PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: A contemporary introduction

ARGUMENTS (2) 295

houses, gates, etc.; “tree” for trunk, branches, foliage, etc.; in a cer-

tain relation, but when we come to examine the parts one by one,

we discover that in the absolute sense there is no tree; in exactly the

same way words “living entity” and “ego” are but a mode of ex-

pression for the presence of the five attachment groups, but when

we come to examine the elements of being one by one, we discover

that in the absolute sense there is no living entity there to form a

basis for such figments as “I am” or “I”; in other words, that in the

absolute sense there is only name and form. The insight of him who

perceives this is called knowledge of the truth.^34

In brief, the line of reasoning is this: I am what I appear to be in
enlightenment experience; what I appear to be in enlightenment
experience is this: individual states; hence I am individual states.
These Buddhist passages express the doctrine that Hume claims to
derive from introspective experience and that Theravada (and other)
Buddhist traditions believe to be confirmed in meditative and
enlightenment experience. The gist of the passages is put more succinctly
via the terse claim “Consciousness is soulless.”^35 Hume takes each mental
state – each perception, or impression and idea, as he says – to exist
independent of every other. The Buddhist traditions hold that each mental
state depends for its existence on other states. But this difference aside,
they agree – persons at a time are bundles of momentary states, over time
are a series of such bundles, and introspective and/or enlightenment
experience teaches us this sort of view.

The contrasting arguments

The enduring-mental-substance view and the bundle-of-momentary-states
view do agree on an important and controversial claim, namely that what
we appear to be in introspective, meditative, or enlightenment experience is
what we are. It is not obvious that this is so. John Locke, in Book Two of his
Essay Concerning Human Understanding, offers an interesting third view.
He agrees with Hume and Buddhism that what we are aware of is
momentary states. He holds that momentary states can exist only as states
of enduring substances. So he accepts the description of introspective data
given by the momentary-mental-state theorist and the conclusion held by
the enduring-mental-substance theorist, and there is at least nothing
obviously incoherent about this view. It is incoherent if one thinks that
what we are is exactly what introspection (etc.) reveals; but Locke does not
hold that. Further, of course the view that we are simply what appears to, or