Methodological solipsism

Abstract: Introduction 1. Zen and the Unsayable 2. Wittgenstein and Zen Buddhism: One Practice, No Dogma 3. The No-Thesis View: Making Sense of Verse 29 of Nagarjuna's Vigrahavyavartani 4. Why the Buddha Never Uttered a Word 5. Is Reductionism Expressible? 6. Mountains Are Just Mountains 7. How Do Madhyamikas Think? Notes on Jay Garfield, Graham Priest, and Paraconsistency 8. A Dharmakirtian Critique of Nagarjunians 9. Would It Matter All That Much If There Were No Selves? 10. Svasa?vitti as Methodological Solipsism: "Narrow Content" and the Problem of Intentionality in Buddhist Philosophy of Mind Bibliography

Abstract: In a number of papers, Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre have claimed that Husserl is an internalist. In this paper, it is argued that their interpretation is based on two questionable assumptions: (1) that Husserl's noema should be interpreted along Fregean lines, and (2) that Husserl's transcendental methodology commits him to some form of methodological solipsism. Both of these assumptions are criticized on the basis of the most recent Husserl‐research. It is shown that Husserl's concept of noema can be interpreted in a manner that makes his theory far more congenial to a certain type of externalism, but ultimately it is argued that his phenomenological analysis of intentionality entails such a fundamental rethinking of the very relation between subjectivity and world that it hardly makes sense to designate it as being either internalist or externalist.

Abstract: Introduction 1. Experience and intentionality 2. Husserl's methodologically solipsistic perspective 3. Husserl's theory of time-consciousness 4. Between Husserl, Kierkegaard and Aristotle 5. Heidegger's critique of Husserl's methodological solipsism 6. Heidegger on the nature of significance 7. Temporality as the source of intelligibility 8. Heidegger's theory of time 9. Spatiality and human identity 10. 'Dasein' and the forensic notion of a person Select bibliography Index.

Abstract: The concept ‘posthuman’ appears to imply an understanding of human being different from Descartes’ invention that helped launch the Western Enlightenment: his spectacular cogito, the knowing, epistemological subject who, through the right use of reason, can produce foundational truth. Rorty (1979) called Descartes’ approach to philosophical thinking ‘methodological solipsism’ (p. 192) because it invents and then installs a particular description of human being, the ‘I think’ and ‘I know’, ahead of the world, separate from the world. Then, in a feat of magic, this cogito invents the world — a stunning onto-epistemological project. It could be argued that such arrogance inevitably calls into existence its own resistance; and, indeed, a counter tradition in Western thought has always resisted Descartes’ knowing subject. In the 20th century, his description of human being was refused by scholars we have labelled ‘postmodern’ because of its devastating epistemological projects in the name of progress and science. Over time, to be became equated with to know, and empirical science was privileged as the superior path to true knowledge. Lyotard (1979/1984) critiqued the supremacy of scientific knowledge with his statement ‘Knowledge is not the same as science’ (p. 18), a critique supported by those whose knowledge has been deemed unscientific and then dismissed.