to give upon our humanity.

A thoroughgoing revisionist willing to explore the consequences ofendorsing the Extreme Claim would reconsider some of ourperson-related concerns and practices and attitudes. That is exactlythe strategy adopted by the Abhidharma Buddhist Reductionist. BuddhistReductionists are willing to revisit our ordinary normative practicesand concerns, especially those to do with self-concern and the specialconcern that we have for those we love dearly. The Buddhists dorecognize that it is built-in precondition of our form of life that wehave self-concern and special concern for our loved ones. That is whythe Buddhists do not recommend giving up on this self-concern orspecial concern for our loved ones. Rather they recommend expandingsimilar concern to all others, including one’s enemies. And theydo not think that such an expansion comes easy to us given our humannature: it has to be inculcated by extensive training in‘spiritual exercises’ which include meditation, knowledgeof the Buddhist texts and insight. This expansion is not to be thoughtof as the giving up of one’s humanity, as feared by Strawson,rather the idea is to enlarge our humanity.

It is important for us to realise that any set of norms or valuesystem is not immune to revision, just because it is, as Strawsonputs, ‘part of the general framework of human life’. Theproblem is that there is no such ‘general’ framework. Thenormative concerns and practices of human societies are varied, andnot such as to be weighed systematically against each other. Thepractices we regard as important because they are ‘part of thegeneral framework of human life’ cannot be justified as havingbeen chosen by ideally rational beings. Persons as moral beings are aproduct of our histories and culturally constrained preferences.Imagine being in a world in which the Buddhist thesis of the no selfwas widely held. Or consider a culture where the really significantentities are family lines, and it is axiomatic that children arejustly to be held responsible for their parents’ wrongdoing.What evidence is there against such a code, or in favour of‘our’ belief that persons are separate individuals,responsible for their own crimes. It is therefore not clear that weshould assume that all normative systems must include some specialconcern for one’s future self and those that we love dearly. Theanticipation of one’s own future self or one’s survivalare also up for question. These important assumptions that often goesunnoticed because they basically treated as “part of the generalframework”. Buddhist philosophy invites us to ask the question:Is there such a framework?

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• Bartley, Christopher, 2014,Review ofFree Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy, Matthew R. Dasti and Edwin F. Bryant (eds.), inNotre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

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