Taken by Rebecca Coombs
Miri Albahari
M207: Philosophy
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley W.A. 6009
Australia
Telephone (+61 8) 6488 2109
Facsimile (+61 8) 6488 1182
E-mail Username: albahari (Add @arts.uwa.edu.au to the username to form the e-mail address. Spammers use programs that automatically extract full e-mail addresses from internet websites; to prevent this, we list only usernames.)
Principal Research Interests
Philosophy of Mind, especially the self, consciousness and colour theory.
Eastern Philosophies generally (e.g., Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, etc.), but especially in relation to their interface with issues in Analytic Philosophy.
My book, Analytical Buddism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self, focuses on advancing the Buddhist account of no-self from a Western philosophical perspective. Unlike most Buddhist philosophers, I do not interpret Buddhism as endorsing a (Humean-like) bundle-theory of the self. I hold that the reality of nibbana (the goal of Buddhist practice) would necessitate a type of unified ‘witness-consciousness’ that, while contributing to the illusion of self, is not itself illusory. From 2010, I am hoping to begin a follow-up book on how Buddhist meditation could, by utilising witness-consciousness, serve to undermine the sense of self, while avoiding the sorts of pathology predicted by neuroscientists such as Damasio.
Currently, I’m writing on whether the sense of self is doxastic.
Recent Teaching
Philosophy East and West (upper-level)
Critical Thinking (first-year)
God, Mind and Knowledge (first-year)
Metaphysics: Colour, Time and Causation (honours)
Consciousness (honours)
Social Ethics: Matters of Life and Death (upper-level)
Social ethics: People and their Institutions (upper-level)
Selected Publications
Books
Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.*
* Reviewed by Charles Goodman, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 87/1, March 2009.
Articles
‘Witness-Consciousness: Its Definition, Appearance and Reality’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16: 1, 2009, pp. 62-84.
‘Against No-Atman Theories of Anatta’ Asian Philosophy, 12: 1, 2002, pp. 5-20.
‘Can Heterophenomenology Ground a Complete Science of Consciousness?’ Noetica: a Cognitive Science Forum (online: PDF download) 2002.
‘Objective Colours and Evolutionary Value: A Reply to Dedrick’ Dialogue, XXXVIII, 1999, pp. 99-108.
Book Reviews
Mark Siderits, Buddhism: An Introduction, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86/4, December 2008, pp. 690-3. Bernard Faure, Double Exposure: Cutting Across Buddhist and Western Discourses, trans. Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2004. Philosophy In Review August 2004.
Recent Conference Activity and Presentations
[upcoming 2010, Jan 5-7: TBA, Jawaharal-Nehru University, conference in New Delhi (‘From Experience to Thought’; invited)] 2009, July ‘Can a sense of self diminish knowledge that there is no self?’, (Australasian Association of Philosophy, Melbourne) 2009, June 7-13: Senior Research Investigator at the annual Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI), Garrison, NY 2009 (April): ‘Why we must preserve the traditional conception of self’ (Self-no-self Conference, Copenhagen University; invited) 2008: ‘A Buddhist Perspective on Self: To Be or Not to Be?’ (The Brain and Mind Club, Melbourne; invited) 2008: ‘What Kind of Self Do We Think We Are?’ (Australasian Association of Philosophy, Melbourne) 2008: ‘A Critique of Dan Zahavi’s Subjectivity and Selfhood’ (American Philosophical Association, Pasadena, author-meets-critic session; invited) 2007: ‘Characterising No-self in Buddhism’ (Australasian Association of Philosophy, Auckland) 2007: ‘Clarifying the Nature of Witness-Consciousness’ (Conference on Buddhism & Taoism: Emptiness and Nothingness, Hong Kong University; invited) 2007: ‘The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self’ (Australasian Association of Philosophy, Australia, Armidale)
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