Speak, Memory: Dignāga, Consciousness, and Awareness.
When someone is in a conscious state, must they be aware of it? The Buddhist philosopher Dignāga offers a brilliant route to answering this question by leveraging the role awareness might play as a constraint on memory. I begin by clarifying his strategy and what conclusions it might be used to esta...
| Published in: | Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 104; no. 1; pp. 146 - 167 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Mar2026
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=193526350&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 193526350 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00048402 BHK jtl: Australasian Journal of Philosophy issn: 00048402 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2026 vid: 104 iid: 1 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 193526350 10.1080/00048402.2025.2506786 ppf: 146 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1.4MB tig: atl: Speak, Memory: Dignāga, Consciousness, and Awareness. aug: au: Silins, Nicholas affil: Cornell University su: Awareness Memory Buddhist philosophy Psychology Consciousness sug: subj: Awareness Memory Buddhist philosophy Psychology Consciousness keyword: consciousness higher-order theories of consciousness inner awareness memory ab: When someone is in a conscious state, must they be aware of it? The Buddhist philosopher Dignāga offers a brilliant route to answering this question by leveraging the role awareness might play as a constraint on memory. I begin by clarifying his strategy and what conclusions it might be used to establish, and then turn to explain why it fails. The first main problem is that, contrary to his contemporary defenders, there is no good way to use it to reach a conclusion about all conscious states. The second main problem is that the proposed awareness constraint on memory is highly problematic, in tension both with ancient objections as well as current psychology. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Australasian Journal of Philosophy is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Australasian Journal of Philosophy holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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