Thursday, December 22, 2011

Changesurfer Radio - The Bodhisattva’s Brain with Owen Flanagan


Owen Flangan has a new book, The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. Dr. J at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies interviewed Flanagan for Changesurfer Radio's podcast series.

Flanagan is a well-known philosopher, a couple of books include The Problem Of The Soul: Two Visions Of Mind And How To Reconcile Them and The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World (Bradford Books).

There are some similarities between Flanagan and Thomas Metzinger, but they are coming from much different disciplines. Both incorporate Buddhist concepts of no-self into human consciousness - Flanagan works from the inside out (philosophy) and Metzinger works from the outside in (neuroscience). Their approaches are different in a lot of ways, and their conclusions are framed differently, but they both seem to adopt an interpretation of emptiness in looking at consciousness (see also B Alan Wallace).

The Bodhisattva’s Brain pt1




Owen Flanagan
Changesurfer Radio

Posted: Dec 20, 2011

Dr. J. chats with Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy at Duke University and author of The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. They discuss the relationship of the Aristotleian and Buddhist ideas of happiness and virtue, and the relevance of neuropsychological research on what it means to have a flourishing life. (Part 1 of 2)


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The Bodhisattva’s Brain pt2




Owen Flanagan
Changesurfer Radio

Posted: Dec 20, 2011



Dr. J. chats with Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy at Duke University and author of The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized. They discuss the relationship of the Aristotleian and Buddhist ideas of happiness and virtue, and the relevance of neuropsychological research on what it means to have a flourishing life. (Part 2 of 2)


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