Topic

An increasing number of contemporary scholars have argued that in denying a substantial self, the Buddha nevertheless endorses, or his teaching is consistent with, an emergentist account of the self. This position – which I call Buddhist emergentism – is advanced as a corrective to the perceived explanatory deficiencies of Buddhist reductionism with respect to personal identity. This talk both motivates and critically examines the debate between Buddhist reductionists and emergentists by contextualising it within the historical dispute between Vasubandhu and Pudgalavāda Buddhists concerning the ontological status of the person (pudgala). I will defend an intermediate position in this dispute. I will argue that while (1) Vasubandhu provides reasons to reject the strong emergence of persons, and (2) Buddhist reductionism can evade several standard criticisms invoked to support an emergentist view, (3) Buddhist emergentists rightly emphasize the need for richer, non-linear causal relations to account for the functional properties of conventionally real persons. Drawing on Abhidharma analyses of dependent arising, I defend a middle position in which persons are conventionally real and exhibit weakly emergent functional capacities grounded in complex relational structures among aggregates, without positing emergent selves.

Speaker

Bronwyn Finnigan is an Associate Professor in the School of Philosophy at the Australian National University (ANU). She works on issues in philosophy of mind, moral psychology, and ethics in both mainstream and Indian Buddhist philosophical traditions. She also has research interests in epistemology, philosophy of action, and ancient Greek philosophy. She has published numerous articles and book chapters in leading philosophy and Buddhist studies journals and edited volumes and is one of the editors of the Moonshadows: Conventional Truth in Buddhist Philosophy (OUP, 2011).

Registration

Please register by 20 February 2026 at office.ikga(at)oeaw.ac.at if you wish to attend the lecture.

To participate online, register here: https://oeaw-ac-at.zoom.us/j/62068816362?pwd=iWjnJ50mhBHXZQmqY7iXlSJxhibZ32.1. You will then receive access information by e-mail.