Panel II: Experience


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Does consciousness have a causal role in the lives of human beings? Or is consciousness merely an epiphenomenal event? What is the relationship between subjective experience, thought, and action? Ancient Buddhist thinkers saw these as important questions and came up with a reciprocal system of relations for explaining the interface between mind and reality.

In this session, Buddhologist William Waldron explains the ways in which the Buddhist theory of "circular causality " (wherein the effects of former thoughts and actions provide the causal basis for future ones) might illuminate our present understanding of the function of human consciousness. Panelists include: philosopher Evan Thompson, neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, and philosopher Robert Van Gulick. The moderator is philosopher Mark Siderits.

Target Essay: William Waldron
Professor of Religion, Middlebury College


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William Waldron teaches courses on the South Asian religious traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, Tibetan religion and history, comparative psychologies and philosophies of mind, and theory and method in the study of religion. His publications focus on the Yogacara school of Indian Buddhism and its dialogue with modern thought. Professor Waldron, Chair of the Religion Department, has been at Middlebury College since 1996. ←

Response: Joseph E. LeDoux
Neuroscientist, New York University


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Joseph E. LeDoux is a neuroscientist and Professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University. In his work, LeDoux seeks a biological rather than psychological understanding of our emotions. He explores the differences between emotional memories (implicit—unconscious—memories) processed in pathways that take information into the amygdala, and memories of emotion (explicit—conscious—memories) processed at the level of the hippocampus and neocortex.

Joseph LeDoux has written the most comprehensive examination to date of how systems in the brain work in response to emotions, particularly fear. Among his fascinating findings is the work of amygdala structure within the brain. He is the author of The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life, and Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are; coauthor (with Michael Gazzaniga) of The Integrated Mind; and editor with W. Hirst of Mind and Brain: Dialogues in Cognitive Neuroscience.
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Response: Evan Thompson
Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto


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Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He works in the areas of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and comparative philosophy. He received his A.B. in Asian Studies, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is the co-author (with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch) of the groundbreaking book, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, (MIT Press, 1991), one of the first books to explore systematically the relationship between Buddhist philosophy and cognitive science, and to argue for the "embodied" approach in cognitive science. Thompson is also the author of Colour Vision: a Study in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Perception (Routledge, 1995). His new book, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, will be published by Harvard University Press in 2007. He is also the co-editor, with Philip David Zelazo and Morris Moscovitch of the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. ←

Response: Robert Van Gulick
Professor of Philosophy, Syracuse University


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Robert Van Gulick is professor and chair of the Philosophy Department at Syracuse University. His work has focused on the philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology, including such topics as mental representation, intentional content, reduction, emergence, self-consciousness, and mental causation. He is the Director of the University's Cognitive Science Program and has been the President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2001-02). He was an NEH Fellow in 2001-02 and is currently completing a book on consciousness.
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Group Discussion
Panel II: Experience


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