Welcomes you to an IN-PERSON meeting:
Nicholaos Jones (The University of Alabama in Huntsville):
« Causal Dispositionalism and Emptiness in Huayan Buddhism »
With responses from Jennifer R. McDonald (Columbia University)
ABSTRACT: I relate an approach to causation from Huayan Buddhism to an emerging research program from analytic metaphysics. The research program is Causal Dispositionalism. The core commitment of Causal Dispositionalism is that causation involves dynamic causal powers. Causal Dispositionalism competes with Neo-Humeanism, a research program that conceptualizes causation as a relation among powerless, causally inert properties. Some scholars claim that approaches to causation from the Madhyamaka Buddhist tradition cohere with Neo-Humeanism. Some also claim that Huayan Buddhism is a Chinese appropriation of Nãgarjuna's Madhyamaka. Taken together, these claims entail that the Huayan approach to causation also coheres with Neo- Humeanism. I suggest, to the contrary, that Huayan integrates Madhyamaka insights with a powers-based metaphysics and thereby better coheres with Causal Dispositionalism. I suggest, as well, that the Huayan approach affords new strategies for developing this emerging research program.
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