Reducing Concern with Self I05

to the basic Buddhist teaching of the three lakshanas, or marks of all being.
~ that all being is impermanent, ill, and not-self. The Sar-
The l a k ~ h a n aassert
vastivadin view does violence to the first two of thcse characteristics, Fur-
thernlore, the ancient scl~oolsdeenled as too rigorous the Sawastivadin view
W

of not-self with regard to human self-construction. It left no room for any

kind of phenomenology, which is at the hcart of thc Buddhist tradition.
The Sautrantikas comprised one of the principal dissenting schools. They
emphasized subjectivity and the unity of the person and viewed the clements
of the world as themseltres changlng and evolving ovcr eime. By contrast, ehc
essentialism of the Sarvastivadins could not allow for any genuine change
since alteration cannot preserve identity or essence. It is not clear, however,
that Parfitian reductionism sits any better with &c Sautrantika view. The
problem here is that tile Sarztrantikas were effectively nil~ilists.They denied
;he reality of both the elements and the composites, whereas Paifit, who
gives e x r y indication of being a materialis, appears to be committed to &c
existence of at least the brain and the body as well as the psychological com-
ponents of the Relation R.
The most esaeme and influential opposition to tbe Sarvastivlldins came
from the Mahasangl~ikaschool. It provides a diametrical opposition to the
Sarvastivadins, wtth the Sautrantikas being roughly in the middle.2 O n the
Mahasanghika view, a distinction must bc made between the conventional
reality that arises in the world of human concepts, language, and so on, and
the ultimate reality that is free of ail categories, essence, and individuals.
Thus the phenomenal self may have a conventional reality, but the ultimate
reality is that of the universal Buddha-nature, wllicfi in turn may be referred
to as ;he ultimate truth or dharma-substance. The Mahayana schools of Bud-
dhism predominant among Buddhists today arc in &c main descended from
the Mahasanghikas. Now, as the Mahasanghikas' dichotomy between the ul-
tirnare and conventional was considerably closer to the split between the
noumenal and the phenomenal in Kant than to the empiricist materialism of
Hume, Parfit can hardly find their interpretation very congenial.
In fact, it is possible to demonstrate for the extant schools what I have at-
tempted to demonstrate for ebe ancient ones of more &an two thousand
years ago: that there is no obvious niche in the logical space of Buddhism for
a reductionism of the form that Hume or Parfit would uphold. So Bastow's
hope of using Buddhist self-psychology to complete what Parfit leaves un-
done may turn out to be infeasible.
But then what is to be done! After all, Parfit is motivated by desires that
many of us share. H e is hoping that chc adoption or realization ut: a view that
reduces or denies the individual ego could lead to a more attruistic and less
narcissistic attitude, As I do nor want to end this chaycer wfthwt a more
positive offering, 1shall now adumbrate the chief contours of what I think is
the most promising strand of Buddhist person theory from the perspective
of the modern philosopher of mind-in particular, that of the cognitive sci-