ASEF Podcast
The American Slovenian Education Foundation (ASEF) is the leading foundation fostering talented individuals and higher education of deserving Slovenians worldwide through its exchange Fellowship programs and promotion of Slovenian culture and language. In the ASEF Podcast, we interview professors about their research, best practices in their field, and their vision for the development of the field in Slovenia as well as collaboration amongst Slovenians worldwide.
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The podcast's introductory theme is the "C Minor Jazz Blues Backing Track" by Quist.
ASEF Podcast
Episode #46 (EN): Is the Self an Illusion? Jay Garfield on Buddhist Philosophy
What does it mean to have a self, and what if it’s an illusion?
In this episode of the ASF Podcast, host Tanja Janko speaks with philosopher Jay Garfield, a professor specializing in Tibetan Buddhism, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, and hermeneutics.
Garfield explains the Buddhist critique of dualism, parallels with Western thinkers like David Hume, and how neuroscience increasingly supports the idea of a non-central, non-enduring self. Through thought experiments, metaphors like a river or a lamp flame, and insights into consciousness, Garfield challenges our assumptions about what it means to exist.
Along the way, he addresses some of philosophy and science’s biggest questions:
- Why the self is an illusion, but not a hallucination
- How persons persist through time without a fixed essence
- How consciousness might be a conceptual mistake rather than a “thing”
- Why philosophy must engage beyond the Western canon
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