Abstract

This chapter focuses on a potential application of Buddhist Madhyamaka thought to a recurrent problem in philosophy, East and West: the mind-body problem. The usual Buddhist defenses of mind are based on the work of a philosopher of the sixth and seventh centuries, Dharmakīrti. This philosophy advocates a very strong mind–body dualism based on a three-step argument. The chapter argues that this defense of mind will fare badly against modern eliminative materialism, which privileges a physical level of description as having a convention-independent reality that denies a personal level of description. A Madhyamaka approach would hold more promise, demonstrating as it does that these levels of analysis are interdependent and equally necessary. Buddhist thought is shown to provide resources to resist an influential Western position.