Do Buddhists Believe the Moon Is Still There When Nobody Is Looking? | SOAS University of London

This seminar titled "Do Buddhists Believe the Moon Is Still There When Nobody Is Looking? Reflections on Realism, Anti-realism, and the Looping Structure of Buddhist Thought" was given by Prof. Robert H. Sharf (Berkeley) on 15 May 2018 at the Centre of Buddhist Studies, SOAS University of London. Find out more at https://goo.gl/RxGzRP
The first seminar will argue that the loop is indeed unavoidable, and that it is not merely analytic but existential. That is to say, the paradox is not merely the result of pushing up against the limits of language and thought, but, more fundamentally, it emerges from the fact that we are, inescapably, both subjects and objects to ourselves. In exploring the nature and significance of this conundrum, we will draw upon various Western philosophers, including Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Nagel, each of whom finds himself entangled in the loop.

Bio
Robert Sharf is D. H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Chair of Berkeley's Center for Buddhist Studies. He works primarily on medieval Chinese Buddhism (especially Chan), but has also published in the areas of Japanese Buddhism (Shingon and Zen), Buddhist art and archaeology, Buddhist modernism, Buddhist philosophy, and methodological issues in the study of religion. He is author of Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (2002), and co-editor (with his wife Elizabeth) of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context (2001).
This lecture is part of the Jordan Lectures series in Comparative Religions. All events in this series are free and all are welcome.