Deconstruction of Hume-Buddhism Relation: A Final Note on Anattā Debate

Authors : Engin YURT

Pages : 47-72

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Publication Date : 2020-07-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :When Hume’s understanding of empiricism is handled, his ideas towards human self are usually narrated with the phrase of “bundle theory of the self”. Hume, different from rationalists -and even from Locke as an empiricist who stays close to rationalist tradition about the matter of individual’s self- defends the idea that humans have no self as an independent structure and the thing which is accepted as the self is actually a bundle of perceptions. Even though it is not clear if this interpretation of self as a thing which has no coercive quality -which means that what is called self is just a sum or combination of experiences- is a destructive critic towards rationalists’ idea of self or simply a pointing-towards another base in an epistemological and ontological sense. This understanding of his is said to has shown a similarity with the term of Anattā from Buddhist teaching which mentions that there is no permanence or unchanging substance in existence and beings”. In here, it has been researched that if it is possible to deconstruct by investigating in which points Hume’s views towards the idea of self has a corresponding with and differentiation from the contexts that the term Anattā is thought within Buddhist tradition of thought. With this reading, how much Hume’s opinions are related to Anattā is opened up to debate with problematizing the concepts like sameness, difference and similarity.
Keywords : Buddhism, Comparative Philosophy, ego, empricism, self, soul