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Eastern and western empiricism and the ‘no-self’ theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

A. H. Lesser
A. H. Lesser
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The University of Manchester
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Extract

Several recent writers, of whom the most important and accessible, for English readers, are probably K. N. Jayatilleke and W. Rahula, have drawn attention to the fact that Buddhism, unlike many other religious philosophies, regards personal experience as the only valid source of knowledge. The Buddha himself is said to have distinguished between those who base their religion, or world-view, on tradition, those who base it on reasoning and speculation, and those who base it on personal experience, as he does himself:

I am one of those who profess the basis of a religion after finding a final and ultimate insight in this life by gaining a higher knowledge personally of a doctrine among doctrines not traditionally heard of before. (Quoted by Jayatilleke, p. 171)

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 55 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 55 note 1 Jayatilleke, K. N., Early Buddhist theory of knowledge (Allen and Unwin, London, 1963).Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 Rahula, W., What the Buddha taught (Gordon Fraser, Bedford, 2nd ed. 1967).Google Scholar

page 57 note 1 Maslow, A., The farther limits of human nature (Pelican, Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 113.Google Scholar

page 59 note 1 All quotations from A treatise of human nature, 1, 4, Vi.

page 59 note 2 Trans. Horner, I. B., Sacred books of the Buddhists, vol. XXII (Luzac and Co., London, 1964), PP. 34–8.Google Scholar

page 60 note 1 Strawson, P. F., Individuals (Methuen, London, 1959), ch. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 60 note 2 James, W., Principles of Psychology, ch. 10.Google Scholar

page 60 note 3 Ayer, A. J., The Origins of Pragmatism (Macmillan, 1974), pp. 256–88.Google Scholar

page 61 note 1 See especially Jacobson, N. P., Buddhism: the Religion of Analysis (Allen and Unwin, London, 1966), ch. 8.Google Scholar